When The Undertaker started thinking about the final match of his professional wrestling career, there was one man he decided he wanted to wrestle above all others in a trip to the Boneyard: AJ Styles.
But why? Styles and Taker had no previous feuds, weren’t secretly connected behind the scenes, and had never even worked a singles match at any point in their respective careers; why would “Mean” Mark opt to say au revoir to the squared circle against a fresh foe when so many of the legends he spent years working with were still around and capable of working one more match if need be?
Well, as the “Deadman” noted on his Six Feet Under podcast, the decision came down to his incredible respect for Styles as a performer, noting that he’s the closest thing to Shawn Michaels, his signature WrestleMania opponent, WWE has right now.
“[AJ Styles] checks all the boxes. I don’t know if there will ever be another Shawn Michaels. I put a disclaimer on it, but AJ Styles can work with anybody. He can make anybody look like a million bucks and still be able to you know — AJ is not a big guy, but has the ability to work with anybody and make it believable, make it solid,” The Undertaker explained via Fightful.
“That doesn’t make AJ Shawn Michaels, but those are the two guys that have the generation’s [highest] work level. That’s my opinion, I’m sure somebody else will have a different opinion. That’s kind of the reason why the whole Boneyard match happened is because I didn’t get a chance to work with AJ and that lured me. I really do [hold him in such high regard] as a human being and as a performer.”
While Cody Rhodes clearly believes he can defeat the “Phenomenal One” at Backlash, as why would he accept the match if he didn’t, he too was quick to celebrate Styles for his ability to work matches at a high level, comparing him to Bret Hart before signing their Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Can one performer be Hart-esque and HBK-like at the same time? Well, when you’re as “Phenomenal” as Styles, I guess the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
Pete Dunne celebrates AJ Styles for his “Phenomenal” wrestling.
Speaking of wrestlers who really appreciate what AJ Styles brings to the table in WWE, Pete Dunne was recently a guest on Bill Apter’s WrestleBinge and was asked about the “Phenomenal One,” a performer the “Bruiserweight” has clearly taken influence from over the years.
Though they have never shared the ring together in WWE or otherwise for a singles match, Dunne has been studying Styles’, um, style since he was in TNA and would love to work a singles match with the 46-year-old before he calls it a career.
“I wrestled him recently in a four-way, but I grew up admiring AJ Styles a lot,” Pete Dunne told Bill Apter via Fightful. “I was a big fan of his independent stuff at that time, and that early TNA stuff. We had the Wrestling Channel back in the UK, and he was on it a lot. So he was somebody that I looked up [to] a lot,”
Asked what he feels makes Styles worthy of the “Phenomenal” moniker, Dunne laid it out plainly, noting that his attitude is just as important as his in-ring abilities.
“I think for me, he’s pretty jacked, but in the industry, he’s that undersized guy, but he has that attitude he talked about,” Styles noted via Fightful. “He’s hostile in the ring, he’s aggressive, he had that. On top of that, he had all the flair stuff, the spiral tap, all the flips, and that kind of stuff. He was just a big inspiration on me, and I wrestled him in a four-way recently, but obviously, I’d like to get that one-on-one match at some point, would be fantastic.”
Though he’s only recently stepped back into the “Bruiserweight” gimmick he made famous in NXT UK and NXT proper, with his time as Butch giving some main roster fans a false impression of what he can do in the ring, there was a time when Dunne was one of the hottest acts around, a cruiserweight who could fight above his weight class due to his sheer brutality. If WWE can give Dunne a bit of a push as a singles guy, who knows, maybe the day could eventually come when the duo works a proper program that puts over the Birmingham native on Styles’ way out the door.
