WWE Survivor Series 2017: Forecasting AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar

What will it look like when the Phenomenal One battles The Beast Incarnate at WWE Survivor Series 2017?

After dethroning Jinder Mahal on an episode of SmackDown, AJ Styles will face Brock Lesnar at WWE Survivor Series 2017.

The match gives an already loaded Survivor Series card even more firepower.

The move to put the WWE Championship back on Styles was surprising, and it now leaves us with a dream match of epic proportions. No disrespect intended toward Mahal, but a Mahal-Lesnar match had little intrigue.

Ever since Styles came to the WWE, a showdown with Lesnar was one of the matches the internet was dying to see.

An interesting layer to this dream match is how both men have history in Japan. As John “Bradshaw” Layfield noted during Styles’ debut entrance, both Styles and Lesnar have held the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

With the battle now on the horizon, it’s fair to wonder what kind of match we’re going to see.

The biggest issue some may have with this match is the size difference. Lesnar is billed as being 6’3″ and 265 lbs. In comparison, Styles is listed as 5’11” and 218 lbs. And while the difference in size is definitely noticeable, it shouldn’t detract this match from being great.

Lesnar’s last number of opponents have all been able to match his power and strength. Goldberg, Samoa Joe, Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns all stood toe-to-toe with The Beast. Obviously, Styles cannot match Lesnar’s raw, brute force.

However, Styles is the best wrestler in the company, and that should be the story in this match. It should function as a monster versus the very best wrestler. We’ve seen Styles work wonderfully with larger competitors, too,

His matches with Roman Reigns were outstanding, which leads one to believe the match with Lesnar will be no different.

What makes this match believable is the fact that Styles is basically always the smaller guy when he’s in the ring. Because of that, fans have become accustomed to seeing a certain type of Styles match. Against Lesnar, it would make sense for Styles to utilize more aerial offense than he usually would, as that would further emphasis the clash of styles — pun, of course, intended.

For this match to reach its full potential, Styles needs to bring out all the stops against Lesnar.

While there’s no way to accurately predict exactly how the match will play out, one thing’s for sure: It’s going to be something different, and something we haven’t seen in a very long time.

This may be a bold prediction, but I don’t think this match will be a standard Lesnar suplex-fest. I think that would be a bad move for the WWE. If you throw your WWE Champion, the guy who’s supposed to be the very best on SmackDown, it would be counterintuitive to see him be thrown around for five minutes.

With that being said, Lesnar is likely going over. As the company’s biggest draw, it makes sense to see him reign supreme over Styles.

In terms of what the match will look like, it makes sense to look back to 2013. At that year’s SummerSlam event, Lesnar clashed with CM Punk. Despite not being a technical masterpiece, it was an all-out war. The story being told in that match was the smaller Punk giving Lesnar everything he could handle.

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If you’d like to go back in the annals of WWE history even farther, this match could resemble a Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel, or Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna formula.

Whether this match features a variety of high spots or not, there’s no denying its match of the year potential.