A Phenomenal rise to the top: AJ Styles is the top wrestler of 2017

It's hard to argue that the obvious most valuable player of WWE today deserves a place at the top of the list. Over his twenty year career, we've watched AJ evolve from a cruiserweight jobber alongside Air Paris, to a foundation of the early days of TNA as X Division champion to a seasoned champion in Impact Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling and now World Wrestling Entertainment.

Image credit: WWE.com.

While he missed ranking on the Top 10 during the final days of his NJPW run (he actually came in #24 in the overall poll), he ranked at number two last year behind only Broken Matt Hardy. But this year, he would prove why he carried his nickname for all these years.

AJ opened and closed the year with the WWE World Heavyweight champion. But he would quickly drop the title at Royal Rumble to give John Cena his sixteenth (and three week) reign with the title. He took his immediate anger out on Shane McMahon. Their hatred brewed for several weeks until the two met in a brutal match to open Wrestlemania. With the anger between the two cooling, AJ turned face and started a run of matches like no other in WWE.

He entered a stellar feud with this year's #7, Kevin Owens. Over several months, the two men had amazing match after amazing match that extended through the summer. Ultimately, he would walk out with a short reign with the United States title. Though he quickly dropped that belt in match with Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler, he quickly rose to prominence by beating Jinder Mahal for his second title. He wrestled Brock Lesnar in an epic encounter at Survivor Series. From there he finished his feud with Jinder, only to move back to another series of stellar matches with Kevin Owens and Owens' new ally Sami Zayn.


AJ didn't come in at first place based on his winning record. In fact, he dropped far more pay-per-view matches than he won in 2017. But winning is far from everything in an entertainment form as subjective as professional wrestling. Every week he appeared in a match, Styles wowed fans. He consistently pulled out some of the best matches ever from Jinder Mahal or Baron Corbin. His in ring psychology is second to none and his offense is filled with flashy moves he can hit quickly and effectively. With a control of his body like no other talent on the planet, he can switch from solid mat skills to high flying in an instant. This versatility gives him so many ways to keep a match's momentum moving forward, that it may actually be impossible for AJ to have a bad match.

Over the course of the year, AJ has done something WWE has tried to do for over a decade with limited success (and rarely succeeded purposefully.) They have created a true blue white meat babyface that children, casual fans and the more jaded older fans (like myself) can get behind. It's made him easily the most popular talent online in the WWE roster. He's even one of the four talents focused on for merchandise over at WWE Shop. Sharing company with massive merch sellers like John Cena, The Shield and Finn Balor is nothing to scoff about.

The real question for AJ is where he's going in 2018. A feud with Shinsuke Nakamura may be in the future. If AJ retains and Nakamura wins the Rumble, they could set up a super-hot feud that could re-energize Nakamura. If they can come even close to their mat classic at Wrestle Kingdom 10 they could create something truly... phenomenal.