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WWE Rumors: AJ Styles To Face Off Against John Cena?

By Bernadette Giacomazzo
Published on: 20:32 PST, Sep 11, 2016

Now that AJ Styles has won the WWE World Championship title at Backlash, the WWE rumors surrounding who he will face off against next have begun to circulate. While many fans are still reeling from the fact that AJ Styles has bested Dean Ambrose (which is something that we, on this very site, predicted would happen), many more are wondering who AJ Styles will face off against next. And if the WWE rumors are true, it looks like his next nemesis will be a modern-day wrestling legend!

That’s according to Bleacher Report, whose report of the latest WWE rumors suggest that Styles’ win was “nefarious,” and only happened because he was able to best John Cena at some notable matches prior to Backlash. Further adding to the speculation that Styles facing off against Cena is inevitable is the fact that he came to the ring wearing a black armband, and insisted that people call him “The New Face That Runs The Place,” obviously taking a not-too-thinly veiled swipe at Cena with that boast.

If Cena and Styles do face off, it will be one of the most watched events in WWE history, according to the site. In addition, Cena will be able to make wrestling history. Currently, Cena has only 15 World Championship title wins, which is one short of the number of wins that Ric Flair has won in his career. However, isn’t it time for Ric Flair to get out of the rarefied air?

But according to the Monkeys Fighting Robots blog, the latest WWE rumors about AJ Styles are pretty much all for naught because Backlash was, for all intents and purposes, a flop in terms of what it’s done for SmackDown. Because the WWE wasn’t in a good position after the draft with its SmackDown brand, they needed to fill out their roster. And, it seems, they filled out their roster with some fighters that no one really cares in the least about (who, really, cared if Becky Lynch won her title?). In addition, the second-most anticipated match of the night (Bray Wyatt versus Randy Orton) was put on hold in a rather weird way (when Wyatt attacked Orton), but in reality, fans knew that Orton wasn’t cleared to fight in the ring (he’s still recovering from the gash Brock Lesnar put in his head).

In short, Backlash was all over the place, and failed to keep viewers’ attention for an extended period of time. If the blue brand wants to hold the audience’s attention after last night, it needs to find its place.

And CBS News agrees with the WWE rumors that Backlash was a flop for the blue brand. According to the site, less than half of the company’s roster was available for fights, which meant that they had to pad the lineup with “filler” (hence the Bray Wyatt forfeiture, only to find out he’s fighting Kane in a No Holds Barred match — sheesh, talk about an adrenaline dump).

But there is some good that came out of the otherwise terrible Backlash event: the WWE demonstrated its willingness to develop new talent, and to change the guard in terms of who wears what titles. Yes, Styles is a wrestling industry veteran, but he’s a talented fighter, and despite the assertion that his win against Ambrose was by questionable means, he deserves to be part of history as the first wrestler to ever win major titles in three professional wrestling companies.

What do you think of these latest WWE rumors about AJ Styles? We’ll keep you informed about the latest WWE rumors as they become known to us, but for now, leave your thoughts about the latest WWE rumors about AJ Styles in the comments below.

[Image via WWE.com]

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