Post by stoptheclocks on Mar 3, 2023 11:39:40 GMT -5
I don't think they've done perfectly by AJ Styles or anything, between how rough the Redneck Rookie stuff was, the times he's kind of fallen off in relevance for years on end, how the Taker match is really the only thing he's done at WrestleMania that didn't just feel like table scraps (and even then the feud itself was hilariously terrible), and how they seem to keep falling back into leaning on Bullet Club as his entire identity, but for the most part they've done very well by him. Plenty of title reigns including the year long one and being a Grand Slam champion, beat Cena clean within a few months of entering the company, almost always portrayed as someone important who they can pretty much plug into anywhere on the card that needs it, he was on the cover of one of the games, it's certainly far better than I ever would have expected WWE to treat him back when he was in TNA.
AJ did so well because once he got past those growing pains, he's almost always been presented as important. Even if his position on the card wasn't always main event or co-main event, they presented him like he mattered and the crowd bought into it. He's definitely starting to feel like an afterthought, but I would argue that makes sense - he's in his mid-40s, he hasn't taken a ton of time off so he's always been on TV< and he's probably got a year or two left as a full time guy.
Jay White would probably be grateful if he had the kind of run AJ did in WWE. Hell, if Omega had that kind of run, he'd probably be happy, especially given Kenny's nearing the same age AJ was when he first showed up in WWE.
Yeah, with AJ's WM resume you have to look at how it was intended to come across. Some of the matches might not have turned out so good, but that wasn't the intention going into them.