AJ Styles has already started dropping his fancy belts and saying his goodbyes to the indies before supposedly heading off to sign with WWE. Though the deal hasn’t officially been announced, WWE and their roster have already started rolling out the red carpet for newly poached members of the Bullet Club and top NJPW star Shinsuke Nakamura. Without the official word, speculation has been running rampant — as it’s wont to do in wrestling — as to when and how they would all appear.
Styles (spoiler!) just lost the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship to the handsome, flexible human washboard Zack Sabre, Jr. at RevPro’s High Stakes 2016 show in the UK this past weekend, then addressed the crowd in a ‘farewell’ promo. When the crowd began chanting “ROYAL RUMBLE,” he said the fans could be seeing him again very soon, should there be a Rumble spot available. Then he promised to ‘kick ass,’ because I’m pretty sure you’re required by law to do so before you head off to bigger and better (or just more financially stable) things. Chances are it’s just his polite way of addressing the crowd, but with the Rumble looming and barely enough WWE stars to fill it, the odds are looking better and better every day.
Debuting in the Rumble would be one heck of an introduction, but would also raise a lot of questions as to how the gimmick would play out in WWE. If the Bullet Club in NJPW are a bunch of disrespectful gaijin, what are they in an entire company of…well, disrespectful gaijin? Do they become an nWo version of an nWo homage to the original nWo? And if they don’t win, wouldn’t it be kinda crummy to have TOP FRESH NEW stars you just poached away from their two main companies get eliminated by, I dunno, let’s say Sad News Barrett? Especially if the rumours about what it took to sign AJ Styles are true?
Supposedly, according to PWTorch.com, AJ Styles was offered a ‘blow-away deal’ to leave both New Japan and Ring of Honor. It’s rumored that ROH was offering Styles a six-figure deal, but WWE went out of their way to top that. Our sources at ROH say that while it was a lot of money, it didn’t come close to six-figures. Were it that high, “the rest of the roster would have walked.” There is, however, no doubt that WWE would have gone out of their way to get AJ Styles and as many of the recognizable Bullet Club members available, especially given the staggering amount of injuries they’ve been suffering. Personally, I like to think that WWE’s ‘blow-away’ deal was more Playboy Buddy Rose-style: just mountains and mountains of cocaine.
