Fan reactions
In the modern era of wrestling, it is tough to get a babyface who gets constantly cheered by the WWE universe. AJ Styles is one of the rare breeds of such wrestlers. While Braun Strowman got cheered for the most of the year, his heel turn had a negative impact on that.
Rather than getting booed, fans did not even react to a heel Strowman. Even though Seth Rollins had a brilliant fan reception for most of the year, his matches against Dolph Ziggler (30 minutes Ironman match) at Extreme Rules and Dean Ambrose at TLC were heavily ignored by the WWE Universe. Fans also rebuked most of his segments involving the Shield.
However, for AJ Styles, that was not the case. Other than for his Wrestlemania match against Shinsuke Nakamura, the WWE universe was invested deeply in any AJ Styles match in 2018, just watch his match against Daniel Bryan at TLC.