The Evolution Of AJ Styles’ Phenomenal 27 Yr Profession

On January 31, 2026, wrestling fans all over the world could thoroughly witness the ultimate match within the profession of “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles. The previous WWE Champion will go one-on-one with Gunther on the Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, where if Styles loses he might be forced to retire, something that many individuals expected in some unspecified time in the future this 12 months but were unsure as to when Styles would hang up his boots.

Styles confirmed in September 2025 that he could be retiring in the approaching months, even being unsure as as to whether he would still be an lively performer by the point WrestleMania 42 rolls around in April. News of his contract potentially expiring in February has been well-documented. His opponent at essentially the most recent Saturday Night’s Primary Event show, Shinsuke Nakamura, hinted that Styles could be retired by the tip of the month, and the person himself has all the time had one eye on spending more time together with his family because the years have passed him by.

Nothing is ever concrete in wrestling, and Styles could thoroughly beat Gunther on the Royal Rumble and proceed wrestling well into 2026 and beyond, but all signs point to “The Phenomenal One” having one last dance on January 31, meaning that there isn’t any higher time to look back on Styles’ 27-year profession than now. 

Styles has had one of the crucial decorated and illustrious careers of his generation. He’s one of the crucial necessary wrestlers of the twenty first century, inspiring a who’s who of stars the world over to turn out to be wrestlers themselves. Just take a look at any Will Ospreay match in AEW, and you may see the Styles influence all over the place. Attempting to have fun such an impactful profession in a strict set of words might be tricky, but he absolutely deserves it. That is the exceptional profession of AJ Styles.

Growing up in Gainesville, Georgia, Allen Jones was a fan of skilled wrestling and was extremely lively when it got here to sports. Unlike some individuals who imagine wrestling is their destiny, AJ wasn’t dead set on making it big in wrestling, and only went to a wrestling school with two old friends of his since it was near his house, and he had no excuse to not go. Nonetheless, once he got into the ring and realized that wrestling was something he was good at, the person we all know now as AJ Styles was officially born.

Debuting on the tail end of the Nineties, Styles wrestled primarily for the NWA Wildside promotion in Georgia, where he quickly rose up the ranks and ended up crossing paths with the likes of Sabu, The Jung Dragons, and even a young R-Truth when he was referred to as K-Krush. It was in NWA Wildside where Styles would meet someone who could be very necessary to his early profession, Air Paris, with the 2 having quite a few standout matches against one another that WCW took notice of.

Styles initially turned down a contract offer from WCW in 2000 as he actually made money splitting his time between sporadic indie dates and being a water delivery man, but Styles and Paris were brought into WCW in 2001 as the corporate was attempting to breathe recent life into its Cruiserweight division. Nonetheless, just as Paris and Styles began to turn heads as Air Raid, WCW was purchased by WWE, and each men went back to square one.

Styles would compete in quite a few dark matches for WWE in 2001 and early 2002 and looked as if it would impress officials as he was offered a developmental contract, which might have earned him $500 per week. Nonetheless, Styles would turn the offer down for one most important reason: he didn’t wish to move his wife to Cincinnati, Ohio, as she was still ending her college degree to turn out to be a teacher. Styles didn’t know if he would ever get a chance to wrestle for WWE again, but his turning down that contract was the one best decision he would ever make.

Just a few months after turning down a proposal from WWE and bouncing across the independent scene, AJ Styles signed on to turn out to be a member of the NWA-TNA roster in June 2002. Right from the beginning, Styles was seen as a future most important event player, but his revolutionary offense made him an ideal fit for the corporate’s “X-Division,” where it wasn’t about weight limits, it was about no limits.

The X-Division was designed to be the updated version of WCW’s cruiserweight division, and Styles became the poster child for that division. He was the inaugural TNA X-Division Champion and quickly became one of the crucial exciting acts in all of wrestling within the early 2000s, earning himself the nickname “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles in the method. While he would incessantly hop from division to division, winning each the NWA Worlds Heavyweight and Worlds Tag Team Championships, it was his work within the X-Division that arguably put TNA Wrestling on the map as a promotion.

A six-time TNA X-Division Champion, second only to Chris Sabin for variety of reigns with the title, his matches with the likes of Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Jerry Lynn, Low Ki, Petey Williams, the aforementioned Chris Sabin, and so many others made TNA a must-see promotion within the 2000s. Without Styles leading the X-Division, there is a likelihood TNA doesn’t get on to Spike TV in late 2005. Styles’ matches from this time period must be seen to be believed, particularly his bouts with Daniels and Joe which are considered a few of one of the best in TNA history, but everyone knew Styles would must move as much as the heavyweight division in some unspecified time in the future, and while the X-Division still exists to at the present time, it has never reached the heights of when Styles was the crown jewel.

By the beginning of 2008, AJ Styles was a legitimate most important event draw for TNA. He was routinely mixing it up with the likes of Christian Cage, Sting, Kurt Angle, and plenty of more, and while he had already turn out to be a Grand Slam Champion in TNA by holding every title that was on offer no less than once, it wasn’t until the tip of the 2000s that the corporate truly put their trust in him.

At TNA’s No Give up pay-per-view in September 2009, Styles won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the primary time (the NWA lineages didn’t cross over after 2007), and there was an instantaneous uptick in interest for the corporate. He very nearly retired Sting at that 12 months’s Sure For Glory event, had a heavyweight version of the Unbreakable three-way bout with Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, and even had Ric Flair managing him for a temporary time when TNA tried to compete with “WWE Raw” on Monday nights. Styles had already been given the award of “Mr. TNA” by the fans for 3 consecutive years between 2003 and 2005, nevertheless it was this time that he truly was the face of the promotion.

His success wasn’t insular either as in 2010, Styles became the primary TNA wrestler in history to top Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s PWI500 list, beating the likes of John Cena, Randy Orton, and CM Punk to the highest spot, making him the primary non-WWE wrestler to top the list since Dean Malenko who was primary in 1997 when he worked for WCW. To at the present time, no TNA wrestler has ever topped the list outside of Styles, who would go on to be named PWI’s “Wrestler of the Decade” in 2020.

Styles would hold the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for a second time, but that reign got here during a really dark time for “The Phenomenal One.”

In 2013, AJ Styles was a lone wolf in TNA Wrestling to the purpose where that became his recent nickname after rejecting an invite to affix Aces & Eights, but he didn’t see eye-to-eye with the promotion as an entire. He was still as phenomenal as ever in between the ropes (pun very much intended) as he would win the 2013 Sure For Glory series to earn a TNA World Heavyweight Championship match at Sure For Glory, where he would dethrone Bully Ray to turn out to be the brand new champion. Nonetheless, that reign would only last for nine days because those promotional issues were very much real.

Styles’ TNA contract had expired in August 2013, and was working on a handshake agreement as negotiations went on behind the scenes. When Styles publicly declined TNA President Dixie Carter’s contract offer, he was stripped of his title, and while this was portrayed as a storyline, fans knew something wasn’t right. Styles would return a couple of weeks later, claiming to be the actual TNA World Heavyweight Champion, as he was never beaten for the belt, which actually led to him defending his title in each AAA and Wrestle-1 in Mexico and Japan respectively, after Carter stripped him of the title.

“The Phenomenal One” would have an Undisputed TNA World Heavyweight Championship match against Magnus at a “TNA Impact” taping in December 2013, which he would lose, and that ended up being his final match for the corporate. Negotiations completely broke down between Styles and the corporate, with Styles admitting that he was asked to take a 60% pay cut to do the identical amount of labor. After nearly 12 years of being “Mr. TNA” to a variety of people, AJ Styles was a free agent, and he needed to reignite his passion for wrestling elsewhere.

Once his TNA contract expired, AJ Styles didn’t waste any time in keeping himself busy as he dove head first back into the independent scene, wrestling the likes of Chris Hero, Cedric Alexander, and Drew Gulak lower than a month after his final match for TNA aired on TV. Nonetheless, he did have one promotion that he could call home, one which he was already very accustomed to; Ring of Honor.

Styles had already wrestled for ROH in the course of the 2000s, even defeating CM Punk to turn out to be the inaugural ROH Pure Champion in 2004, in addition to winning the ROH Tag Team Championships with The Amazing Red. Those ROH dates began to decelerate for Styles as he focused mainly on his work with TNA, but with no ties to any promotion on the time, Styles returned to ROH in 2014 and immediately became a most important event player. He wasn’t precisely the lone wolf that he was towards the tip of his time in TNA, but he carried with him a hunger and drive that made people arise and take notice, this was a version of AJ Styles who had something to prove; that he was still among the finest on the planet.

While he didn’t win any gold during his second run with ROH, he did win gold elsewhere. He had a cup of coffee with the FWE World Heavyweight Championship, being the ultimate champion as Family Wrestling Entertainment folded shortly after Styles won the title. He would also win the PPW Tag Team Championships alongside Tommy Suede, and would also have a seven month reign because the RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion, before being beaten in January 2016 by Zack Sabre Jr..

Ring of Honor may need been his home promotion in the US, but between 2014 and 2016, AJ Styles called Recent Japan Pro Wrestling his home.

Having made appearances in NJPW through a working relationship TNA had with the corporate within the 2000s, Styles made his return to NJPW on the Invasion Attack event in April 2014. He attacked IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada, vowed to take his title, and revealed himself as the latest member of Bullet Club on the identical night that Prince “Finn Balor” Devitt was leaving the faction and the corporate. Everyone knew Styles would slot in perfectly with the most important event scene in NJPW, but not many individuals expected him to achieve the heights he did in the corporate, winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Okada in his first match since signing with the corporate on a full-time basis.

From there, Styles became the unofficial leader of Bullet Club, taking the faction to a level of recognition never before seen for a Japanese faction. It naturally helped that Styles, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Doc Gallows, and Karl Anderson routinely made appearances in North America, but Bullet Club with Styles as the point of interest was a cultural juggernaut that became essentially the most talked-about group in all of wrestling.

Styles would have two reigns with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, had classic bouts with the aforementioned Okada in addition to Kota Ibushi, Minoru Suzuki, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Shinsuke Nakamura, and solidified himself as one of the best wrestler on the planet. “The Phenomenal One” looked to have reached his final form, he was untouchable in Japan to the purpose where people still cite his NJPW run as his finest work. Nonetheless, the trips to Japan would take their toll, and the US got here calling once more, only this time, it was WWE.

Almost 14 years after originally turning the corporate down, AJ Styles finally made his official WWE debut because the third entrant within the 2016 Royal Rumble match. He wrapped up his time in NJPW with an all-time classic against Shinsuke Nakamura, who could be in WWE himself just a couple of months later. He said goodbye to Bullet Club and Ring of Honor curtain call-style, and strolled down the WWE entrance way for the primary time to the sheer delight of those in attendance. Styles didn’t actually know if he was going to get a response from the WWE Universe as he was unsure if anyone had seen him in TNA, ROH, or NJPW, but by the point he was eliminated, he was the one person anyone was talking about.

Following the Royal Rumble, “The Phenomenal One” went on to have one in every of the best first years that anyone has had in WWE, or in any company for that matter. Names like Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar are all the time brought up on the subject of the conversation of “biggest rookie years in WWE,” but Styles ranks right up there as by the tip of 2016, he was “The Face That Runs The Place.”

He would make his WrestleMania debut in April, facing off in a dream match with Chris Jericho, before following that up with a pair of WWE World Championship matches against Roman Reigns which are still considered a few of one of the best matches of Reigns’ time as “The Big Dog.” In the summertime of 2016, Styles did what many long-time fans of his thought was unthinkable and beat John Cena on pay-per-view not once, but twice, after which went on to achieve the head of the business in the autumn by dethroning Dean Ambrose to turn out to be the WWE Champion. Styles would have fun his one-year anniversary in the corporate by walking into the 2017 Royal Rumble because the WWE Champion to face John Cena in one in every of the best WWE matches of the last decade. Not bad for a primary 12 months.

At one time limit, the considered AJ Styles being synonymous with an organization not named TNA seemed inconceivable, and yet he has gone on to spend a complete decade in WWE, cementing himself as one in every of the best WWE Superstars of the trendy era. He already had the love of the fans before he got to WWE, and was thought to be the one best wrestler on the planet during his time in NJPW, but Styles didn’t decelerate after his first 12 months in WWE and has been leaving the jaws of fans on the ground ever since.

Not only did he end 2016 because the WWE Champion, but he also ended 2017 because the WWE Champion as he dethroned Jinder Mahal on an episode of “WWE SmackDown Live” in November. This may be the beginning of a 371-day reign as champion, making him one in every of only five men because the turn of the millennium to carry the WWE Championship for a couple of 12 months. Styles has also had three reigns with the WWE United States Championship, a solitary run with the WWE Intercontinental Championship that began with arguably the best match of the COVID-19 pandemic for WWE against Daniel Bryan, and have become a WWE Grand Slam Champion at WrestleMania 37 in 2021 when he won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships alongside Omos.

Styles also has the unique distinction of being final man to wrestle The Undertaker, facing “The Deadman” in a Boneyard Match at WrestleMania 36 in 2020, which finally gave Taker the much needed closure for his own profession. In the event you had told AJ Styles when he was TNA X-Division Champion within the 2000s that he could be the person to effectively retire The Undertaker, he probably would have laughed at you, but “The Deadman” ranked Styles alongside Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart as among the finest performers he has ever seen, and was incredibly pleased with that bout.

That every one brings us to the current day, and in contrast to John Cena, who had nearly all of 2025 dedicated to his retirement run, Styles has quietly been having a stellar retirement run of his own.

Styles is worshipped like a God in France, of all places, as he’s routinely serenaded by the audience each time he goes there. He got to travel back to Japan to have a dream match with Naomichi Marufuji in Pro Wrestling NOAH, and he even made a protracted awaited return to TNA at Slammiversary 2025 to pass the ceremonial torch of the X-Division to Leon Slater, who currently reigns because the TNA X-Division Champion. In WWE, he’s been in a position to run it back with old rivals like Shinsuke Nakamura and John Cena, he had gold around his waist as recently as the ultimate week of 2025 alongside Dragon Lee as one half of the WWE World Tag Team Champions, and even attempted to have one final run at the highest by facing CM Punk for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on “WWE Raw” in January 2026.

Now all that is left is “The Ring General,” Gunther. A person who has beaten Styles one-on-one this 12 months, and considering he was the person to retire John Cena, he’s got a taste for killing careers, and Styles is next on his list. There’s every likelihood that Styles wins this Saturday, or loses and continues wrestling elsewhere like TNA, NJPW, and even somewhere he’s never been like AEW, but when this Saturday is the tip, what a journey it has been.

From tagging together with some old friends to a wrestling school to carry up his end of an agreement, to becoming one in every of the best performers the wrestling business has ever seen, there won’t ever be anyone quite as phenomenal as AJ Styles.