News broke last week that The Undertaker would be returning to action at WrestleMania 36 this April, and that his opponent would be none other than former WWE Champion AJ Styles. The pair haven’t crossed paths since Styles signed with WWE back in 2016, but according to WrestlingNews.co’s Paul Davis the reason behind the match is that Undertaker personally picked Styles because “he feels that Styles is the modern-day Shawn Michaels.” “The Phenomenal One” returned from shoulder injury on this week’s Monday Night Raw and declared himself the new “Mr. WrestleMania” (a title once held by Michaels) and ran down a long list of legends he’d be willing to fight at WrestleMania 36.
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Styles will make his in-ring return on Feb. 27 at the Super ShowDown event as part of a six-man gauntlet match.
GUESS WHO’S BACK, MOTHERLOVERS.#Raw @AJStylesOrg @LukeGallowsWWE @KarlAndersonWWE pic.twitter.com/A49eF6DtLL
— WWE (@WWE) February 18, 2020
At 42 years old, Styles is one of the most decorated wrestlers of his generation. Prior to joining WWE he became a seven-time world champion in the NWA, TNA [Impact Wrestling] and New Japan Pro Wrestling, and his accolades within WWE include 511 combined days as W Champion and three runs as United States Champion. Back in October Styles hit an incredible milestone by holding championship gold for more than half of his WWE career (though that number has since gone down after he lost the US title to Rey Mysterio).
Styles suffered a separated shoulder injury during the Men’s Royal Rumble match in January after he over-sold a Spear from Edge.
“Just so everything’s clear, Edge did nothing, absolutely 100 percent nothing, wrong,” Styles explained on a Mixer stream. “His move, his spear, everything he did was perfect. And if there’s any blame put on anybody about what I’m dealing with my shoulder, it’s me, 100 percent me. I was ‘over-brothered’ as they say, and I just went crazy with my bump there. The only problem with flipping over the way I did was the first thing to hit was my left shoulder. I thought I had dislocated my shoulder, they wanted to get me out of there right away,” he added before explaining how he communicated with everyone else to get him out of the match as soon as possible.
“I don’t expect to be out very long,” he added. “I’m assuming, and I’m betting on myself to be back before they think that I’m ready.”
