10 Secrets Nobody Has Told You About WCW

9. A Fledgling Phenomenal One

Stunning Steve Austin Stone Cold Steve Austin
WWE

The image shown here is AJ Styles casually hitting the Styles Clash on Kaz Hayashi of the Jung Dragons on the final ever episode of WCW Thunder.

While many savvy wrestling fans will clearly be well aware of the Phenomenal One's time with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, TNA, and Ring of Honor, a portion of those knowledgeable fans may be completely unaware that Styles ever stepped foot in a WCW ring.

Just 23 years of age at this point, AJ landed in WCW at the start of 2001. Dubbed Air Styles and teamed up with Air Paris to form the Air Raid tandem, the future WWE Champion competed four times on WCW television before the company was eventually purchased by the then-WWF.

Of those four matches, all of them were tag team outings alongside Paris, and only one - against the Boogie Knights pairing of Alex Wright and Disco Inferno - was a victory.

Oh, and for those wondering about the accompanying picture, Kaz kicked out of the Styles Clash at two, and Hayashi would later pin AJ to get the 1-2-3 for the Jung Dragons.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.