AJ Styles Vs Shinsuke Nakamura Announced for WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event

AJ Styles Vs Shinsuke Nakamura Announced for WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event – AJ Styles is preparing for one of the most high-stakes matches of his career, as he is set to put his career on the line against GUNTHER at the Royal Rumble next weekend in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Before that pivotal showdown, however, Styles will step into the ring with a familiar rival, as Shinsuke Nakamura has challenged him to a match at Saturday Night’s Main Event.

During the January 23 episode of WWE SmackDown, General Manager Nick Aldis invited Styles to appear on the show after learning that he had agreed to risk his career against GUNTHER. In a backstage segment, Aldis revealed that Nakamura had requested time to speak with Styles. Nakamura confronted Styles and questioned whether he was truly willing to lose everything at the Royal Rumble. He told Styles that if he was serious about the gamble, then he needed to prove he was still “Phenomenal” before stepping into the ring with GUNTHER. Nakamura then issued a challenge for a match at Saturday Night’s Main Event, which Styles accepted without hesitation.

The upcoming bout adds another chapter to one of the most well-documented rivalries of both men’s careers. Styles and Nakamura first faced each other at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 10 in 2016, a match that is still widely regarded as a classic. They also competed on opposite sides of tag teams in several additional matches in Japan. After both men signed with WWE, the company kept them apart for more than a year before finally pairing them in a high-profile feud in 2018, following Nakamura’s Royal Rumble victory.

That rivalry included a singles match at WrestleMania 34, followed by five additional televised singles encounters. Their most recent one-on-one match took place on a May 2020 episode of SmackDown, making the upcoming Saturday Night’s Main Event bout their first singles meeting in nearly five years.

The Styles vs. Nakamura match is scheduled as the fourth bout on the Saturday Night’s Main Event card. The show will be headlined by a four-way match to determine Undisputed WWE Champion Drew McIntyre’s first challenger. Elsewhere on the card, Cody Rhodes is set to face Jacob Fatu, while Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY will defend the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships against Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez of Judgment Day.