Report: AJ Styles Signs With Ring Of Honor

[Jack-Hammer]

On the WZ main page and on various other sites, ROH has issued a press release hyping the return of AJ Styles. According to reports, the deal was finalized within the past few hours and Styles will make his official return to ROH on January 4, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Styles is viewed someone who helped both ROH and TNA in getting off the ground. Styles was the inaugural ROH Pure Champion and, with Amazing Red, comprised the 2nd team to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship. Styles was primarily signed to TNA, who had a working relationship with ROH during those days, but was ultimately pulled from ROH appearances after the Rob Feinstein controversy. Styles was in the midst of his run as ROH Pure Champion when eh was pulled.

This will easily be seen as a huge loss to TNA, in terms of morale, as many have long since considered AJ Styles to be the "heart and soul" of the company. But, with the financial troubles of TNA that've been heavily reported over the past 6 months, it's not the sort of surprise that it would have been about this time last year. However, from a realistic standpoint, I don't see Styles absence affecting TNA's bottom like to any real degree.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Holy shit, so this happened on like a large-scale serious basis?


Fuuuuuuuccckkk. Awesome for ROH, shitty for TNA. Lets hope Jeff Hardy is next(for them to get rid of). Ill be ten times more likely to check out ROH now.

WWE must not have been interested


EDIT: from reading the actual headlines on this, im not sure if this is him actually "signing" with ROH, as it is him doing an appearance for them. Id need to see more info to truly develop a strong opinion

 

[ABMorales787]

Chances are it's a pay-per-appearance deal like Daniels had before jumping back to TNA. Which may be AJ's plan. Plus with his recent work with AAA, he may very well make another trip south of the border. Congrats to ROH for their major grab but to be honest when their promotion for the World Champion of the second largest promotion in the US looks like this:

Spoiler

I'm not impressed. Like at all.

 

[Harthan]

Chances are it's a pay-per-appearance deal like Daniels had before jumping back to TNA. Which may be AJ's plan. Plus with his recent work with AAA, he may very well make another trip south of the border. Congrats to ROH for their major grab but to be honest when their promotion for the World Champion of the second largest promotion in the US looks like this:

Spoiler

I'm not impressed. Like at all.

I hardly see what's wrong with the promotion. It's AJ Styles in ROH - what else do you need to put forth? They'll announce an opponent in due time - this is how this sort of thing usually works. Step 1: Hey, look who we have! Step 2: This is who he's fighting. This news is making waves in wrestling and people are talking about it. Job done.

If ROH can get AJ to commit on a regular basis it'll be fantastic. Paying per appearance might be what they have to do, though - it'll work but they would face the same problem they had with Christopher Daniels in that he's liable to jump ship at any moment. As is always the case in wrestling there's still a chance this is all a great big work and AJ is heading back to TNA anyway, but going with the information presented and available, it seems like ROH has a strong chance of keeping AJ for a good while. If they trust the situation enough to put the world title on him, that would definitely be the thing to do, but they may have to go with the same direction they did with Daniels and give him the TV title.

 

[justinsayne]

Holy shit, so this happened on like a large-scale serious basis?


Fuuuuuuuccckkk. Awesome for ROH, shitty for TNA. Lets hope Jeff Hardy is next(for them to get rid of). Ill be ten times more likely to check out ROH now.

WWE must not have been interested


EDIT: from reading the actual headlines on this, im not sure if this is him actually "signing" with ROH, as it is him doing an appearance for them. Id need to see more info to truly develop a strong opinion

I'm not certain but I think it's basically going to be a similar type of arrangement London has with ROH, couple TV tapings & a few other bigger iPPV/VOD shows (whatever they're calling them now). Either way I'm excited.