What if Brock Lesnar had really left WWE after SummerSlam 2018?

#2 AJ Styles carries the WWE Championship into Survivor Series

WWE fans had already seen Lesnar vs. Styles at Survivor Series 2017.

The champion vs. champion match between Brock Lesnar and Daniel Bryan at Survivor Series was a good one, memorable if only for the oddball dynamic of both men working as heels. Lesnar got to play his best bully version of himself against an outsized opponent. Bryan did play the underdog, but also a conniving one who wasn’t above using a low blow to change his fortunes temporarily in the match.

Perhaps Bryan would have beaten AJ Styles for the WWE Championship going into Survivor Series anyway, but it certainly felt like a part of the timing came down to WWE avoiding staging the same match as the year before between Lesnar and Styles, which probably would have had the same outcome of Lesnar eventually overwhelming his game challenger. Had Lesnar not been part of the equation, it’s conceivable WWE would have given Styles this champion vs. champion match as sort of a victory lap to commemorate his full year with the strap before dropping it to Bryan and resuming the present timeline in the weeks to follow.