10 Wrestlers Who Couldn't Hide Their Anger At Doing A Job

6. AJ Styles - WWE Night Of Champions 2023

Charlotte Flair
WWE

Consider this an exercise in contrasts.

Sometimes boo boo face is hard to detect, and indeed is easy to project onto a performer. You can't tell for certain if something is wrong, but something is definitely...not altogether right.

Is everything altogether right with the AJ Styles/WWE relationship in 2023?

Watch him make his entrance at the 2017 Royal Rumble ahead of his match with John Cena. He did the job then, but he was on top of the world, in awesome form, and guaranteed a cushy spot at WrestleMania. You'd never have guessed he wasn't going over.

His face - potentially, again, you can never tell for sure - told a rather different story at Night Of Champions this year.

AJ hadn't done anything of note since his programme with Edge the prior year, and that was a disaster. In Saudi, he nodded his head and did the belt gesture, but he is a low-key casualty of the Triple H era. Paul Levesque hasn't expressed much interest in promoting him as one of his top stars. He doesn't have a clear long-term direction and doesn't feel like he's one of the first names uttered in the early creative meetings for WrestleMania XL.

Again, it's all conjecture, but with his furrowed brow and subdued body language, it looked like the fire had gone out.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!