AJ Styles had a banner rookie year in the WWE. The ‘Face That Runs The Place’ on SmackDown had an incredible debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble, and ended up having a great run with the WWE World Championship that included memorable matches with Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and John Cena.
As often happens in the WWE, Styles was moved out of the World Title picture to make way for a new star to get a chance to prove himself. With Jinder Mahal getting the unexpected championship program with Randy Orton, AJ has been moved into the US Title picture with Kevin Owens.
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Many in the WWE Universe saw the bump down the card as a downgrade for Styles, but in a recent interview with Sky Sports, AJ revealed his next big WWE goal.
“I’m excited about it. I think the United States Championship is as big of a deal to me as the WWE Championship, I’m just not in line for that right now and that’s okay.”
“I set goals and being U.S. Champion is one of those and I want to make that United States Championship as important as the WWE Championship.”
The US title was viewed as big as the WWE Championship when John Cena was carrying it and holding his US Open invitational every week on Raw in 2015, which just goes to show that any championship can be elevated if the performer holding it has the cache to do so.
Styles also discussed SmackDown’s trip to the UK for this week’s tapings.
“You’d better watch out because, as we’ve seen, we get a lot of UK fans that come out for Wrestlemania and the Monday and Tuesday after on live TV they’ll take over the show if you don’t watch it.”
You can see how the fans across the pond reacted to last night’s RAW here and check back here this afternoon to read spoilers from tonight’s SmackDown taping.
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