AJ Styles' World Title Wins Ranked - From Worst To Best

2. IWGP Heavyweight Championship - NJPW New Beginning 2015

AJ Styles New Beginning 2015 Bullet Club IWGP Champion
NJPW.co.jp

Styles' second IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign was a world away from his first, thanks to being on a different level when it came to popularity in the country. Styles defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi for the strap at New Beginning in February 2015, and held it for five months before dropping it to Okada at Dominion 7.5 in July.

If Styles' first IWGP run was met with apathy, this couldn't have been further away from that. Styles sold out the Ryogoku Kokugikan during this run, defending against Kota Ibushi in the main event of Invasion Attack. That might not sound like such a big deal, but you need to remember that this wasn't a stacked show that saw NJPW's Big Three (Tanahashi, Okada and Nakamura) either working tag matches or singles against Bad Luck Fale.

It was the fastest selling non-G1 Climax show in almost a decade, a great indicator of Styles' improved standing in Japan. The match was fantastic too, highlighted by a great finish and some incredible character work (that didn't lead to anything) from Kenny Omega on the outside. For this match alone, Styles' 2nd run at the top of New Japan was a major success.

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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.