Vince McMahon Had No Idea Who AJ Styles Was When He Debuted In WWE

AJ Styles will compete for the new WWE World Title this weekend at Night of Champions. If he wins, he will become a three-time World Champion in WWE. Whether he has two or three World Title reigns to his name by the time Night of Champions comes to an end, the seven-year run he has been on in WWE is pretty impressive considering Vince McMahon didn't know who he was when he signed.

Vince McMahon Didn't Know AJ Styles

That's what Styles believes to be true at least. The Phenomenal One made his WWE debut as the number three entry in the 2016 Royal Rumble, getting a big reaction from the crowd when he walked out onto the ramp with only Roman Reigns awaiting him in the ring. It was that pop, and not the almost two decades of work to his name, that made McMahon realize Styles was a big deal.

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“I can tell you this, Vince McMahon had no idea who I was. There’s no way because he had no plans for me after the Royal Rumble,” Styles told Mark Andrews on My Love Letter To Wrestling. “I wasn’t supposed to be at Raw the next day. Yeah, so he just thought it was a fluke that I got the pop that I did in Orlando.”

Plans Change, Pal

McMahon's post-Rumble plans for Styles changed after that reaction and the two-time WWE Champion was tasked with wrestling Chris Jericho the next night on Raw. Styles put on the babyface performance he thought his new boss wanted, only to be told by McMahon he needed him to show something different.

“He says, ‘Listen, I got a thousand guys that can do what you do... I need a Pitbull’' and I go oh, oh, I know that guy, and that’s exactly the guy I was in New Japan and everywhere else.” Perhaps evidence that McMahon maybe did know a little about pre-WWE Styles, or he had at least been told about him. Quite the run Styles has been on since, and one that could include a third World Title if he beats Rollins on Saturday.