10 Best WWE Storylines Of 2019 (So Far)
6. WWE Vs The World
Randy Orton and AJ Styles are Perfectly Good and Occasionally Great professional wrestlers, but this isn't (nor ever should be, really) enough to justify a WrestleMania programme between the two despite the potential quality of the match.
The company instead chose to be refreshingly honest about the wildly differing journeys the pair had taken to find one another ahead of a 'Grandest Stage' showdown - Orton the dyed-in-the-wool protected pet project for over a decade-and-a-half, Styles the man that wrestled everywhere else with such popularity that it seemed as good as impossible that he'd never manage the same feat in the largest company in the world.
Outside of high spot RKOs (and they hit plenty of those), the simplicity of this was spellbinding. Speaking truth to power, Styles spoke of the hardships making him more of a man than the preening pampered boy Orton had tried hard to move away from in his advancing years. 'The Viper' championed his corporate championing - he believed he had every right to be confident because the world had opened its arms to whatever talents he did possess time and time again.
The eventual match wasn't as good as the angle, but that happens so rarely now that it felt oddly refreshing.