AJ Styles is one of the "TNA Originals" that helped to carry the company on his back for years. In fact, he was involved in the very first match of the very first pay-per-view the company had, back when they had weekly pay-per-view events and no television show. In his time with the company, he would go on to win a total of 19 titles, including five World Title (three NWA World and two TNA World) reigns. While he is the most decorated name in company history, and perhaps the most beloved roster member in their history, as well, he has almost always taken a backseat to WWE and WCW names that have come in to appear for TNA. Never was that more obvious than when someone in management decided that AJ wasn't enough of a star, so they turned him into a Ric Flair clone, of sorts, with Flair there to manage him. His looked was changed a bit, and the company wanted him to go all out, bleaching his hair blonde like Flair, walking like Flair, talking like Flair, and dressing like Flair. TNA fans didn't buy it at all. They didn't want "Ric Flair Jr.", and they could tell AJ didn't want to be doing it, either. The whole thing wasn't met well, and to make it worse, it was a heel run for AJ, who is notoriously nice in real life. You'll often see it in wrestling... someone who is a very nice person not being able to properly portray a heel on television, or someone that is somewhat of a prick in real life not being able to properly portray a face on television. This was certainly one of those scenarios. Luckily, this phase of his career didn't last long, and he was back to being the AJ Styles everyone wanted to see soon thereafter.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
