Big E Names a Possible Future WWE Championship Challenger After Bobby Lashley
Big E and Bobby Lashley will open this week's Monday Night Raw with a WWE Championship match. But with the WWE Draft set to begin later this week and Crown Jewel not until late October, the WWE Championship picture isn't very clear if E can manage to get past "The All Mighty." One name that was brought up during E's interview with Sports Illustrated this week was AJ Styles, who hasn't held a world title since his yearlong reign ended in 2018. E fully endorsed a program with "The Phenomenal One."
"I can't say yes to that idea any stronger or louder," E said. "Styles is a pioneer. I have so much respect for what he's done throughout his career. If his whole career stopped before he got to WWE, he still would have been one of the best of this generation. The fact that he was able to do everything he did outside of here, and then come here and keep cooking, it's amazing. I have so much respect for him as a performer. We've had a few interactions, and we had a couple matches with Y2AJ [Styles and Chris Jericho] when they were together, but I would love a proper one-on-one program with him. He is ideal — he's so good, his offense is so believable, and I could fly around him."
Styles has been working alongside his tag partner Omos ever since he was drafted over to Raw last year. The big man has yet to suffer a pinfall loss since joining the main roster and together the pair won the Raw Tag Team Championships from The New Day back at WrestleMania 37.
Kofi Kingston spoke with ComicBook ahead of last week's Raw, where he compared E's title win to his own back at WrestleMania 35. He said, "Well, for me, it was totally different. Number one, because I was 10 times more nervous for E than I was for myself. Because like I said before, everything is always changing. I was sure that something at the last minute was like, "Okay, we're going to go this route now, we're not going to have you go out and cash or whatever. So sitting in Gorilla, I'm just sitting there with butterflies in my stomach, nervous, rocking back and forth. I look over at E and he's cool as a cucumber, just ready for what is about to come. And it was just so awesome to see, because at that time, and especially once he beat Bobby, you can see it in my eyes, first of all I couldn't contain my excitement. I couldn't stop moving, I couldn't stop jumping around. But then a few times I really had to take a step back and just look at him. And just be like, 'Wow, he did it, man. All the hard work that he has put in over the years has finally paid off.'"
"He is a guy who never rests on his laurels," he added. "He's a guy that is always trying to get better, literally every single day, not only as a performer, but as a person, it was just awesome to see that culminate, and in my hometown nonetheless. So a little extra icing on the cake, man. It was awesome. It was awesome and so well-deserved. And when we got back through Gorilla, we came through the curtain, all of his peers were there, all the roster was there. Everybody was just so happy. And that's just a Testament to show you the kind of impact that Big E has on the roster and what kind of person he is, that he has a personal connection with everybody. Not a single person was mad that E was champion. Everyone was extremely elated and happy that he got what he deserved."
