10 WWE Stars With The Least PPV Matches Before A World Title Match

7. AJ Styles - 4

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WWE.com

AJ Styles has had one hell of a year hasn't he? After competing against Shinsuke Nakamura in the semi-main event of NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10, Styles made a surprise debut as the third entrant into the 2016 Royal Rumble.

The Phenomenal One has arguably been WWE's MVP so far this year, lighting up RAW and SmackDown on a consistent basis.

Styles' first singles PPV match was a win against Chris Jericho at Fastlane, before surprisingly losing to Y2J one month later at WrestleMania 32. Styles continued the recent trend of men losing early matches at WrestleMania moving into #1 Contender positioning after the show, as he immediately became the top challenger to Roman Reigns' title.

Styles first singles opportunity at a WWE World Championship on PPV came at Extreme Rules, and what a match it was. He didn't win, but he put in as good a performance as anyone inside a WWE ring this year.

I dare say Styles won't be away from World Championship contention for too long.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.