Rock Region, Minneapolis SubRegion, 2nd Round: (6) AJ Styles v. (11) Ultimate Warrior

[NSL]

This is a second round match in the Minneapolis SubRegion of The Rock Region. It is a standard one-on-one match. It will take place at the Target Center.

(6) "The Phenomenal" A.J. Styles

vs.

(11) The Ultimate Warrior

Polls will be open for three days following a one day period for discussion. Voting will be based on who you feel is the greater of the two competitors. Post your reasons for why your pick should win below. Remember that this is non-spam and the most votes in the poll win. Any ties will be broken by the amount of posts of support for each candidate, with one vote per poster.

Also remember that this is a non-spam forum. If you post a response without giving a reason for your selection, it will be penalized for spam and deleted.​

 

[NSL]

I'd give both of my nuts to see this match happen, prime versus prime. I'm a big time AJ mark, but my love for Warrior goes back to about the time I was in diapers. Both of these guys are exciting to watch, against almost anyone they were ever put in the ring with, and were insanely popular, transcending the companies they worked for.

I'm honestly torn on who I would vote for. I'd say that AJ has a longer list of accomplishments, but he doesn't have a win that compares to beating Hogan at Mania. Warrior was more popular than anyone for a short period of time, while AJ was on more popular than anyone in TNA, and arguably a good portion of WWE, for a longer time on top. Then he was top dog in NJPW, and is now already earning a title shot in WWE. This is going to be close, or at least should be. I could be swayed on this.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

If you really want to do prime vs. prime, not many people who ever wrestled anywhere could beat Warrior's popularity, let alone AJ Styles. I'm not knocking Styles. I'm just saying if you take their top moments in professional wrestling, it's a landslide.

 

[Alex]

Warrior is going off three years work (impressive three years don't get me wrong). Nothing more nothing less. He didn't do anything noteworthy before, he didn't do anything noteworthy after (unless you count squashing Triple H)

AJ Styles has been at the top end wherever he is for the past 14 years. Even now four months into his WWE career he's challenging for the world title. That is impressive.

Top that off with AJ is just flat out a better wrestler than Warrior and has beaten people Warrior's size before and AJ should win

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Warrior is going off three years work (impressive three years don't get me wrong). Nothing more nothing less. He didn't do anything noteworthy before, he didn't do anything noteworthy after (unless you count squashing Triple H)

AJ Styles has been at the top end wherever he is for the past 14 years. Even now four months into his WWE career he's challenging for the world title. That is impressive.

Top that off with AJ is just flat out a better wrestler than Warrior and has beaten people Warrior's size before and AJ should win

And really this whole matchup should be centered around this argument. Do you look at the long haul vs. looking at their primes? A fair argument in a lot of matches really. And as my first post states, looking at both guys at the top of their games, it's not even close. But Warrior is hurt by his brief time up there. Which, if you take away his work in the indies (unfair, but just for arguments sake) Daniel Bryan is a great parallel.

Now I won't be surprised to see some other stupid arguments getting involved here (we've seen it many times before), but this one has a very legitimate A vs. B debate.

 

[enviousdominous]

If you really want to do prime vs prime, Warrior is way the hell out of his league.

How does an Ultimate Warrior match typically go? He rushes out there and if the match isn't an absolute squash in the first thirty seconds, his opponent pokes him in the eye. Warrior reels from the epic eye poke and half-ass sells some moves before shaking like he's having a seizure, then he no-sells and hits his two moves of doom.

For about three years that formula worked because he had plenty of big bad guys to play off of and because marks were really fucking stupid back then, and then his popularity waned as people started noticing guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. Compare the longevity of popularity between either Bret or Shawn and the popularity of The Ultimate Warrior.

If you had a prime Ultimate Warrior take on a prime AJ Styles, the time and the setting would make all the difference. A prime AJ Styles would have never been allowed to set foot in a 1990 WWF locker room, and Ultimate Warrior would have told AJ that he's a worthless piece of shit. A prime Ultimate Warrior in a 2014 NJPW locker room stomping around trying to tell everyone that they aren't shit compared to him would have had his leg broken in three places by Okada before he could even get a match in.

Prime AJ Styles fought and defeated guys like prime Ultimate Warrior (Sting, Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash) while prime Ultimate Warrior never fought anyone like prime AJ Styles. In Warrior's WCCW days he took on guys like Chris Adams and Kevin Von Erich, but spent most of the time during those inconclusive matches grunting and flexing.

I realize that this is a long shot considering the impression both men have left on us, Warrior spent his career dominating and AJ spent his career being a team player. My vote for AJ isn't based purely on principle or some imagined "greater good", it's because I've seen him fight impossibly strong opponents and win.

Vote AJ Styles.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Warrior beat Hogan clean in the main event of Wrestlemania at the height of Hogan's popularity. I love AJ but a guy who is isn't even 6ft 220 would not be booked to beat Warrior. Sure he was a flash in the pan, but when was AJ ever drawn the crowds that Warrior drew?

I got to give it to Warrior, as much as it pains me.

 

[Tastycles]

Normally, in this sort of match-up I would denigrate Warrior's opponent, but I respect AJ Styles too much to do that, so until someone says something ludicrous, I'll leave it. What I will say is this, AJ Styles was usurped from the top of TNA when WWE talents moved there. Warrior usurped the most popular professional wrestler in history from the top.

I'm rather going to use this thread to give a few facts about the Ultimate Warrior.

1. If Ultimate Warrior was a bad draw in 1990, Hogan was worse

The old adage goes, Warrior drew awfully, they had to bring Hogan back, Hogan saves the day, right? Wrong. The business as a whole was in decline, you can view this in isolation by noting that in 1990, WCCW and AWA went out of business and WCWs numbers went into the toilet. That didn't have anything to do with Warrior. Warrior's TV ratings and PPV buys were fairly consistent to the Hogan era. There was a downturn in house shows, absolutely, but they were able to run a lot more than they had with Hogan and when Hogan came back in 1991, the average House Show attendances dropped by about 1000.

2. Ultimate Warrior did not 'get gassed'

The Ultimate Warrior was one of the best conditioned athletes of his era and this absolutely ludicrous claim is repeated year after year. He won his matches quickly most of the time to squash people. I'm so bored of talking about this, it's untrue, but of all the matches at all the WrestleManias from 1984 to 1999, here are the leading match lengths:-

1. Shawn Michaels vs Bret Hart WrestleMania XII - 1:01:52
2. Ultimate Warrior vs Hulk Hogan WrestleMania VI - 22:51
3. Bret Hart vs Stone Cold Steve Austin WrestleMania 13 - 22:05
4. Ultimate Warrior vs Macho Man Randy Savage WrestleMania VII - 20:47
5. Bret Hart vs Owen Hart WrestleMania X - 20:21

So two of the longest four matches on the first fifteen WrestleManias were fought by Warrior. When you bear in mind that the other two in that top four were an iron man match and a submission match, the two longest standard singles matches out of the 100+ matches on WrestleManias I-XV were fought by Ultimate Warrior. Is that someone who was particularly badly conditioned, do you think?

3. Ultimate Warrior's career length

There can be no denying that he wasn't around for as long as, say AJ Styles. But it's not like he was a flash in the pan either, he was around from 1987-1992, with a few extra months in 1996. In total around 5-6 years as a major player. The Rock was around for a similar amount of time, as was Austin, maybe slightly more in each case, but not significantly more. He was certainly around longer than Lesnar, for example.

4. Warrior was not just a product of his time

Warrior's performances in 1996 and particularly they time in 1998 are treated with much disdain. However, he was still incredibly popular with the audience, with pops far louder than any other wrestler was getting in 1996, certainly. Warrior, at a time when the product was moving another direction remained over. Clearly, there were many thing affecting the ratings back then, but it is true to say that in the weeks following Warrior's departure, Raw had a perceptible drop in ratings, whilst Nitro stayed constant - that's not people leaving for the nWo, that's people leaving because they guys they want to see aren't there anymore.

4. Anyone with that music could not have had that role

This is ludicrous and is only said by people who don't understand presence. Some wrestlers just have a charisma that isn't about talking on the mic or wrestling, it's about being there and people wanting to see you. Brock Lesnar has this. Batista has this. The Undertaker has this. Asuka in NXT has this. Ultimate Warrior probably had more of this than any of them.

It's easy to show this with a negative. Warrior, the actual man, the former Jim Hellwig was a self-righteous pain in the arse. He knew his value, and demanded he received it, he walked out when things didn't go his way and he saw the wrestling business purely as the way he was most likely to make any money. Would any promoter in their right mind put that guy in Warrior's role, rather than say, Lex Luger who had a similar physique. It's pretty obvious. McMahon, in the midst of a youth movement tried to sign Warrior to a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal in late 1997, early 1998. Think about the timing of that. McMahon obviously thought he was worth it.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

I'd give both of my nuts to see this match happen, prime versus prime. I'm a big time AJ mark, but my love for Warrior goes back to about the time I was in diapers. Both of these guys are exciting to watch, against almost anyone they were ever put in the ring with, and were insanely popular, transcending the companies they worked for.

Where are we puttin AJ's prime? Bullet Club or one of his TNA years?

Because I think we are entering his prime now. Him chasing the title is great fun albeit the result is kinda foregone. But I think this is the big time for him. Not disrespecting his time elsewhere but this is the dance now.

I'll give this to Warrior because honestly, he was THE Man, THE draw and someone who convinced the higher ups and Hogan that he was the big dog. Thats the ultimate feat!

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Where are we puttin AJ's prime? Bullet Club or one of his TNA years?

And this is just another argument against Styles. Really, where would people consider his prime? He's never really been so big in the business that it's the clear point.

 

[Tastycles]

Prime AJ Styles fought and defeated guys like prime Ultimate Warrior (Sting, Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash)
.

I'm not really sure in what universe Kurt Angle is a similar worker to the Ultimate Warrior, but he was a shell of his former self in TNA and beat AJ more times than AJ beat him. Styles beat Kevin Nash once, by disqualification, three months shy of Nash's 50th birthday. He did pin Sting, but only after Sting had passed 50 years old.

The Ultimate Warrior absolutely wrestled smaller technical guys. He beat Owen Hart, he beat Mr. Perfect, he beat Savage, who I appreciate isn't really like AJ, but he's a lot more like AJ than Angle is like Warrior.

 

[SSJPhenom]

I understand that this is the IWC and I understand the collective disdain for Warrior. GET OVER IT!!!

During Warrior's prime he was unmatched in popularity and probably even out drew Hogan. He was unbeatable and very few people have reached that kind of level in the business. Honestly, it should take a Sting, Austin, Rock, etc to take the Warrior out of the tournament. I just can't see him losing to AJ Styles and I don't think he'd ever be booked to do so.

Vote Warrior.

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

I'm afraid I'm going to be another one of those guys who begrudgingly throws their support behind Warrior. AJ is an excellent wrestler with a tremendous track record across every promotion he's been in to date. He'd a be a perfect candidate to feud with Warrior in fact - someone whom Warrior's stuff is going to look great on and who can bump around the ring whilst laying his stuff in to hit Warrior. It isn't going to be enough though.

Warrior's contribution to the industry of professional wrestling is debatable, but his track record isn't. He would win a match between these two just as he would win a match versus most. When Warrior comes up against someone who has beaten him or who has conceivably provided more to the industry as a whole, then he might be headed for the exit, but for now, he keeps on rolling.

 

[Bernkastel]

Yeah, I'm behind Warrior all the way on this one. He was a giant flash in the pan, and his lack of longevity and consistency might come back to bite him against later, bigger opponents, but not AJ styles. Warrior was the biggest wrestling star in the world at his peak, which was brief, but he was still on top of the mountain. AJ can't say that, even if you were to include his recent run as NJPW champion. Even discounting kayfabe Warrior has a historical victory over Hulk Hogan in one of the most iconic matches ever. I haven't followed TNA in a while but they had Angle, a 50 year old Sting, Bully Ray, and Jeff Hardy. All of whom were consistently higher up the food chain then AJ IIRC.

So we're left with guy who was the top star in the WWE and world vs guy who wasn't even consistently the top star in a much smaller promotion for most of his run. Not a hard choice.

And for those of you wanking AJ in Japan, here's a quick historical fact. You know Leon White, guy that became Vader, one of NJPW's most iconic stars? Inoki had another man pegged to play that role first. Jim Hellwig. He turned down Inoki's offer because WWE offered him more money up front. So he went there and became the Ultimate Warrior. Inoki obviously prized his looks and ability because he wanted to push the man hard. Funny how history turns out.

 

[NSL]

I voted for AJ Styles, and here's my defense for the pick.

To me, both guys are evenly matched regarding accomplishments, charisma, championships, popularity (remember, I lived in the TNA bubble)...So the only area left, is in-ring skills, and it's hard to argue against AJ. I'm not saying Warrior was a slouch in the ring, but AJ was more talented, move for move.

I'm not arguing against Warrior at all, and whoever wins this will have deserved it.

 

[Tastycles]

I voted for AJ Styles, and here's my defense for the pick.

To me, both guys are evenly matched regarding accomplishments, charisma, championships, popularity .

When exactly did AJ headline a show with 60,000 fans present or draw a 10.0 rating on television? This is ludicrous, NSL. The rest of the points are debatable.

Championships wise, I'd argue that Warrior's two IC reigns out weigh winning the TNA and NWA title an infinite number of times, but being a face WWF champion? Between 1976 and 1996 they had 6, and even one of them turned heel. AJ Styles' TNA reigns were in a time when luminaries like Chris Sabin, Mr. Anderson and Eric Young were getting runs, when he had the NWA title, he dropped it to Ron Killings. His runs in Japan were pretty good, I guess, similar to Vader, the character originally made for the Warrior. So it's pretty likely that had Warrior ever needed to wrestle in Japan, his accomplishments would be similar.

Eh, charisma, in the ring, there have been fewer in history that got the crowd going like Warrior, and whilst his promo style was surreal, it certainly worked for the character. AJ Styles is sometimes given a hard time for his mic skills, unfairly in my eyes, however I guess it's fair to say that he is one aspect of his game that are lacking.

Accomplishments. I'd say this. In 1985, Jim Hellwig knew absolutely nothing about professional wrestling. 5 years later he beat Hulk Hogan clean in the middle of the ring at WrestleMania VI. There has never, and probably will never be a quicker rise to prominence than that from literally no wrestling experience (unlike, say Angle and Lesnar).

As for the ring work, there's no point in me trying to compare it to Styles, but I'd say Warrior is monumentally misunderstood in this arena. His match with Savage is an all time classic. His match with Hogan should be what you show newcomers to the business what storytelling actually means.

I know you're not trying to debate on this, so don't feel obliged to respond.

 

[ShinChan]

AJ Styles for me.

I have made my choices in this tournament basically on in-ring work. Thats where AJ Styles goes over easily. His plethora of moves and phenomenal persona is amazing enough to make me favour him.

By the way, AJ Styles VS Sami Zayn would have been a way better entertaining bout than this.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

I have made my choices in this tournament basically on in-ring work.

By that logic Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, only two of the biggest and best wrestlers of all time, would be out in the first round.

Good logic

 

[ShinChan]

By that logic Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, only two of the biggest and best wrestlers of all time, would be out in the first round.

Good logic

Well, I understand what you mean to say.

But there are some exceptions too in every profession. Hogan and Andre are exceptional thats why I can ignore in-ring work but Ultimate Warrior isn't exceptional enough to make me ignore his in-ring ability.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Well, I understand what you mean to say.

But there are some exceptions too in every profession. Hogan and Andre are exceptional thats why I can ignore in-ring work but Ultimate Warrior isn't exceptional enough to make me ignore his in-ring ability.

Then you've never seen a second of his time on TV in the late 80's/early 90's. Or heard the crowd when he came out. All I needed to hear.

 

[nightmare]

Styles has had a rise in stock since leaving TNA, but that does not mean he gets past someone like Warrior. A man who likely will only fall to a juggernaut of equal stature or higher. AJ just simply does not qualify. Warrior has flaws & detractors, but his run was light years ahead of Style's best one.

I prefer AJ from a personal stance, but cannot overlook his opponents credentials in this one.

 

[Hulkamaniac]

If you really want to do prime vs prime, Warrior is way the hell out of his league.

Yes. Ultimate Warrior is "way out of his league" against a guy who could best be described as "poor man's Chris Jericho". Ultimate Warrior, the guy who's prime included him pinning HULK EFFING HOGAN AT WRESTLEMANIA, is out of his league against a man who's greatest career moments happened in TNA.

Warrior all day, every day. Bigger legacy, WAY bigger prime, way more charisma/presence.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

(takes long breath)

Are we honestly taking AJ Styles's name in the same breath as Ultimate Warrior.

Look, vote for AJ all you want but if you say he was more popular, over or a bigger draw than Warrior, please pass whatever you are smoking.

 

[Prince Vee]

Initially I thought AJ Styles is going to win quite comfortably but after looking over all the debates I guess, I was wrong. I don't have a huge interest in The Ultimate Warrior, especially with his bloody finisher. But I always loved his ring presence, that he never can be overshadowed by the others when he's in the ring, mind you despite his moveset. But still, at the prime, only after reading all the above threads I infer that Ultimate Warrior is better than AJ Styles in popularity. That said, it is not easy to say AJ doesn't have the same popularity but it's different than that of the Warrior. So, I'm voting Warrior

 

[NSL]

When exactly did AJ headline a show with 60,000 fans present or draw a 10.0 rating on television? This is ludicrous, NSL. The rest of the points are debatable.

I think it's unfair to compare something like ratings here. Warrior was at his peak during a time when wrestling was watched by just about everyone, and working with Hogan helped fill some of those seats. AJ made his name in much smaller promotions, during a time when viewership was (is?) not high, and in a company that wasn't even nationally recognized yet.

If AJ had gotten a real chance in the dying days of WCW, then maybe he would have done something bigger for himself in WWF/E, but he didn't so we'll never know.