So last night, AJ Styles flew off the handle and put Shane-O Mac's Head-O Mac through a car window. He was almost immediately "fired" by Daniel Bryan, in a bit of obviously kayfabe tension ahead of his obvious showdown with Shane at WrestleMania in a few weeks.
But apparently I can take those ironic quotation marks from around the word "fired" and I can shove 'em, because the WWE has moved AJ Styles to the alumni section of their website.
It's true.
Look:
Look at him up there in the corner, surrounded on all sides by AJ Lee, Alberto Del Rio and Alex Riley.
He looks so upset.
And if you click on his picture, it takes you to his Bio which is now written in the past tense:
To describe AJ Styles in a word? Phenomenal … and, throughout his stint in WWE, he was the first to tell you that, along with many, many, many other things.
While he might have been full of himself, absolutely no one could deny Styles’ ability. Known the world over for his in-ring prowess, thrilling aerial maneuvers and supreme confidence, Styles found success everywhere he’s traveled, accumulating an incredibly impressive résumé, capped off by sports-entertainment's most prestigious title, the WWE Championship. But, despite his tremendous talent and fierce intensity on the mic, his often underhanded tactics often overshadowed his achievements.
After making his long-awaited WWE debut in the 2016 Royal Rumble Match, The Phenomenal One brawled with the likes of Chris Jericho, The Miz, Roman Reigns, Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler and further solidified his reputation with important victories over John Cena.
Like him or loathe him, you could not argue with success. While he boasted that he is both “The Face that Runs the Place” and “The Champ that Runs the Camp,” Styles firmly placed himself at the top of the heap on SmackDown LIVE. But that all came crashing down when he threw SmackDown LIVE Commissioner Shane McMahon into a car window on March 14, 2017. As a result of that incident, SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan fired Styles and kicked him out of the arena.
You gotta admit, they're committing to the storyline.
Well, all except for one guy.
The guy who posted this on the same website last night, before the Shane/AJ match was finalized:
To be clear, the official line is that AJ is fired and this match hasn't been signed yet. This photo isn't on the WWE website anymore, but it used to be, and it was up there while at the same time, on a different page, you were being informed that AJ was no longer with the company.
Communication is key, friends.
You gotta let the graphic design guy know when you're firing a dude in storyline. It's just common courtesy.
It looks like they're going to have Shane re-hire AJ, just so they can have a match at Mania. Maybe AJ's contract will be on the line or something.
For now, we'll just have to sit back and cope with the knowledge that we're living in the "post-AJ Styles" era of WWE.
