During this week’s Raw, it was announced that AJ Styles would be appearing during this week’s NXT. He is set to confront Grayson Waller, who mocked Styles on social media over the weekend by saying he has the same haircut as his mom and that if Styles were on Tinder, he wouldn’t be getting any matches. He’d end by stealing Styles’ nickname and calling himself the “The Phenomenal Grayson Waller.”
While it seems odd for a member of the main roster in his 40s to be appearing on the newly rebranded young and fresh NXT, Dave Meltzer has provided some reasoning on his Wrestling Observer Radio show. He would theorize that due to NXT going up against two NFL matches, they are trying to avoid getting destroyed in the ratings by featuring Styles.
Seemingly WWE believes that Styles is a big enough name to convince fans of the NFL to still tune into NXT. However, whether they are correct remains to be seen, as NXT has been struggling in the ratings lately, with last week’s edition averaging 561,000 viewers, which was down 4.9% from the prior week. To put this into perspective, the Halloween Havoc-themed edition of NXT averaged 746,000 viewers.
It also isn’t known whether Styles’ appearance will be a one-off or if he will become an NXT regular over the coming weeks. Regardless, he does appear set to remain on Raw, having just started feuding with tag partner Omos after the 7 ft 3 Nigerian refused to tag in during a match with Rey and Dominik Mysterio. This led to the pair coming to blows before Styles was left laying and Omos announcing a match between the former partners.
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