WWE Royal Rumble 2018: 3 Reasons Why AJ Styles Should Retain

1. AJ Styles Has Some Huge Dream Matches

For months (a year?), the WWE Universe has been buzzing about a potential match between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura. The hype started before SummerSlam 2017, as Styles and Nakamura had a staredown with the Money in the Bank briefcase hanging above them. Neither of those two men would win MITB – that honor would go to Baron Corbin – but the seed was planted.

More importantly, the crowd reaction to the staredown between Styles and Nakamura was overwhelmingly positive, and this vindicated Styles, who came up with the idea for this “spot”. Vince McMahon was skeptical that fans would care about this stand-off, but I’m guessing he changed his mind after that.

Nakamura is one of the favorites to win the Royal Rumble, which would set up a match between him and Styles, provided the latter retains the WWE Championship. After their history together in NJPW, Styles vs. Nakamura is more than worthy of a WWE Championship match at WrestleMania, even if it won’t be the main event.

Let’s say the WWE gets cold feet with Nakamura vs. Styles and wants to go with a more established (or, “boring”, depending on how you’d like to put it), then Styles vs. Randy Orton wouldn’t be half bad either. I mean, there’s no way Styles vs. Orton would flop as much as Bray Wyatt vs. Orton did, especially because Styles and Orton already put on a legitimately great match on SmackDown Live in the build to last year’s WrestleMania.