10 Best In-Ring Workers In WWE Right Now
1. AJ Styles
AJ Styles is the closest WWE has come to having a spiritual successor to Shawn Michaels in their midst. That has been written before - but just because it isn't particularly insightful doesn't mean it's not true.
Styles is the smoothest and most exciting performer in WWE by some margin. His movement is out of this world; his Phenomenal Forearm finisher is the most rewindable move in all of wrestling because his trajectory is impossible. The height he manages is unfathomable, the descent even more so. The man looks like a damn missile when drops out of the air.
It's the space he occupies between those moves that hoists him to the echelon of greats. Styles has been phenomenal forever - he received a richly-deserved Wrestling Observer five star rating twelve years ago - but it was his stint in New Japan Pro Wrestling where he became not one of but the best, mastering the universal mannerisms required to smash the language barrier. His expressions are expert. During his recent, killer TV match with Randy Orton, he telegraphed the RKO by feigning to jump. When he revealed the ruse, the look of relish on his face was palpable.
In that moment, it was easy to believe that he wanted to win a wrestling match. That might seem simple - even obvious. But to those who view wrestling to suspend their disbelief as much as they do for entertainment, no man in WWE straddles that line like AJ Styles.