5 Major stars who played sidekicks to mid-carders that fans forgot about

#3 AJ Styles in The Christian Coalition

Before AJ Styles was a WWE main eventer, he played a lot of roles for Impact Wrestling, including an underling for Christian.

AJ Styles had a tumultuous run throughout his time with Impact Wrestling. Yes, he was a multi-time world champion who worked multiple Bound For Glory main event matches. He also bounced between different personas and alliances, though.

In particular, after his first stretch as a main event guy, the company relegated him to the role of joining Tyson Tomko, as supporting players for The Christian Coalition.

To be fair, Impact did treat Christian as a main eventer for much of his tenure. There’s an argument to be made that 'Captain Charisma' was ultimately more than a mid-carder in WWE, too, for the summer of 2011 he spent in the World Heavyweight Championship mix.

Just the same, taking a wide-angle view on Christian’s career in mainstream wrestling, he was mostly a very talented mid-card or tag team performer. By contrast, Styles was an off and on top guy for not only Impact, but New Japan.

Moreover, his improbable late-career run with WWE has seen him enjoy two lengthy runs as world champion—at least on paper, well out-achieving the man he once played a sidekick to.