AJ Styles Made His WWE Debut Long Before the Rumble

Everyone has to have a start. AJ Styles is the current Smackdown World Champion and there’s a very strong case to be made for him being Wrestler of the Year.

As is the case with every wrestler though, they had to start somewhere and that might not be the best place in the world.

As you might not know, Styles started back in WCW under the name Air Styles as part of the Air Raid tag team.

Here they are facing off against Noble (as in Jamie Noble) and Karagias from “Thunder” on February 14, 2001.

httpss://youtube.com/watch?v=oYZPrUex5G8

Soon after this, Styles would move on to the indy circuit, including getting a shot in the WWF as a jobber. While he didn’t get to wrestle all that much, he did make an appearance on “Metal”, the weekly syndicated show, in a match against someone still around today. Here he is against the Hurricane on January 26, 2002.

httpss://youtube.com/watch?v=y1h3JCirtuU

And finally, from the next night in a dark match against someone else who had a lot of potential but got saddled with the wrong gimmick.

httpss://youtube.com/watch?v=XtEKe2YWOKg

It’s always fun to go back and see that not everyone was going to be at the top of the world when the debut. Styles may be great now but that doesn’t mean he was a can’t miss prospect from the start. A lot of people thought his partner, Air Paris, would be the star of the team. Styles got together with TNA soon after this and the rest was history as he’s been entertaining the fans for nearly fifteen years since.

Have you ever seen these matches? Which showed the most of Styles’ potential? Let us know in the comments below.