10 WWE superstars who had disappointing WrestleMania debuts

2. A.J. Styles

A.J. Styles' booking at his first WrestleMania did not make any sense whatsoever

A.J. Styles is arguably the best wrestler alive today, and his debut at Royal Rumble 2016 was met with roaring approval. Unfortunately, because of backstage politics at play at the time, Styles’ WrestleMania debut was met with disappointment and confusion.

Styles was feuding with Chris Jericho at the time, and they were booked in a match together at WrestleMania 32. How, the most logical decision – and in fact, the only sensible decision – would’ve been for Styles to win in order to prove to fans that might not have heard of him that he was as good as everyone said he was.

However, for some strange reason, Jericho was the one to have won, and Styles lost in his WrestleMania debut, in a match that wasn’t even the best match on that card. The ironic thing was that despite losing, Styles was the one to challenge for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship afterwards, proving that the biggest show of the year didn’t even matter. It was an awful decision.

If the goal was for Styles to challenge Reigns, what was the point of Jericho winning, especially since he wasn’t challenging for the top prize in WWE? Styles needed to prove that he was a credible contender, yet he lost against Jericho, a man that – despite being firmly established as a legend in the wrestling business – was booked as a part-timer in WWE at the time.

Simply put, none of this made sense at all, which only made WrestleMania 32 that much worse in retrospect.