WWE Survivor Series 2018: Here’s Why AJ Styles Could Win This Time

We are now over 24 hours removed from the events of WWE Crown Jewel, and judging by the early reviews, the results of each match has found a way to inspire shock and ire from critics. Mostly ire.

Most of that ire comes from audiences seeing Brock Lesnar capture the vacant Universal Championship during his match against Braun Strowman. If fans aren’t upset because Strowman produced practically no offense, they’re upset because the idea of a second Universal Championship reign from Brock Lesnar doesn’t sound ideal.

This is especially true after Roman’s brief reign reminded us what a fighting champion who shows up every week looks like, even if it did last only three months. Now, with Lesnar as Universal Champion again, it’s back to the same old, same old.

However, even our most cynical of readers can rest assured in Lesnar winning the title again. See, he wasn’t the only one who walked away from Saudi Arabia as a World Champion.

Earlier in the night, AJ Styles had retained his WWE Championship against Samoa Joe. Our next pay-per-view destination will be WWE Survivor Series 2018 in a couple of weeks. Anyone who is aware of WWE’s annual Raw vs SmackDown gimmick for the PPV should know what this means for the top champions of each brand.

via WWE.com

Last year, Styles and Brock Lesnar went into the Survivor Series as the top champions of their brand and faced each other. Considering that the match was hailed as both one of the best matches of the year and the most competitive match since Lesnar kicked off his Suplex City gimmick, a rematch certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

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A rematch is especially enticing knowing that Styles has a better chance at beating Lesnar than he did last year.

We know, we know, on paper, Styles getting a victory over Brock Lesnar sounds more like wishful thinking than something we should actually expect happening any time soon. After all, Brock Lesnar is, well, Brock Lesnar. And AJ Styles is, well, AJ Styles.

No offense to Styles, but if WWE wouldn’t let The Monster Among Men Braun Strowman get any offense in against Brock Lesnar yesterday, then Styles has a snowball’s chance in Iceland at beating the former UFC Champion.

At least, that’s how it appears on paper. However, as with all “paper”, there’s a fine print. In the fine print, we see that Styles has a chance – however slight it may be – at getting his hand raised this next go round.

Here’s why.

Let’s wind the clocks back to last Survivor Series. Lesnar was Universal Champion ever since WrestleMania 33, and aside from a crushing defeat at the hands of Goldberg from the previous Survivor Series, he rarely lost a match since ending The Undertaker’s Mania undefeated streak. Lesnar was essentially being built up to eventually lose a passing-of-the-torch match to Roman Reigns – which he eventually did at SummerSlam 2018 – and was made to look unbeatable.

Styles, meanwhile, had spent much of 2017 in the midcard, and it was only a couple weeks before Survivor Series where he was catapulted to being The Champ That Runs the Camp once he vanquished Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship. All things considered, while Styles delivered a surprisingly valiant effort against The Beast, it just made more sense for Brock Lesnar to win their match.

Now with Lesnar having put over Reigns, it isn’t entirely necessary for him to have to beat Styles to look strong again. I’m not saying that Lesnar should just lose all of his matches now, but I am saying he doesn’t have to win all of them either. Styles looked like a credible challenger last year, and there were several points in the match where it seemed like he could believably shock the world with a win over Lesnar. If he beat Lesnar this year, Lesnar would still look as strong as he did coming out of Crown Jewel.

Also in the past year, Styles has gone on to have a historic reign as WWE Champion. His current reign sits as the tenth longest WWE Championship reign of all time. Over 361+ days, Styles has toppled Samoans, Prized Fighters, and GOATS. Not only is he even more credible of a challenger to Lesnar than he was last year, he has an even bigger claim as to why he could beat him.

I can totally see WWE giving Styles a win over The Universal Champion, just to help cement his legacy as one of the best WWE Champions of all time.

Seeing Brock Lesnar win the Universal Championship again might have given a lot of us sour grapes and it doesn’t exactly open doors to a promising future of WWE programming, but considering it means we’re getting Styles vs Lesnar II – and Styles has a chance of toppling The Beast – that makes it all OK.