Superstar Sagas

Claudio Castagnoli was born in Lucerne, Switzerland and participated in a multitude of different sports as a youth (his 6 ft 5 in 230 lb. frame is built for athletics). He got into the world of professional wrestling around Christmas time in 2000 and worked for numerous independent promotions. Castagnoli’s most well-known independent stints came with ROH (Ring of Honor), PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerilla), CZW (Combat Zone Wrestling), and Pro Wrestling Noah, all under his biological name. He has spent an extensive amount of time competing in the tag team division for every company he’s worked for over the years.

Castagnoli won numerous independent tag team titles with Chris Hero (Kassius Ohno, who was one of the 5 men who trained him). Cesaro is also a seven-time tag team champion in WWE with three different partners. The only company that has trusted Castagnoli to be a world champion and carried the company as its face is PWG. This man is easily worth of being  world champion for any company, but it has just taken a while for him to cultivate the level of security within himself that Vince McMahon – or any promoter – looks for.

We are all on our own journey in this life, so we all evolve at our own unique rate – it may not be exactly when we want which is somewhat frustrating at times because that level of maturity and security is much easier to intellectually understand and to embody in everyday life.

Cesaro is widely regarded as one of the best performers in the world, which I imagine is extremely rewarding to the man – and he might feel a sense of responsibility to deliver on that reputation every single night by having the best, or one of the best, matches of the night. This reputation can serve to be either pressure-inducing or motivation to deliver. He took his wrestling style from many old-school wrestlers including Bob Backlund and Bruno Sammartino just to name a few.

Castagnoli first started getting serious about professional wrestling at age 19 and his first trainer was fellow Swiss wrestler SigMasta Rappo. He debuted on Christmas Eve in 2000 for Westside Xtreme Wrestling based in Germany – his very first gimmick was that of a Japanese man, but it was quickly changed to a Swiss banker and formed a tag team with Ares (not Austin Aries) known as Swiss Money Holding. Castagnoli was also trained by Dave Taylor in England. Swiss Money Holding was invited to perform in the United States by Chris Hero and Mike Quackenbush.

In Castagnoli’s first try at the green card lottery, he received a permanent Visa and was allowed to move to the United States full-time and began working on a regular basis for ROH and Chikara (co – founded by Mike Quackenbush who also trained him). This officially ended the tag team Swiss Money Holding because Ares stayed in Switzerland but continued the tag team with a different partner. In 2006 with partner Chris Hero, Castagnoli became one half of the inaugural Chikara Campeones de Parejas.

Castagnoli also made his debut in 2004 for Combat Zone Wrestling and was with the company through 2006, winning the CZW World Tag Team Championship with Chris Hero – in late 2006, Castagnoli and Hero held the tag team titles of three major independent promotions in America simultaneously (CZW, ROH, and Chikara).

In November 2006 Castagnoli left those three independent companies because he signed a developmental contract with WWE. He was featured in a backstage segment as a police officer not too long before that and also had a successful run for Deep South Wrestling but was released from WWE soon after. He returned to Chikara in February 2007 and began feuding with Chris Hero not long after. In 2008 Castagnoli had a fantastic rivalry with Brodie Lee (who passed away a month ago). Everyone whose life Jon Huber touched became a better person for it, which included the first steel cage match in Chikara history.

In Ring of Honor, after initially teasing a departure for WWE in 2006, Claudio wrestled on the company’s first Pay-Per-View Respect is Earned on May 12, 2007 by teaming with Matt Sydal to challenge the Briscoe Brothers for the ROH World Tag Team Championship. Castagnoli was permitted to challenge for the titles in a rematch with a different partner but was still unsuccessful with Chris Hero. Later in 2007 he achieved success as a singles competitor by winning Ring of Honor’s Race to the Top Tournament, a 16-man, 2-night event.

He defeated El Generico in the finals to win the tournament and subsequently challenged Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Championship in August 2007 unsuccessfully. Castagnoli faced Chris Hero at the second ROH Pay-Per-View Rising Above on December 29, 2007, a match he won a year after their tag team split. On June 28, 2008, he got the biggest singles victory of his career to that point by defeating Bryan Danielson in their first ROH meeting. One month later he unsuccessfully challenged Nigel McGuinness for the ROH World Championship in his second match challenging for the title. Castagnoli turned heel shortly after that, joined the stable Embassy and began feuding with Brent Albright.

At ROH’s first live Pay-Per-View at the end of 2009, Final Battle, the Kings of Wrestling Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero, reunited by attacking the ROH World Tag Team Champions the Briscoe Brothers. Several months later in April 2010 the Kings of Wrestling became ROH World Tag Team Champions for a second time. On January 4, 2011, Castagnoli and Hero became the longest-reigning ROH World Tag Team Champions, breaking the record previously set by the Briscoe Brothers. In April 2011 the Kings of Wrestling lost the titles to Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin, ending their reign at 363 days.

Castagnoli also had multiple stints with PWG from 2005 – 2008 and 2010 – 2011. He won his first major singles title in the United States in 2010 by winning the PWG World Championship. 2010 was a big year for Claudio with this company because he was a semi-finalist in his third Battle of Los Angeles Tournament – defeating Ricochet and Roderick Strong before losing to the eventual winner Joey Ryan. Ryan should have earned a championship match for the PWG World Championship, but because the champion was stripped the four semi-finalists were placed in a match to determine the champion (which Castagnoli won). He lost the PWG World Championship to Kevin Steen after 287 days, a successful run with the title.

This man is extremely well-traveled and has wrestled all around the world for so many different promotions, which is a testament to how he has the ability to get along with nearly everyone across the world from all kinds of different backgrounds. It’s great to have that extreme amount of experiences throughout one’s life, and it has most likely benefited Claudio Castagnoli greatly as a human being and made him much more well-rounded. No wonder he speaks five different languages – he needed to in order to be able to operate in so many different nations.

Castagnoli became the first two-time Campeon de Parejas with Chikara in 2010 (this time with his Swiss Money Holding partner Ares). Later that same year, these two men teamed with Tursas to win the King of Trios tournament.

He signed a contract with WWE in September 2011 and was sent down to their developmental territory at the time Florida Championship Wrestling (which would eventually become NXT) under the new ring name Antonio Cesaro. Things started moving pretty quickly for Cesaro as he went on a winning streak to gain momentum, and he was called up to the main roster in April 2012. Antonio Cesaro won the United States Championship from Santino Marella on the SummerSlam pre-show 2012 and held the title until April 15, 2013 when he lost it to Kofi Kingston. The most notable event during Cesaro’s first title-reign in WWE came in the 2013 Royal Rumble match when he eliminated Daniel Bryan.

Ironically – as I write this – we are heading into the Royal Rumble and Cesaro has just recently beaten Daniel Bryan. Anyway, a nine-month run with a title is not a bad way to start one’s tenure in WWE. In 2013 Antonio Cesaro began a feud with Sami Zayn that lasted until the first NXT Takeover event in February 2014 and produced some incredible matches (Zayn, the former El Generico on the indies, needs to get back to this style because he is at his best from a wrestling standpoint). Combined this match style with his level of character development, which came into its own in 2020, and there is definitely something there.

Cesaro was paired with Zeb Colter as his manager and Jack Swagger as his tag team partner. Together, Cesaro and Swagger were known as The Real Americans (partially because Cesaro claimed he was superior to everyone because he was a legal immigrant). The Real Americans never became WWE Tag Team Champions, but the Cesaro section was organically created by the WWE universe in late 2013 at least partially because of this tag team.

His ring name was also shortened in February 2014 to take away his first name Antonio (Mr. McMahon has shortened the names of numerous superstars to make them more marketable so people will remember). After being unsuccessful in the Elimination Chamber and wrapping up the storyline with Sami Zayn at the first ever NXT Takeover Arrival on February 27, Cesaro won the inaugural Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal by the body slamming Big Show out of the ring, which looked reminiscent of Hulk Hogan doing the same thing to Andre at WrestleMania III. Cesaro described this moment at WrestleMania 30 as “the highlight of my career” in 2015.

Cesaro became a Paul Heyman guy in April 2014 but the partnership was short-lived as it ended in July, however it did lead to Cesaro challenging Sheamus for the United States Championship (leading to the formation of The Bar a couple years later) and challenging unsuccessfully for the vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the 2014 Money in the Bank ladder match. Paul Heyman gave Cesaro that little bit of extra charisma on the microphone he had not cultivated yet.

At one point, he was told to stop using the Cesaro Swing because it was making him too popular and WWE did not want fans cheering a heel. Unfortunately, Mr. McMahon did not view him as being 100% over, but to McMahon’s credit he did not give up. The Swiss Superman was put in a tag team with Tyson Kidd, and the team became tag team champions within a couple months, forming in December 2014 and becoming champions in February 2015 at Fastlane 2015 by dethroning The Usos. They lost the titles at Extreme Rules 2015 to The New Day, and unfortunately not too long after this Tyson Kidd was sidelined for what was projected to be over a year with a legitimate spinal injury thus ending the partnership between he and Cesaro.

Cesaro’s greatest moment in 2015 came in early July when he answered John Cena’s opening challenge for the United States Championship. He was unsuccessful but was put over by Cena after a fantastic match. A few months later in November 2015, Cesaro participated in a tournament to determine the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion (the champion Seth Rollins suffered a severe knee injury at a house show in Dublin, Ireland). Cesaro made it to the semi-finals of the tournament but needed to leave WWE for a while to repair a torn rotator cuff that he sustained a few months prior and had dealt with until that point. This kept him out of action for four-six months and forced him to miss WrestleMania 32.

He returned to Monday Night RAW the night after Mania 32 with a new James Bond style entrance with a tear-away suit and served as a replacement in the Fatal 4-Way match to determine the new number one contender for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship – which was won by AJ Styles. At Extreme Rules on May 22, 2016, Cesaro, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Intercontinental Champion The Miz participated in a critically acclaimed Fatal 4-Way match for the title. In a shoot-style interview after the WWE draft in 2016, Cesaro legitimately went off-script and talked about how he was surprised he was not drafted to the more wrestling-oriented SmackDown and thought he would be a better fit over there.

Cesaro stayed on RAW, and it worked out for the best because he began an extremely physical Best of Seven Series with Sheamus which culminated in September 2016. As a result, Mick Foley made them a tag team and they won the RAW Tag Team titles at Roadblock: End of the Line (ending the second reign of The New Day that lasted over a year). Cesaro and Sheamus were transitional champions as they only had the titles for a month before losing them on the Royal Rumble kickoff show in 2017 to Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson and failing to regain the titles at WrestleMania 33 when The Hardy Boyz returned to WWE in April 2017.

Cesaro and Sheamus began to be referred to as The Bar at Payback 2017 when they turned heel by attacking The Hardy Boyz. Their entrance and they began to wear matching gear. The Bar defeated The Hardy Boyz at Extreme Rules in June for the RAW Tag Team Championship, making Cesaro a three-time tag team champion in WWE with two different partners. The Bar lost the titles to Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose at SummerSlam 2017 in which Cesaro came up with some great improvisation as a heel by popping the WWE universe’s beachball. In a rematch with the same team, Cesaro received praise even though The Bar did not regain the titles because he was able to keep going in the match despite losing some teeth when he was shot into the turnbuckle.

At WrestleMania 34 The Bar lost the tag titles to Braun Strowman and a child named Nicholas, which had to make that little boy’s night – he probably still talks about it like it was yesterday. The Bar were drafted to SmackDown in 2018 and became tag team champions on that brand for the fifth and final time as a team. They dropped the titles to Shane McMahon and The Miz at Royal Rumble 2019 and went on a losing streak in February and March right before WrestleMania 35 – losing to DIY, Ricochet and Aleister Black, The Hardy Boyz as well as The New Day.

Sheamus had been suffering from spinal stenosis for several years and it was finally catching up to him. He originally thought he might have to retire after WrestleMania 35, so he wanted to put over as many teams as possible before that because he had the self-awareness to know The Bar was over and a victory over them would significantly benefit a rising tag team. That is tradition in wrestling – put over young guys on your way out of the business to ensure success for the next generation and continue the legacy of the wrestling business.

Needless to say, The Bar disbanded after Mania 35 in April 2019, and he had multiple critically acclaimed matches with Ricochet on RAW. Cesaro was drafted to SmackDown in October 2019 and begin a storyline with Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura in which Zayn won the Intercontinental Championship from Braun Strowman in a 3–on–1 handicap match with assistance from the other two men. Zayn defended the IC title against Daniel Bryan successfully at WrestleMania 36 in April 2020 and, as a supplemental match from that same storyline, Cesaro (one of Zayn’s sidekicks) wrestled Drew Gulak (Bryan’s coach).

Zayn went in his own direction after Mania, but Cesaro and Nakamura stayed together as a tag team. They won the SmackDown Tag Team Titles from The New Day in July at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules. Kofi Kingston was injured in this match due to being put through two tables, sparking Big E’s current singles run (in which he is the current Intercontinental Champion). The New Day won the title back in October 2020, and Cesaro and Shinsuke have since gone their separate ways. Nakamura turned babyface in a gauntlet match and is currently involved in a rivalry with Roman Reigns and his cousin Jey Uso, while The Swiss Cyborg remained heel and recently earned the biggest victory of his WWE career over Daniel Bryan in January 2021.

 

Fergal Devitt grew up in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland and was trained by Johnny Mess, the New Japan Inocki Dojo, and NWA UK Hammerlock (the first place he trained and debuted in 2000). Outside WWE, he is best known for his time spent with NJPW in Japan. There, he was a three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and six-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion with two different partners, in addition to being a two-time winner of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament (2010 and 2013).

Prince Devitt is also a founding member of Bullet Club and the original leader. New Japan Pro-Wrestling had a working relationship with Mexican promotion CMLL, and through this Devitt wrestled in Mexico and became an NWA World Historic Middleweight Champion.

In addition, he wrestled under a myriad of different names for numerous independent promotions, and winning titles in multiple different promotions (primarily during his early career and in the UK). After signing with WWE right after New Japan in 2014, Devitt was given the new name Finn Balor so it would be unique to WWE instead of being recognized all throughout the world. Then he was let loose on WWE TV, beginning with his first NXT title victory in 2015.

He began his career by winning the NWA British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship shortly after debuting for NWA UK Hammerlock. Immediately upon graduating, he began touring the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as the US. In 2002 (with partner Paul Tracey), Devitt started his own wrestling promotion called NWA Ireland where he ultimately trained future WWE superstar Becky Lynch. In 2005, he won the NWA British Commonwealth title for the second time and was invited to the New Japan Inocki Dojo in Santa Monica, California to train.

Devitt signed a contract with NJPW in early 2006 (this is where he got the name Prince Devitt). He claimed in an interview the reason his name was changed was because no Japanese person could pronounce his biological name. He was originally to be called King David until people started questioning why he would already be a king at age 24. It’s also worth noting that Japanese professional wrestling is taken much more seriously than anywhere else in the world and crowds are very respectful toward performers. They are also very committed to the notion that even professional wrestling gimmicks need to be believable, and to say the least this one wasn’t.

Devitt made his debut under a mask as the second Pegasus Kid (after the original Pegasus Kid Chris Benoit). He suffered his first major injury in Japan in January 2007 but returned several months later with major improvement and winning his first IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship with Minoru in January 2008. He slowly became acquainted with the company, and most notably holding the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship for 364 days from 2010 – 2011. In March 2012 Devitt made his first trip to Mexico as part of NJPW’s partnership with the Mexican promotion CMLL, becoming the NWA World Historic Middleweight Champion and held the title for 182 days.

Bullet Club’s inception took place on May 3, 2013. Shortly after this, Prince Devitt won his second Best of the Super Juniors tournament before immediately setting his sights on the next goal, which was to become the first wrestler to hold the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship simultaneously. 2013 finished with Prince Devitt getting victories over Hiroshi Tanashi and Kazuchika Okada (in American terminology, think of Tanahashi as the John Cena of Japan and Okada as Roman Reigns).

Devitt lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship to Kota Ibushi on January 4 at Wrestle Kingdom 8 after 14 months, in full face and body paint which he continued using throughout the rest of his time in NJPW for big matches (this is where the idea came for WWE to create The Demon King persona). Ironically, Prince Devitt’s final night in NJPW in 2014 was AJ Styles’ first, and AJ would become the third leader of Bullet Club for the next couple years while Prince Devitt went across the world to WWE (AJ would join him in WWE two years later).

In WWE, Finn Balor (the name is derived from Irish mythology – the latter name is also Gaelic for “Demon King) made his official debut for the company in September 2014 and quickly won the NXT Championship within a year from Kevin Owens. That same year, he also won the first ever Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic with Samoa Joe in October 2015, and a rivalry for the title ultimately broke out between Joe and NXT Champion Balor lasting through WrestleMania weekend in 2016. Balor lost the title to Joe a few weeks later and set the record at the time for the longest NXT Championship reign at 292 days (this record has been broken by Adam Cole in 2020).

After dropping the NXT title and putting over Shinsuke Nakamura as the face of NXT for the foreseeable future, he was ready to make the jump to the main roster in WWE. Balor debuted on Monday Night RAW in July 2016 in the WWE draft, defeating the face of the company Roman Reigns on July 25 (his 35^th birthday) to earn the right to become the first ever WWE Universal Champion at SummerSlam the following month.

Balor became the first Universal Champion by beating Seth the Rollins at SummerSlam 2016, but only for one night as he tore his labrum during the match. He relinquished the title and was away for 8 months to give the injury time to heal and returned to TV on April 3, 2017 the night after WrestleMania 33. In June of that year at Extreme Rules, he lost a fatal five-way match to determine the number one contender for Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship (Balor did eventually get another opportunity at the Universal title against Lesnar at Royal Rumble 2019).

In October 2017 at TLC Balor faced off with his successor as leader of Bullet Club in Japan AJ Styles, albeit it was a one-time thing (Balor was originally scheduled to meet Bray Wyatt in a face-off between the Demon King and Sister Abigail, an angle that totally flopped to be perfectly honest).

The Demon King defeated Styles and the two men had a heartwarming moment after the match. He entered the 2018 Royal Rumble match in which he lasted over 57 minutes after entering at number 2. After this breakout performance, Balor feuded with The Miz and Seth Rollins over the Intercontinental Championship, but he would not capture the title at WrestleMania 34.

In June 2018, he competed in his first Money in the Bank ladder match but was unsuccessful. On the August 20 RAW, Finn finally got his match for the Universal Championship after basically two years against the new champion Roman Reigns (in which he was unsuccessful in capturing the title). Several months later in January 2019, Balor competed against Jordan Devin at NXT UK Takeover: Blackpool, the first ever Takeover event for NXT UK. Immediately after this, Balor pinned John Cena on RAW to earn the right to challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at Royal Rumble.

Finn earned a lot of respect that night because he delivered an excellent match with WWE’s top star for the top title. He would then feud with Bobby Lashley over the IC title and win his first title on the main roster in February 2019 (then lose it back to Lashley, only to regain it again at WrestleMania 35 under his “Demon” persona). It’s a big deal if WWE trusts you as a superstar to win a title at WWE’s biggest event of the year.

Balor moved to SmackDown Live a couple weeks after Mania, dropping the Intercontinental Championship to Shinsuke Nakamura at Extreme Rules in July 2019 and losing a singles match to the debuting Fiend (a masked incarnation of Bray Wyatt) the following month at SummerSlam 2019.

In October 2019 after a two-month hiatus, Balor returned to NXT, which had grown from a developmental brand during his first stint in 2014-‘16 into the third global brand within WWE. The Prince claimed, “I don’t watch this business, this business watches me.” On February 16, 2020 at NXT Takeover: Portland, The Prince had a match with Johnny Gargano after attacking Gargano the previous October upon returning to NXT but this was quickly resolved as Balor came out victorious.

Four months later at Takeover: In Your House, The Prince wrestled and defeated Damian Priest in retaliation to an assault from behind two months earlier (this match was a coming out party for Priest). On September 8, 2020, Balor won the NXT title for a second time, defeating Adam Cole to win the vacant championship.

At Takeover: 31 in October, in an extremely physical encounter with Kyle O’Reilly of The Undisputed Era (O’Reilly became the clear No. 2 in the group behind the leader Adam Cole after this NXT Championship match), Balor broke his jaw in two places (legitimately). The two men had a rematch at New Year’s Evil on January 6, 2021 and Balor broke O’Reilly’s jaw (kayfabe). The NXT Champion claimed the next week that “they stopped manufacturing the cloth I’m cut from.”

AJ Styles has had an Incredible Career and Traveled Extensively throughout the World, Winning Titles in nearly every Promotion he has Worked for Across the World

AJ Styles’ father was a Marine and he was born at a base camp in Jacksonville, North Carolina on June 2, 1977. His father also had a drinking problem and became abusive toward not only AJ and his brothers but also his mother. The most important aspect, however, was that Allen Jones could sense that his father loved him and saw great things in his youngest son. AJ cherished the times when he was a little boy and his father would come to his baseball games.

After graduating high school in 1996, Allen Jones attended college at Anderson University in South Carolina on a partial wrestling scholarship but ended up leaving early because the idea of school was not necessarily for him, so he figured “why waste time and money if this is not going to assist me in getting where I want to go in life.” Shortly after that, AJ entered a professional wrestling school at the recommendation of some of his friends at the time just to see what it was like. Turns out as soon as he took that first bump, some switch flipped in his mind and AJ Styles was formed – Jones was drawn to the physicality of the sport.

AJ was trained by Rick Michaels and had his debut match in 1998 at age 21 in the National Championship Wrestling (NCW) which is operated out of his home state of Georgia where Jones grew up and attended high school. The first wrestling name he was ever given was Mr. Olympia who wore a mask. By August 1999 Mr. Olympia won the NCW television championship. In December 1999 NCW merged with NWA Georgia to become NWA Wildside, where Mr. Olympia became AJ Styles (which rolls off the tongue better). This moniker would stick for the rest of his career which is winding down within a few years.

AJ’s first major championship was won on December 22, 2001, when he defeated his trainer Rick Michaels at Christmas Chaos for the NWA Georgia Heavyweight Championship.

WCW observed Styles’ program with Air Paris in NWA Wildside, and as a result both men were offered a contract in early 2001. Styles most likely arrived in Atlanta a few years too late, because the novelty of WCW had worn thin and was starting to lose steam by 1999. Tony Schiavone has repeatedly talked about how he intuitively had a feeling that WCW was not going to work in the long run. It did work beautifully for a number of years, but the company could not survive under such poor leadership and many disgruntled employees who were keeping their frustrations to themselves.

Styles took advantage of the opportunity presented to him and his name was changed to Air Styles (he was part of the tag team Air Raid with Air Paris). The team appeared on WCW Thunder three times and even on the March 5 Nitro, just a few weeks before the company was officially announced by Shane McMahon as being bought out by WWE. On July 9, 2001, Styles had his first tryout match for WWE against his trainer Rick Michaels before RAW was taped. This was an example of “just because you win your match, and look pretty decent doing it, doesn’t mean you did enough to convince the right people to see you in the light of a potential star.”

So AJ’s contract was not picked up immediately by WWE. He spent a short amount of time feeling sorry for himself (like anyone probably would), then dusted himself off and went back to the Indies to begin his journey of earning his way into WWE. He had two more televised matches with WWF and was offered a developmental deal from WWE in June 2002 but said no to the deal because it would require him to move to Cincinnati. That would have interfered with his wife’s college plans, and the way he viewed it at the time, her career trajectory was more important because it would make the family more money as far as Allen Jones could see.

After bouncing around the world to places like Australia and the United Kingdom, Styles debuted at Ring of Honor’s third show, A Night of Appreciation in 2002. AJ quickly earned a spot on the card as a main eventer and challenging Low Ki for the ROH World Championship later that year and becoming a Tag Team Champion for the company in 2003. AJ became the first ROH Pure Wrestling Champion at the Second Anniversary Show in 2004.

AJ Styles also began his career with TNA in May 2002 where he would spend the next 11 years. The legitimate prime of his in-ring career took place here and Allen Jones will forever be indebted to this company because he discovered who he was as a wrestler while he was there. In May 2002 Styles signed a nonexclusive contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and quickly defeated Jerry Lynn, Psicosis, and Low Ki in a double elimination match to become the Inaugural TNA X Division Champion. He also won the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship – with partner Jerry Lynn – on the third TNA Pay-Per-View to become a double champion.

Styles won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in June 2003, becoming the first ever TNA Triple Crown winner (AJ won the X Division championship for a third time a year later in June 2004 – defeating Frankie Kazarian). Styles would drop the title back to Jeff Jarrett that October. AJ would win the NWA World Tag Team Championship with partner Christopher Daniels a couple years later at Slammiversary and those two won those titles multiple times. Toward the end of 2007 Styles regained the X Division Championship for the sixth time, this time defeating Chris Sabin.

Styles also competed in various independent promotions around this time. He still competed in Mexico for AAA and CMLL, wrestled for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), appearing at the second Wrestle Kingdom event. AJ even wrestled for US-based companies such as Pro Wrestling Guerilla (PWG). He became world champion for this company and Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW). He became a champion at every company he ever worked for over time.

Next Styles won the TNA World Tag Team Championship with Tomko against Team Pacman (NFL player Adam Jones who played for the Tennessee Titans at the time, as well as Ron “R-Truth” Killings) at Bound for Glory 2007 before engaging in his biggest feud under the TNA umbrella to that point in 2008 with Kurt Angle. AJ Styles spent much of 2009 – 2010 as TNA World Heavyweight Champion – becoming the longest-reigning champion in company history at the time. Shortly after this, Styles – with Ric Flair – formed what was intended to be an updated version of the Four Horseman under a new name Fortune and became bigger stars by feuding over the next couple years with the stable Immortal.

AJ was involved in a soap opera type storyline throughout most of 2012 in which he was accused of being involved in an affair with TNA Pres. Dixie Carter, growing a beard and sporting an unkempt look to adequately portray the emotions his character was going through. He became the TNA World Heavyweight Champion immediately after this storyline was finished, AJ’s fifth world title overall in the company – with the TNA and NWA World Heavyweight Championships being accounted for.

AJ Styles’ final match with TNA was taped on December 5, 2013 and aired on January 9 of the following year. On December 8, contract negotiations between the two parties had broken down and Styles became a free agent on December 17 (he claimed on WWE Untold via the WWE Network that he was asked to take less money – about 50% less – to do basically the same job, and he said no because he felt he had given the company everything over the past 12 years and AJ felt undervalued).

At the time, TNA acknowledged Styles as “the cornerstone of the company since the inception in 2002”, he won five world titles with the company and was the inaugural holder of the X Division Championship, which he held six times. Styles was the first wrestler to complete the TNA Triple Crown and the TNA Grand Slam.

The Phenomenal One spent the next two years traveling back and forth between Japan and the United States, making his return to Ring of Honor in the US and working with NJPW in Japan. Styles made his final appearance for ROH on January 23, 2016. On his final night in the company, he engaged in a group hug with former Bullet Club stablemates Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson and The Young Bucks. This emotional moment was reminiscent of the 1996 “Curtain Call” at Madison Square Garden, in which WWF’s Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and X-Pac were saying goodbye to their friends Kevin Nash and Scott Hall (who were leaving the company for WCW).

He also made appearances on the independent circuit in England for Revolution Pro Wrestling and AAA in Mexico. In the United States, Styles made his return to Combat Zone Wrestling and PWG. AJ was best known around this time for his tenure with NJPW, signing with the company in 2014, becoming the third leader of Bullet Club and winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his debut match for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, becoming the sixth non-Japanese champion and the first American champion since Brock Lesnar in 2005. Prince Devitt (Finn Balor), the original leader of Bullet Club, had his final match in Japan and was leaving for WWE on the same night that The Phenomenal One made his debut.

Styles would leave NJPW in January 2016, passing the torch to Kenny Omega as the leader of Bullet Club. He would debut for WWE at the Royal Rumble in 2016. TNA would argue that he agreed to return there but was offered a blow-away deal” by WWE.

Nonetheless, The Phenomenal One entered the Royal Rumble match at number 3 and was received with massive ovation. He entered a storyline next with Chris Jericho and had a WrestleMania match with Jericho in 2016 which he lost. Styles was named Wrestler of the Year by PWI three straight years from 2016-18, and accomplishment only held by Ric Flair from 1984-‘86.

AJ subsequently challenged Roman Reigns twice for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship (both unsuccessful). He won the WWE title for the first time in September 2016 on SmackDown and entered a longer-term feud with John Cena immediately after (which produced some classic matches Royal Rumble 2017 being the best of the bunch). After failing to regain the WWE Championship on two occasions, Styles began a rivalry with Shane McMahon which culminated at Mania 33 on April 2, 2017. AJ would turn face immediately after this event.

He then feuded with Kevin Owens for a number of months over the United States Championship, even winning the title for a short time, with Shane McMahon sprinkled in here and there, before going on to face the 2018 Royal Rumble winner Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans for the WWE Championship. Nakamura turned heel looked at this event, although it was right in the middle of Styles’ 371-day reign as WWE Champion (his second WWE title). He also won this particular title in England, the first time a title in WWE had ever changed hands outside North America (he became the longest-reigning WWE Champion in SmackDown history surpassing JBL’s record).

AJ’s greatest rivalry of his year-long run with the title was with Samoa Joe (who he had plenty of history with from their time in TNA and ROH. Their feud ran from SummerSlam in August 2018 through October that year. It comprised of four matches on Pay-Per-View, including a fantastic Hell in a Cell match. Styles was originally scheduled to defend the title against Daniel Bryan at Crown Jewel in 2018, but he instead passed the title on to Bryan a week later because Daniel refused to travel to Saudi Arabia due to political disagreements. The Phenomenal One is only the eighth man in WWE history to hold the WWE Championship for one year consecutively.

Styles’ feud with Daniel Bryan continued through Royal Rumble 2019 and was extremely memorable because of the classic matches. Styles would subsequently begin a rivalry with Randy Orton, with culminated at WrestleMania 35 (April 2019) in New York (it was a very underrated match even though it was not high on the card. A month later AJ followed that performance with an absolutely Phenomenal match against Seth Rollins for the Universal Championship at Money in the Bank on May 21, 2019. He moved on after this to win the United States Championship against Ricochet at Extreme Rules in July as well as putting over the start of Ricochet (a Paul Heyman project) in a fantastic match for the United States title at SummerSlam 2019.

The Phenomenal One was defeated by Roderick Strong of  NXT in a triple threat inter-brand match (which also featured Shinsuke Nakamura) at Survivor Series 2019 consisting of the midcard champion of each brand (Intercontinental Champion, United States Champion, and NXT North American Champion). Styles went on to begin a WrestleMania 36 program with The Undertaker and ended up participating in the main event of Night 1 of the two-night event on April 4, 2020 (AJ’s first WrestleMania main event). It was a huge honor for him to give The Undertaker a proper farewell, and it was extremely rewarding that The Undertaker was happy with the result.

The Phenomenal One followed this by winning the vacated Intercontinental Championship in June 2020 in a match against Daniel Bryan. This was the one title he had not won in WWE. This past week, he earned a victory over Ricochet on Monday Night RAW – he didn’t get it because he “deserved it,” he earned it.

It’s an Exciting Potentiality to think of Nakamura and Cesaro as Singles Competitors Once Again

When in singles, that’s where both of these guys are at their best from an athletic standpoint; maybe not in terms of character-sizzle, as Mr. McMahon calls it.

Shinsuke Nakamura turned heel in 2018 at WrestleMania 34 in a dream match with AJ Styles for the WWE championship (Nakamura won the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble match in January). It might be rather poetic then for him to turn babyface in another encounter of a potential dream match with Daniel Bryan in the gauntlet match to determine the number one contender for the Universal title at Royal Rumble 2021 on the January 8 SmackDown. If WWE were to move forward with this plan of turning Nakamura face, the tag team between him and Cesaro would likely split. Their tag team is a heel team, so it doesn’t make much sense to keep them paired together through a face turn.

The team of Nakamura and Cesaro was formed at the end of 2019 to serve as backup for Sami Zayn because WWE didn’t have anything else planned for these three men. Nakamura and Cesaro won the SmackDown Tag titles at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules in July and would hold the titles until October when they dropped them to The New Day – Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods.

The idea of Nakamura potentially turning face as a singles competitor opens the door for the possibility of Cesaro becoming a singles competitor also and establishing himself as a legitimate threat for the Universal championship. Even if this does not come to fruition, Cesaro could be expected to stand up to the Head of The Table for attacking his friend within the next couple of weeks leading up to the Royal Rumble 2021.

While the door has absolutely been open for Nakamura to be positioned as a top babyface contender to Roman Reigns’ Universal championship going forward, Adam Pearce is being positioned as the challenger for the title at Royal Rumble. While Shinsuke would be the choice if Mr. McMahon were purely booking the event for the better match, Pearce undoubtedly provides the more intriguing story and draws more eyeballs to the company. The five-time NWA world heavyweight champion/former PWG world champion on the independent scene should be able to provide a decent match at 42 years old.

Pearce is currently playing the role of a subordinate employee who does not have much more power than is being given to by higher-ups in WWE. He was introduced as an on-screen authority figure in the summer of 2020, and he has executed his heart in the story well. This upcoming Universal title match against Roman Reigns was most likely the primary reason Adam Pearce agreed to participate in this on-screen storyline; because anyone would relish in the opportunity to work with the top superstar in WWE.

Big E is at a delicate transition period at this point in the history of his career because he is transitioning from his time with The New Day to what will hopefully be a massive singles run – one in which he works with Roman Reigns many times over in the next decade

Paul Heyman was featured as he is every week December 11 on Talking Smack with Kayla Braxton. He gave Big E some poignant advice about what his mentality might be for the rest of his WWE career post-New Day. Heyman told E that the first step he has taken in his revived singles run of going after the Intercontinental championship is absolutely and unequivocally the first move in the right direction towards Big E becoming a legend in WWE history (and hopefully one day being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame).

The most important sentence Paul uttered Friday night was his last. The rhetorical question, “When was the last time you saw Roman Reigns in the ring, and anybody even bothered to mention The Shield?” What Paul meant by this was that perhaps Big E’s mentality as a singles competitor should be focused on winning championships and establishing himself as a perennial world champion. It is very true that when anyone thinks of Roman Reigns, they don’t necessarily think of The Shield. That is simply just an interesting footnote in the legend of Reigns (obviously the other two members of The Shield have gone on to experience major success in their careers).

However, Reigns was with The Shield for only about a year and a half while E was with The New Day for six. Roman Reigns’ entire career history before The Shield took place in NXT, but Big E had a run of a couple of years on the main roster before The New Day even started (courtesy of Xavier Woods’ idea to start a stable that was all about the team), as Intercontinental Champion even before the group got going. Prior to that, E was the second-ever NXT champion – right after Seth Rollins – something not even Roman can claim.

Big E might be the perfect man to ultimately overturn the Head of The Table and take the Universal championship from the Anoa’i family. There are not many credible challengers to take the Universal title off Roman that are being portrayed by the WWE creative team as legitimate contenders to become champion and lead SmackDown into the future. At least that is one of the primary complaints I have been reading about – that Kevin Owens is not a believable contender right now to Roman Reigns – my question is “Who would be?” And the answer is no one, especially not in the month of December – which is always a down month for WWE anyway. The product has its ebbs and flows as does everything.

E and Roman Reigns have similar career paths in WWE because, in 2014, Mr. McMahon was down to these two men in the decision-making process as to who was going to be the next face of the company after John Cena. Perhaps at the time, McMahon asked himself, “Which of these guys resonates with me more?” The WWE universe did not agree with him for several years, but now that Roman has turned heel he is revealing more of his authentic self than ever. At this point in time, The Tribal Chief is being wholeheartedly embraced by the WWE fanbase for that very reason.

King Corbin was accompanied last week on SmackDown by the returning Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler (the former Forgotten Sons). Originally this group started in NXT, and Blake and Cutler were the tag team accompanied by Jaxson Ryker. However, Ryker tweeted his support of Donald Trump for a political stance he took earlier this year, and he received some pushback from some members of the WWE locker room. The Forgotten Sons’ initial push to introduce them to the SmackDown audience was brought to a halt as a result, so WWE is in the process of starting over with the introductory push of Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake – and branding them as the backup to King Corbin in his rivalry with Murphy and the Mysterio family.

Ryker is still under contract with WWE for now, but he may or may not work more shows for WWE under that contract. It should be interesting to see the direction the company decides to take with Blake and Cutler, because they appeared to be headed for a SmackDown Tag Team Championship feud with The New Day. They were receiving a rather large push before they were taken off TV – they might have even become the team to take the titles off The New Day rather than Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura.

For the first time since wrapping up a singles feud with Sheamus on SmackDown a couple months ago, Big E participated in a singles match honoring the late Pat Patterson. He also debuted a brand-new entrance song (rapped by Wale) as well as the chalk he used during his pre-New Day stint as part of the five-count gimmick (which – one could probably imagine – is where he pins his opponents for a count of five instead of three). Speaking of this match to honor Pat Patterson, it was extremely poetic that all six men who participated in this match were former, or current, Intercontinental champions – Sami Zayn (current), Dolph Ziggler, Shinsuke Nakamura, Daniel Bryan, E, and Rey Mysterio – because Patterson was most famous for being the first ever Intercontinental Champion in 1979.

A massive congratulations is in order for Roman Reigns on hitting the 8-year mark since joining the main roster at Survivor Series 2012 as one-third of The Shield. All three original members have gone on to hold multiple world titles and become extremely successful. Roman was always portrayed as a character who was primed for the business and mentally built to handle the responsibility of being the potential face of the company in his NXT days for about two years before officially joining the main roster. This was of course shortly after his days playing college football as a defensive lineman at Georgia Tech.

I liken the career path of Roman Reigns to that of John Cena because he bears a similar amount of responsibility as the face of WWE that John did not all that long ago. Cena was just a couple of years younger than Reigns when he made his debut on the main roster in 2002. Cena made his debut in the summer of 2002, so he hit the 8-year mark in the summer 2010. The true Hall of Fame portion of John’s career came after this point, so the same might be true for Roman Reigns. The remainder of Roman’s career will be extremely interesting around the intricacies of how it unfolds – it will hopefully be even greater than the first eight years.

Looking back, the leukemia diagnosed about two years ago might have been the most important event of The Big Dog’s character evolution. This recent character change is easily the most authentic for Roman. It’s absolutely wonderful to see him embodying what is natural for him, because audiences gravitate most toward true authenticity.

The pivotal reason WWE flipped Seth Rollins and AJ Styles between brands is because AJ complained a few months ago about having to perform on Friday nights and therefore miss his son’s high school football games – which makes sense. That was the easy part of the decision by the company. The difficult part was that losing Styles from a SmackDown perspective is a massive loss. Well, aside from being several inches taller, Seth Rollins is basically a carbon copy of Styles – both from an in-ring perspective and in terms of the level of charisma both men have. Whether they were performing in empty gymnasiums 14 years ago or wrestling for the Universal Championship at Money in the Bank 2019, one could tell they would both turn into something special one day.

If Seth was going to SmackDown, that meant Murphy as well as the Mysterio family would also have to come over to maintain continuity within the storyline as opposed to abruptly ending that storyline – which WWE has invested a significant amount of time and effort into formulating. The goal of this storyline is to make it so that when this story finishes, Seth Rollins has no allies anymore and can therefore be written off TV for a few months so he can take paternity leave. He will then be able to help care for his child with his fiancée Becky Lynch without feeling like WWE needs his presence to present a good product. This will enable Seth to be fully present with his child and that will benefit everyone involved.

Ivar had neck surgery few weeks back and will be out for close to a year, but now his partner Erik has also undergone surgery; now might be the best time to do it as WWE most likely didn’t have any clear-cut plans for him anyway while his tag team partner was out. WWE has not put the tag team division – men’s or women’s – anywhere near the top of its priority list in the past decade (the last time the tag division received a heavy amount of prominence was about 20 years ago when The Dudley Boyz, The Hardy Boyz, and Edge & Christian).

Erik had a surgical screw removed that was protruding into his tricep and causing severe pain. The injury was bothering him for several months, but he put off the surgery and decided to work through the pain until an opening within a framework of The Viking Raiders’ storyline. Unfortunately, Ivar just happened to injure his neck. However, this might have been a blessing in disguise because it opened the door for Erik to have the screw taken out of his arm, which had been bothering him for months.

Mustafa Ali has been officially thrust into the spotlight by emerging as the leader of Retribution. I thought it might turn out to be Kevin Owens since he wasn’t doing much other than getting involved in others’ storylines (which felt somewhat forced). But it doesn’t matter anymore because Owens is oscillating between storylines with Alexa Bliss/The Fiend and Aleister Black but that’s a different story for a different day.

Ali was somewhat involved but not deeply embroiled in the storyline involving Ricochet and Apollo Crews and The Hurt Business. It felt as though Ali was serving as a puppet for Ricochet and Crews to call on when they needed backup against MVP’s stable. This is the situation Mustafa has been in since July 2020 when he was moved to over to Raw from SmackDown.

Let’s retrace our steps now. To do this effectively, we need to go all the way back to the Cruiserweight Classic tournament (called by Daniel Bryan – more on him later in this article) in 2016. Mustafa Ali was defeated in the first round of this tournament, but it materialized into something when he debuted on 205 Live in December 2016. Ali served as one of the top superstars on 205 Live for about two years on the brand, earning multiple matches for the title – including one at WrestleMania 34 (2018) vs. Cedric Alexander and another at Survivor Series 2018 vs. Buddy Murphy (before his name was shortened to just Murphy).

At the end of 2018, Daniel Bryan (the WWE Champion at the time) was fervently asking management to introduce a “hot young babyface” on SmackDown because all the faces who were featured in prominent roles were on the cusp of 40 years old. Mr. McMahon complied with Daniel Bryan’s request because of the level of respect Bryan has earned over the years and Mustafa Ali was brought up to the main roster in December 2018. Elimination Chamber 2019 was an interesting event – KofiMania started there, but that was not even the original plan. The only reason Kofi Kingston was placed in the match is that Ali, who was originally supposed to be in the match, suffered a legitimate injury. It all worked out for the best so it’s neither here nor there.

On March 25, 2019, after a great WWE Championship match at Fastlane, Mustafa Ali’s ring name was shortened to just Ali. For whatever reason, in the last 10 years Mr. McMahon has developed a stigma about having to shorten people’s names (like Antonio Cesaro, Big E Lamgston, Andrade “Cien” Almas, Elias Samsen and Buddy Murphy to name a few). It works for most, but with Ali it took away from the uniqueness of his presentation a little. Ali appeared in the Money in the Bank ladder match, receiving an Intercontinental Championship match as well as competing in the King of the Ring tournament with this name, but it did not stick as he was given the name Mustafa back in November 2019.

Ali was subsequently taken off TV for about nine months before appearing on Monday Night Raw for the first time in his career on July 20, 2020. He struggled to gain momentum for a few months before ultimately turning heel and being revealed as the leader of Retribution (we now know exactly why Ali handed down the offer to join The Hurt Business). This change in character for Mustafa Ali could be exactly what he needs to become a cornerstone member of the WWE main roster. An observer and intuitive member of the WWE universe might have discerned that he might ultimately become a primary attraction based on his tenure as a top cruiserweight.