Whats Up With That? (A.J. Styles)

Welcome to this week's episode of "What's Up With That?" My name is Dare2Believe and this week we are asking the question to TNA's A.J. Styles.

I have been watching Total Nonstop Action (TNA) for about three years now since they secured the 9 p.m. time slot on Thursday on Spike TV. I have seen many awe inspiring matches and some no so great matches of guys that I had only read about in Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) or on internet websites.

In those few short years I have become familiar with the likes of Robert Roode and James Storm also known collectively as Beer Money Inc. Perhaps one of the best tag teams in the industry today. I have seen a big man that can be agile in Samoa Joe and watched Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley evolve into one of the top tag teams as well in The Motor City Machine Guns. The top man in the company in my mind is "The Phenomanal" A.J. Styles.

Also, since beginng to watch I have seen several WWE castoffs join the company in Christian Cage (now back with WWE), Kurt Angle, Elijah "The Pope" Burke, Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam to name a few.

In professional wrestling it is inevitable that from time to time a wrestler will change his/her in ring philosophy and go from being a beloved fan favorite (babyface) to a hated villain (heel). With A.J. Styles I can't figure him out. He has went from babyface to heel and back so many times in the short time I have watched so many times I have lost count..

When I first started he was a fan favorite, then after the Kurt Angle signing, he developed a crush on Karen Angle (now Karen Jarrett--a whole other story). This storyline caused Karen's then real life husband Kurt to be jealous and a feud between Styles and A.J. began. A.J. portrayed himself as a goof in spite of his ring abilities.

Styles eventually (during the feud) reverted back to babyface and went on to become the TNA World champion and was ranked as the number one wrestler in the world by the editors of Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI), which marked the first time that a TNA star received that accolade. A.J. then began to align himself with the Nature Boy, Ric Flair who began to mentor him and mold him, if you will, in his own image and A.J. developed the cocky, arrogance displayed by 'Naitch over the last 30 plus years.

Flair formed a new faction called Fortune consisting of Beer Money Inc. Kazarian and A.J. and when the Hogan/Bishchoff regime took over the company, the two groups merged and morphed into Immortal, a new super group of heels. All in an attempt by Hogan to reinvent the old NWO storyline of the glory days of WCW.

A.J. fell out of the good graces of Easy E and at a recent PPV he and Fortune turned on Immortal and split from the group making A.J. a fan favorite once again.

That's why I have to ask, "What's Up With That?"

A.J., can't you decide which side of the fence you want to be on. Are you going to be the fans hero or are you going to be the one we love to hate? Personally, I prefer you as a fan favorite. Afterall, as a babyface you were the World champion not to mention number one in the PWI top 500 in 2010.

While I know Flair can teach you the tricks of the trade. After all, he is a 16 time World champion and "the Dirtiest Player in the Game." You can learn the art of manipulation and backstabbing from Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. That's never the way to achieve superstardom. Forget Fortune and the hand signals and become the leader of the TNA originals that you must be. You are better than that. The fans want someone they can cheer on to victory week in and week out. Get out of Flair's shadow and begin to cast your own shadow.