Talking About AJ Styles WWE Debut And HHH Winning The Royal Rumble

First things first- AJ Styles. Doesn’t mean much to the casual viewer, and to be honest, I consider myself a bit more than casual but a bit less than die hard, and Styles doesn’t exactly move the needle to 11 for me. However, I know the hype behind him. He’s like when you hear about a can’t-miss prospect in the Seattle Mariners’ organization. Just one of those names you always hear about but never seen until he makes his big debut. And last night was Mr. Phenomenal AJ Styles’ big debut in WWE. He’s been the top guy, the world champ, everywhere else he’s been. Great look, great wrestler, great everything. Apparently you and I are really going to enjoy watching this guy work. Now, I have mixed emotions about how the used him in the match. He was in there for quite a long time, did some cool moves, etc etc. But after all the hype, all the energy around him coming down the ring, he quickly just felt like just another guy. Got lost in fray a bit. And was eliminated without ever looking like he had a chance at winning. I feel it’s very much like Sting coming back to job- Styles isn’t a Vince guy. Let’s just really, reallyyyyyy hope they give him a fair shot and don’t punish him for not being a Vince guy.

So then the other big news, THAAAA GAAAAAAME winning the Royal Rumble and becoming WWE Champion.

Now, a few things to break down about this:

1) Storyline-wise, HHH putting himself over to win the Rumble makes sense. When you’re the boss, when you want a belt to stay in the Authority, when you want to do what’s best for business, you make yourself champion if you’re HHH. That’s about the only thing I like about him being WWE champion in 2016.

2) Because otherwise, it goes back to my biggest problem with the WWE today- they only push one face at a time, and aren’t developing young stars. They have made the decision to have Reigns be their top face. Fine. That’s fair. But with so many people injured now and nobody else having credibility, it shouldn’t come down to having to put the strap on Trips. They should have someone they are confident enough in to take the strap and run with it to the moon. I think it’s lazy that when they are out of ideas it goes back to “let’s put it on The Rock, let’s put it on Lesnar, let’s put it on Cena”…and now “let’s put it on HHH”. Rollins was champ, I know, but they booked him like absolutely garbage. He was what, 0-15 or something in matches as champ? Something ridiculous.

3) It can’t be a good sign when the last person everyone wanted to win was Reigns, and he got booed while HHH, the ultimate heel, was cheered. Reigns just can’t get over. It’s because everyone (minus the kids, of course) are already tired of the Super Cena 2.0 act. It’s so uninspiring. Nobody buys it.

4) So now what? Is the main event at Mania HHH vs Reigns with Reigns winning the belt for the THIRD time? Or is there a swerve coming somewhere in there? I don’t hate the idea of the match, but they are trying to make it seem like this is Austin vs McMahon. Reigns is no Austin, that’s for sure.

So besides that whole thing, it looks like we have a Lesnar vs Wyatt feud coming up, Sami vs Owens (Styles in there too somewhere?), and we might never stop seeing New Day vs the Usos in the battle of who can sell more crazy colored tshirts. Somewhere Ambrose is going to have to fit in, somewhere maybe Ziggler, Y2J seems like he’s sticking around til Mania, and we might never see Daniel Bryan ever again.

The WWE has more talent today than they’ve maybe ever had. Hopefully the writing can catch up and we’ll see a pretty sweet product from now until your boy Nate is at Mania in Dallas.