Awesome / AJ Styles

He's not called "The Phenomenal One" for Show and Tell.

---

• AJ Styles' TNA career as a whole holds a Crowning Record of Awesome — starting with Victory Road 2004 (November 2004; the first monthly pay-per-view from the promotion) and ending with Genesis 2009 (January 2009), "The Phenomenal One" had a match at every monthly pay-per-view in between (and including) those two events — if you do the math, he wrestled on 51 straight pay-per-views. It's a streak that is virtually unheard of in the pay-per-view era of pro wrestling, and will likely never be topped.
  • For the record, he wrestled 52 matches (he wrestled twice on a single PPV) during this streak, with a win-loss record of 26 wins, 25 losses, and 1 no-contest. During this period, he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the X-Division Championship twice, and Tag Team championships three times (the NWA Tag Team titles twice with Christopher Daniels, and the TNA Tag Team titles once with Tomko).
  • And counting Against All Odds 2009, he at least appeared on every monthly PPV the promotion put on up through Victory Road 2009 (he didn't appear at Hard Justice 2009 the next month, ending his incredible streak).
• Becoming the first ever X Division champion by beating Jerry Lynn, Psicosis, and Low Ki in a double elimination fatal 4 way. It's later revealed that he hid the fact that his foot was broken and had to wear an Iron Boot from them meaning he did the whole match basically on one leg.
• Being the first Triple Crown and first Grand Slam winner in TNA history.
  • Being the only man to win all six of the championships ever made eligible for TNA Triple Crown and/or Grand Slam status, a feat that still stands to this very day.^* The Impact Grand Championship was introduced as an MMA-style concept replacement for the King of the Mountain title, years after AJ had left the company, in the middle of the company's rebranding from TNA to Impact Wrestling, and only lasted about two years itself before being merged with the company's World title by then-champion Austin Aries. This speaks volumes as to AJ's continued importance to TNA over the years. See No Surrender 2009 below for the last belt he had left to win, and ultimately the most fitting of all.
• His NWA Title win over Jeff Jarrett in a steel cage on April 21st of 2004. AJ had been knocked off the top of the cage to the floor, forcing the outside referee to unlock the cage door so he could re-enter. Jarrett used the opportunity to grab his infamous guitar(which he had used to cheat his way to many victories in the past)...and Vince Russo couldn't do anything about it as he was locked out of the cage. Jarrett swung the weapon...and A.J. BROKE IT IN MID-AIR WITH A FLYING KICK! Jarrett was stunned, made a desperation swing with the broken guitar's neck, and A.J. wrapped him up in a crucifix pin to capture the title!
• Though his wars with Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels more often than not provided several CMOAs, the most renowned of said encounters would have to be the Unbreakable three-way match between them which AJ won to take the X-Division title from Daniels. That particular battle is still considered the best match TNA's ever had. It's also the only match in the promotion's history to date that was rated five stars by Dave Meltzer.
  • Even more impressive considering, according to Daniels, the last ten minutes were improvised.
  • Four years later, this match would play out again as the main event of Turning Point 2009, with AJ defending the TNA World Championship against Daniels and Joe. The match, heavily anticipated by fans and smarks alike, ended up exceeding expectations; it's now considered one of the best matches of the year, and one of the best TNA matches in a loooooooong time.
• AJ at Turning Point 2005 faced off against the unbeaten Samoa Joe and odds weren't in his favor. Joe has dominated throughout the match only for AJ to suddenly scream when he kick out and stands up and lets out a roar which shocks Joe as AJ ignores his attacks and takes him down showing why he was called Mr. TNA and the face of the Company and The X Division for so long. Joe would wind up winning but he knew he had been in a war.
• AJ and Christopher Daniels held a classic 30-minute Iron Man match at Bound For Glory 2005 that went to the last second, where Styles nailed Daniels with the Styles Clash to snatch the only pinfall of the match.
• Slammiversary 2006: For The NWA Tag Titles, America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) defending against Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles. In previous encounters, Gail Kim had been the difference maker making sure AMW retained the belts against them but earlier in the show Daniels and Styles commented they had a plan to neutralize her. During the match Gail tries to interfere but gets caught and a giant muscular woman (Sirelda) appears in the ring and chokeslams her and carries her out of the arena evening the odds. Despite it Harris and Storm fought on proving why they were once TNA's greatest tag team, but in the end after a miscommunication and Storm hitting Harris by mistake, Styles and Daniels hit a Frog Splash Moonsault combo to end America's Most Wanted 8 month reign and Daniels would go on to say after they won the belts that was the loudest pop he's ever heard in The Impact Zone.
• No Surrender 2006 AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels take on the Latin American Xchange of Homicide and Hernandez looking to regain the NWA Tag Titles in the first ever Tag Team Ultimate X Match. Working together and combining their moves they take out Hernandez with a Frog Splash Best Moonsault Ever and Spiral Tap combo. Daniels goes to get the belts but Konnan LAX's manager gets involved threatening him with a Kendo Stick should he attempt to cross the wires so what does The Fallen Angel do? He climbs to the top of the structure and leaps across and lands on the X in the center of it and unhooks the belt winning the match and the titles. This was voted as TNA's 2006 Match Of The Year.
• Anytime he busts out either The Spiral Tap or The Fosbury Flop.
  • Wanna top either of those? How about a Spingboard Shooting Star Press?
• At No Surrender 2009 winning the TNA Heavyweight title from Kurt Angle after going through a Heroic BSoD and Sting willingly took himself and Matt Morgan out to make sure AJ's got a shot to win as Kurt is out. AJ hits the Springboard 450 dubbed Superman by the fans and wins the title.
  • AJ's celebration would be grand, almost a replica of the Christian Cage celebration as the guardrail was opened and the crowd rushed the ring to join their champion, with Christopher Daniels playing the role of Rhino. And that celebration was completely warranted, too. Not only was this his first world title since TNA became relatively mainstream. Not only did the man widely acknowledged as the face of TNA finally attain the world title with the company's actual name on it. Not only did he pin a long-time archenemy in then-champion Kurt Angle to get the strap, in the process launching a turn of the tide in the war against the Mafia which would never turn back (Angle disbanded the group a month later). But this was also the last Grand Slam and Triple Crown eligible championship AJ Styles had left to win. Yes, he already achieved both accolades, the Triple Crown at the end of year 1 and the Grand Slam a few months prior to this. Yes, there have been five other Triple Crown winners and two other Grand Slam winners since. But this was the night he could officially say he'd won it all and done it all in TNA—a feat which would go on to be repeated by exactly NO ONE.
• In 2010, he becomes the first wrestler to be ranked #1 on Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Top 500 while under a TNA contract.
• With Fortune in 2011, defecting from Immortal and calling Hogan and Bischoff Ric Flair out was pretty awesome, especially the look on his face as it's happening as if to tell the audience "Yeah, this is happening." His promo at the end wasn't bad either especially since Ric Flair wasn't there this time to back up him up like he'd been for the past year at the time, showing how far AJ's gotten as a talker. In fact, most of Fortune's own Awesome page stemmed off from this moment, including call-outs to Flair himself after he turned on them.
• Slammiversary 2011: The Last Man Standing Match between AJ Styles and Bully Ray.
• Winning The TNA Tag Titles with Kurt Angle and getting revenge on Christopher Daniels and Kaz at Slammiversary 2012.
• June 21, 2012: We finally find out what AJ Styles and Dixie Carter were hiding, that they were helping a former drug addict clean up and didn't tell anyone to protect her, not having an affair like Christopher Daniels and Kazarian had been saying. The delivery of this all comes across as an utterly Narm-tastic way to kill a storyline and the potential foreshadowing for a Kaz and Daniels breakup doesn't do the tag division any favors, but when the two heels have a Villainous Breakdown and come up to try and salvage the situation, the awesome begins. AJ proceeds to utterly demolish both of them in a brutal Roaring Rampage of Revenge they both (especially Daniels) had coming.
• After spending years being a glorified high midcarder, trying to stand up for TNA only to be betrayed by his best friends who proceed to try to ruin his life, becoming isolated and discovering his darker side, briefly taking part in the war against Bully Ray's Aces And Eights outlaw biker gang, AJ finally found his stride, climbed through the Bound for Glory series, and eventually won it to become #1 contender to Bully's World title with two damn good closing matches against Austin Aries and Magnus.
• Shortly after this he called out TNA President Dixie Carter on her complete disregard for the fabric of what had made TNA special due to constantly getting starry-eyed over established names throughout the years. His speech, despite not being particularly loud or malicious at all, was peppered with such scathing honesty that it got to Dixie on a fundamental level, causing her to reveal her own tyrannical pettiness for the world to see.
• August 22nd: The second part of Hardcore Justice, The Main Event Mafia is set to face Aces & Eights in a match where the one who takes the fall must leave TNA. Down a man thanks to Kurt Angle's stint in rehab the group looks like they are ready to go down fighting when AJ Styles's music hits and he comes out through the entrance wearing his leather jacket and appearing like he has been the past several months. He comes down the rampway and halts and the music stops and suddenly Get Ready To Fly! hits for the first time in over half a year, and, AJ, the original AJ, The Phenomenal One, hits the ring and leads the Mafia in taking the fight to Aces & Eights.
  • Even further: he gets the pinfall and eliminates Devon from TNA.
• Bound for Glory 2013. AJ overcame the interference of Dixie as well as what was left of Aces & Eights on top of all the damage incurred in the act of facing Bully Ray himself—including a top rope 450 splash through the announce table which Bully got out of the way of—to beat TNA's latest Big Bad at the time, finally becoming the World Heavyweight Champion once again in a classic David vs. Goliath tale of resiliency.
• The 1/9/14 edition of Impact opened with AJ Styles, Dixie Carter, and Magnus putting out arguably some of their best (in terms of being emotionally charged) mic work to date—especially AJ, who leveled yet another "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Dixie's direction, even unflinchingly cussing at least twice in the process. Considering the importance of this night (title unification match between AJ and Magnus, potentially AJ's last night in TNA), nothing less would suffice.
• AJ making his NJPW debut at Invasion Attack 2014 by joining the Bullet Club.
• Becoming the new IWGP Heavyweight Champion in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Many said after he left TNA he was done, looks like he just proved them wrong.
  • To add to the awesome, not only did he do this in his second month the company by dethroning Japanese megastar Kazuchika Okada, but he became the first American the hold the title in 9 years and only the sixth non-Japanese title holder.
• His match with Minoru Suzuki at The 2014 G1 tournament, an unbelievable match from start to finish. Many have named it as a Match of the Year and given it five stars.
• His run in the G1 Tournament was well, Phenomenal. When AJ first arrived in New Japan back in April, crowd reception was surprisingly lukewarm and many were skeptical of him lasting there. AJ doesn't let that bother him or drag him down and instead goes out there facing a different variety of opponents including Okada and wins the crowd over with his moves and abilities so much that even as a Heel, after his match with Minoru above the crowd was chanting his name showing that they had embraced him.
• Being named Wrestling Observer's 2014 Outstanding Wrestler of the Year as well as his match with Suzuki above voted as Match of the Year.
• AJ performing a Styles Clash from the turnbuckle to beat Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom 9.
• AJ defends the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kota Ibushi in the main event of Invasion Attack 2015, the two exchanged counters after counter with each escaping the other's move as they had scouted one another. Ibushi at the end goes for the Phoenix Splash but AJ CATCHES him in midair to the shock of those in attendance and transitions it to the Styles Clash and hits move to retain the belt. But then, while he is celebrating, Okada runs in and lays him out with his own finisher and stands over the champ hoisting the title over his shoulder, letting everyone know that the Rainmaker has returned and he's coming for the belt.
• The finals of Block A of the 2015 G1 Climax between Styles and Tanahashi.
• AJ fulfilled many a wrestling nerd's dream when he faced off against NJPW's resident Memetic Badass Shinsuke Nakamura at WK10. And, surprising absolutely no one, it was an excellent match. The fist pound they shared at the end only accentuated the moment—especially when it turned out this was both men's last Wrestle Kingdom appearance for the foreseeable future, as they'd both soon be relocating stateside to finally work for WWE.
  • And trust AJ and Shinsuke to make a highlight moment out of a break in the fighting. A few minutes into the match, AJ performs a Bullet Club taunt by drawing a finger gun and "firing" it. Without missing a beat, Nakamura swipes a hand up, catches the imaginary bullet and pops it into his mouth.
  • Consider how well-protected a match like this is: AJ and Shinsuke would not have another singles match until the latter won the 2018 Royal Rumble and challenged for the WWE Championship. Let's reiterate that one more time, for those in the back. AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura are main eventing WrestleMania for the WWE Championship.
• Appearing as the third entrant in the 2016 Royal Rumble, to a massive pop. And to make this even better, the first guy he went toe to toe with was Roman Reigns, the top face in the company. He'd last half an hour in the match, and the guy who eliminated him was Kevin Owens, one of the only performers the IWC wouldn't hate on for doing so—and even then the arena loudly booed Owens and broke into an AJ Styles chant a minute later. You couldn't ask for a stronger debut for AJ.
• AJ Styles on WWE Raw was absolutely surreal, but not as much as his debut match — against Chris Jericho... and winning!
• AJ Styles' match on his WWE SmackDown debut may have been against a less impressive opponent than Jericho (Curtis Axel), but the ending makes up for it: AJ using the Styles Clash for the first time in WWE!
• You know AJ's arrived in WWE when he becomes the umpteenth person to beat the crap out of The Miz on MizTV.
• With Fastlane 2016 came his first WWE pay-per-view match, in which he hit Jericho with a Styles Clash, then made him tap out to the Calf Crusher.
• Winning a Fatal Four Way match (against Cesaro, Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho) to become the new #1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Championship.
• His first title match against Roman Reigns at Payback 2016 was amazing. Whatever you might say about his opponent Roman Reigns,^note Reigns tends to get criticized by fans for not having a very diverse move set and needing to be carried by more talented opponents. it's clear that he and AJ have *ahem* phenomenal chemistry.
• Their match at Extreme Rules was just as good if not better and led to a pivotal moment. After The Usos essentially screwed him out of what would've been a winning pin attempt (Styles Clash onto a steel chair), AJ finally snapped and annihilated the entire Bloodline with a steel chair. The moment becomes sweeter when you realize that the Usos have really being the ones escalating the entire feud since they continued to attack AJ unprovoked when he tried to settle things down, which led to him defending himself which led to Reigns destroying him in revenge and trusting him less and less. Then, even though they had already scared Anderson and Gallows away, they go out of their way to stop his pin attempt on Reigns, something even the Club didn't do during the match. At that point, AJ's rage mirrored the fans and he destroyed them.
• His match against John Cena at Money in the Bank 2016. Despite his victory only coming from Gallows and Anderson's Magic Killer, AJ wrestled circles around Cena, and even more awesome in hindsight was that the de facto face of TNA got one over the face of the WWE.
• AJ Styles and his Bullet Club buddies' segment on the 4th of July Raw centered around holidays and beating up John Cena is a shoo-in for the Funny Moments line, but it also produced a Moment of Awesome in the social media fallout. Despite AJ being widely considered a bad talker in spite of evidence to the contrary and Karl Anderson being largely used as one of his sidekicks, a WWE promo cut by Styles and a one-liner from Anderson in said promo got two hashtags trending on Twitter that night: #beatupjohncena and #hotasianwife.
• On the 8/2/16 episode of SmackDown, AJ came out for a promo segment against John Cena in which he had to do three very important things:
  1. Come off as strong, confident, and sure of himself without the Club at his side.^note Anderson and Gallows were drafted separately from Styles to the Raw brand two weeks prior, and he'd just been pinned last week both in his last match alongside them at Battleground and in last week's #1 contender match.
  2. Compete against yet another one of Cena's classic character-undercutting promos.^note Most wrestlers faced with such a promo from Cena find themselves in a position where they're essentially shut down, since retorting to the discrediting comment on its face would work directly against their responsibility to maintain Cena's image as the company hero. Cena's fellow faces have a bit more freedom to directly defend themselves than the heels do since they don't have to appear loathsome at the same time, but they still cannot go so far as to show Cena up and place him as in the wrong no matter how easy it might be to do so. Speaking of which…
  3. Generally make sure that he could still be reasonably cast as the heel.^note For this particular promo, John cast himself as the loyalist WWE-lifer and AJ as a mercenary who would wrestle elsewhere if things didn't work out in the company, calling back to two of his feuds against fellow faces — The Rock and Daniel Bryan. Ironically, it matches his position against Bryan exactly yet contradicts the spirit of his position against The Rock, in which he was offended at Rock's part time status on behalf of wrestling. Styles had to avoid lampshading both the situational hypocrisy and the perception of disrespect to the larger pro wrestling world that could be construed from Cena's remarks. Bryan, the current SmackDown GM and still the most popular face under WWE contract post-retirement, was free to address the latter on the WWE Network aftershow Talking Smack.
  • The fact that AJ held his own on the mic under all these conditions speaks volumes to his growth as a talker.
• His match with John Cena at SummerSlam arguably topped their first match at Money in the Bank, being the undisputed match of the night. Both men showed much resiliency, which included Styles kicking out of an Attitude Adjustment from the top rope. The match culminated with AJ pinning Cena clean with the Phenomenal Forearm and becoming one of very few people to actually and decisively win a feud with Cena.
• Backlash 2016: It's official. AJ Styles - for the longest time, the "most famous wrestler never signed to WWE" - is the WWE World Champion, after an incredibly tense, back-and-forth match with Dean Ambrose with both men constantly attempting finishers only to get blocked or reversed. Even better, after two weeks of Ambrose humiliating him regarding the crotching incident, Styles ends up beating Ambrose with a Groin Attack of his own, followed up with a Styles Clash for the pin.
  • With this match, Styles has developed one of the greatest resumes in the history of professional wrestling, being the first and only man to have won the NWA, TNA, IWGP, and WWE world championships.
• His title match against James Ellsworth. He wasn't even sweating after he was finished.
• His match against Randy Orton on the 3/6/17 episode of Smackdown was awesome enough, but then he pulled off the ultimate fakeout; he faked out the RKO. Styles jumped onto the top rope as if he was going for the Phenomenal Forearm, and Orton went for the RKO, but Styles jumped back instead, causing Orton to land flat on his back. He ultimately lost the match, but that spot more than made up for it.
• TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs 2017. Filling in for a sick Bray Wyatt last minute? Cool. Filling in when Bray was scheduled to face Finn Bálor? Too sweet. Flying from a tour in South America to Minneapolis to face Finn, and still manage to put on a four-star mat classic? Phenomenal.
• Winning his 2nd WWE championship on the November 7th issue of Smack Down Live from Jinder Mahal in a street fight.
  • Not only that, but he did it in England. Which means, AJ Styles is the first wrestler in the history of the company to have won the WWE Championship outside of the American continent. At 371 days, his reign is the longest in WWE SmackDown history.
  • The best part is that, despite the constant cheating of Jinder’s two henchmen, he still beat him and ended his reign of terror. Perhaps what truly made it special was that the match looked like how all of Jinder's matches would end with Jinder recovering while AJ attacked the henchmen and then finishing him off- but AJ disrupted his entire plan with a simple act: putting his foot on the ring rope, which threw Jinder off so much that he never fully recovered from it.
• His battle with Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series 2017. Even in defeat, AJ looked legitimately threatening for the Beast Incarnate.
• The Universal Championship match between defending champion Seth Rollins and AJ Styles is as great as anyone have expected, with many calling it the match of the night.
• The WrestleMania 36 Night 1 main event half-hour Boneyard match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles blew all expectations by simply being completely different to the rest of the night. Filmed in a boneyard, instead of it being presented like a wrestling match (or even the previous Buried Alive matches in WWE), it was given the cinematic treatment (similar to Lucha Underground or any of Matt Hardy's Deletions). Add in a dramatic score (including Metallica), blood, a Radial Ass Kicking against an army of druids, a load of snarky dialog, and of course the return of Taker's American Bad Ass persona (with the supernatural powers intact this time!), this was seen by the fans as massively entertaining. Booker T compared this to watching Friday the 13th, and Undertaker himself was finally content to declare that he had found a satisfactory last match.
• His Intercontinental Championship match with Daniel Bryan on the June 12th, 2020 Smackdown. Unsurprisingly, the two put on an absolute wrestling clinic that many are calling one of the best Intercontinental Championship matches of all time.
• At WrestleMania 37 Night 1, him and his bodyguard Omos won the Raw Tag Team Championships by defeating The New Day, giving Styles not only his first ever tag title reign, but his Grand Slam status, making him the second ever wrestler to be a Grand Slam in both WWE and TNA/Impact Wrestling.
• At Impact Wrestling's 20th Anniversary of "Slammiversary 2022", AJ Styles, who has been with WWE for six years, gave a heartwarming video package about the history of TNA/Impact Wrestling, thanking WWE for allowing him to do so, since he is essentially Mr. TNA. Seeing how he left the company on bad terms, it was still an awesome sight to see.