10 Absolute Best Matches WWE Can Promote In 2019
7. AJ Styles Vs. Mustafa Ali
A grudge match fought at the implosion of an onscreen friendship, we pitch it in many ways to imagine a life in which AJ Styles isn’t the unremarkable babyface he exists as today. A constant fixture in the WWE Championship picture, Styles just isn’t that compelling a babyface character, and his recent output, that TLC war excepted, is far more methodical than we can reasonably expect of a performer marketed as ‘Phenomenal’.
The character is in dire need of a refresh, and a break from the top of the SmackDown card. Lashing out at Mustafa Ali in a development that ultimately materialises in a new, sadistic extension of it should guarantee something excellent.
This isn’t AJ doing his frickin’ darnedest to do something with Jinder Mahal, or working down to Shinsuke Nakamura’s new level: this is a new AJ intent on proving himself all over again, but this time, he meets a younger, equally motivated version of his past self—one capable of unleashing the sort of spectacular offence (the 054) that Styles once used to catapult himself to prominence.
This creates a defensive anxiety within AJ that mutates into something sinister—and a match packing as much dramatic heft as action.