Dream Match: AJ Styles Vs. Swerve Strickland

If there's one man who everyone has been talking about in 2026, it's "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles. The former WWE Champion looks to have wrapped up his wrestling career following his loss to Gunther at the 2026 Royal Rumble Premium Live Event, but due to the fact that Styles chose to keep his gloves on rather than leaving them in the ring, many people are of the belief that Styles might have finished his WWE career, but his overall career still has some miles left on it.

A special tribute for Styles has been planned for the February 23 episode of "WWE Raw" in his home state of Georgia, and while the details on the segment are being kept a secret at the time of writing, it could lead to two possible outcomes. Either Styles has agreed to stick around in WWE for a little while longer and will use the tribute to announce a Hall of Fame induction or even one final match, or it will be the grand send off Styles deserves for the decade of brilliance he has produced in a WWE ring. If it's the latter, there is only one company people can see Styles landing in, All Elite Wrestling.

While Styles could have a swan song in TNA Wrestling given his long history with that company, AEW is the one major promotion that Styles has never worked for. If Styles were to become "All Elite," he would be able to rekindle a few rivalries from his past, catch up with those who he only met briefly before he signed with WWE, and meet the generation of stars who he has never crossed paths with that are the definition of the AEW company motto "Where The Best Wrestle."

Over the past few days, we've detailed what some dream matches would look like for Styles if he were to join AEW. Cases have been made for Kyle Fletcher, Hangman Adam Page, and MJF, and now it's time to make the case for "The Most Dangerous Man in AEW," Swerve Strickland. The former AEW Men's World Champion claims that All Elite Wrestling is his house, while Styles proclaimed that "WWE SmackDown" was his own personal playground as "The Face Runs The Place." There are many similarities and differences between Styles and Strickland, but if they met in AEW, what would it look like? Let's break it down and ponder about the dream match that is AJ Styles vs. Swerve Strickland.

We touched on this in our previous dream match scenarios, but in the case of AJ Styles vs. Swerve Strickland, it might shine brighter than in any other situation. Styles and his run as the leader of the Bullet Club in New Japan Pro Wrestling gave The Elite the platform to become the stars that they are now. Without Styles, there would probably be no Elite, and without The Elite, there would be no AEW, meaning that without Styles, there would also be no AEW. 

Out of everyone who has walked into All Elite Wrestling and felt like someone who has been there since its inception, Strickland is near the top of that list. AEW is Swerve's house, as he and Prince Nana like to remind everyone, but think of it like this; without Styles, there's no Elite, without The Elite, there's no AEW, without AEW, there's no place for Strickland to become the man that he is now. AEW might be Swerve's house but it's built on the land that AJ Styles planted in the mid-2010s, regardless of whether Styles has been in the company or not.

That could be the perfect story for something like this, and what it would also do is it would allow Strickland to tap into his heel persona a bit more. As beloved as he is and for the amount of fanfare that comes with him, Strickland operates at his most dangerous when he's a heel. Having a heel Strickland in a situation like this wouldn't just bring out the best version of him, but are AEW fans, people who have probably followed Styles' career since before he was in TNA, Ring of Honor, or even WCW for some, are those fans really going to want to boo Styles? Of course not. He's good enough to make them boo him for sure, and if he wanted to come in and say something like "I made this place but it wasn't WWE so I stayed there," that would get heat, it just wouldn't be interesting.

Instead, you can have Styles come in and almost be proud of someone like Strickland. He would have watched him from afar, maybe even seen him on "WWE SmackDown" as part of Hit Row and thought he needed a change of scenery, only to go on and become one of the biggest names in the entire industry. Styles could be genuinely happy to see Strickland become the first black AEW World Champion, the first black man to headline a show at Wembley Stadium, the man who personifies what the vision of AEW was when it first started.

But what would Strickland see? An old veteran taking credit for all of his success. An outsider coming to take his spot. Someone who told the world in another company that he was done only to turn around and lie to them by unretiring. It's resentment that would move this sort of story forward quickly.

When AJ Styles burst onto the scene in the dying days of WCW, he was a firecracker of a wrestler who could have been the next face of the WCW cruiserweight division had the company not been bought out by WWE. His innovative style in the ring was what made him one of the faces of TNA Wrestling for more than a decade, and there are a number of people, especially in AEW, who wouldn't wrestle the way they do had Styles not laced up a pair of boots. Will Ospreay is the obvious example, but Swerve Strickland is someone else who has a little bit of "The Phenomenal One" seeped into his DNA. 

That is what would make a match between Styles and Strickland as it would almost be Styles wrestling a younger version of himself with a few adjustments made. When Strickland is on his A-game, he flows through the ring, transitions from move to move so seamlessly in a way that no one else really can. Obviously, he's bulked up a lot since returning at AEW Full Gear 2025, so the forward rolls and all of the things he does use to transition don't look as natural as they once did, but that's where the heel side of him could come in.

By working as a heel, Strickland could finally live up to his name of being "The Most Dangerous Man in AEW" and not have that just be his version of someone saying they're the "Best in the World." People will want to see Styles working as if his life depended on it, harkening back to his glory days in TNA, NJPW, ROH, and the first year in WWE, but Strickland could be a pure brute and take all of that away from the fans. Just cut him off at every point, don't tell me a Phenomenal Forearm being countered in mid-air by a House Call wouldn't look like the coolest counter in the world because it probably would.

If they wanted to be a bit more violent with things, Strickland would be another guy that would work with as well. We've seen him take things to uncomfortable lengths with Hangman Adam Page thanks to syringes and shoot cinder blocks being used, and while you don't need to go that far with Styles (if anything I don't think Styles would want to), Styles being able to tap into a more violent side of his persona would be a refreshing change of pace.

That's what people would want from an AJ Styles run in AEW, something different. Again, I'm not asking for "Death Match Styles" as cool as that sounds, but "The Phenomenal One" would want new challenges and new opponents who he could potentially learn a thing or two from, and for me, Strickland would be a great opponent to bring out the "Elite" side of AJ Styles.