We touched on this in our previous dream match scenarios, but in the case of AJ Styles vs. Swerve Strickland, it might shine brighter than in any other situation. Styles and his run as the leader of the Bullet Club in New Japan Pro Wrestling gave The Elite the platform to become the stars that they are now. Without Styles, there would probably be no Elite, and without The Elite, there would be no AEW, meaning that without Styles, there would also be no AEW.
Out of everyone who has walked into All Elite Wrestling and felt like someone who has been there since its inception, Strickland is near the top of that list. AEW is Swerve’s house, as he and Prince Nana like to remind everyone, but think of it like this; without Styles, there’s no Elite, without The Elite, there’s no AEW, without AEW, there’s no place for Strickland to become the man that he is now. AEW might be Swerve’s house but it’s built on the land that AJ Styles planted in the mid-2010s, regardless of whether Styles has been in the company or not.
That could be the perfect story for something like this, and what it would also do is it would allow Strickland to tap into his heel persona a bit more. As beloved as he is and for the amount of fanfare that comes with him, Strickland operates at his most dangerous when he’s a heel. Having a heel Strickland in a situation like this wouldn’t just bring out the best version of him, but are AEW fans, people who have probably followed Styles’ career since before he was in TNA, Ring of Honor, or even WCW for some, are those fans really going to want to boo Styles? Of course not. He’s good enough to make them boo him for sure, and if he wanted to come in and say something like “I made this place but it wasn’t WWE so I stayed there,” that would get heat, it just wouldn’t be interesting.
Instead, you can have Styles come in and almost be proud of someone like Strickland. He would have watched him from afar, maybe even seen him on “WWE SmackDown” as part of Hit Row and thought he needed a change of scenery, only to go on and become one of the biggest names in the entire industry. Styles could be genuinely happy to see Strickland become the first black AEW World Champion, the first black man to headline a show at Wembley Stadium, the man who personifies what the vision of AEW was when it first started.
But what would Strickland see? An old veteran taking credit for all of his success. An outsider coming to take his spot. Someone who told the world in another company that he was done only to turn around and lie to them by unretiring. It’s resentment that would move this sort of story forward quickly.
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