AJ Styles reaches one year as WWE champion
Wednesday 30 October 2019 16:06, UK
AJ Styles has reached the one-year mark of his reign as WWE champion.
Styles hit the milestone on Wednesday night with a successful title defence in a triple-threat match against Samoa Joe and Daniel Bryan at the company's live event in Nottingham.
It provided a neat British symmetry for Styles, who won the championship at the live episode of SmackDown which was filmed in Manchester in November 2017.
It also means Styles has now moved into ninth place in the list of the company's longest-serving champions of all time, overtaking Hulk Hogan's run between WrestleMania V and WrestleMania VI.
His run has included successful feuds against top-level competitors such as Shinsuke Nakamura and Samoa Joe, with Bryan potentially his next opponent for the blue brand's top singles title.
Styles' next televised match will not be a title defence but will be the champion-against-champion showdown with Universal champ Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series.
It will be the second Survivor Series in a row at which the two have clashed, with Styles helping Lesnar to what many feels was one of the best matches of his career last year.
