As WWE Fastlane approaches, airing Sunday night on WWE Network, the WrestleMania 34 card is slowly starting to take shape.
Tonight’s event will go a long way in finalizing the WWE Heavyweight Championship match as Aj Styles is set to defend his title at Fastlane against John Cena, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler.
Although the odds are stacked against him, it is likely that Styles will come out on top setting up a match with Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania in April, in what could be a classic.
Styles was a recent guest on former WWE ring announcer Lillian Garcia’s ‘Chasing Glory’ podcast and spoke about a match with Nakamura and taking the title from Jinder Mahal last year.
“At first, it was different” Styles explained.
“Jinder came in and went straight to the top when he came to SmackDown, and it was a position he wasn’t in. When you get to this upper level things change in the way that you work in the ring, the way you act, everything and he had to learn really quick basically how to be a big star in WWE which sounds easy, but it’s not.”
“He took it well. I literally said, ‘Jinder, what do you think?’. I wanted to know what he thought, if he was okay with it, because that’s important to me that, ‘I’m not better than you. You’ve been a great champion.
‘What do you think, man?’ and he was okay with it. Again, he has been in the business for a while now, so he was very mature in the way he handled it and I appreciate that. Sometimes you have to wait your tour and sometimes it takes longer than you’d like, but eventually you’ll be back on top.”
Styles is looking towards possibly headlining WrestleMania with Nakamura, in a match that many fans are stoked to see in WWE.
“There could be a chance of headlining WrestleMania this year. I’ve got to make it through Fastlane before I can do this.
But, if I get the opportunity to wrestle Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania, a match that no one has seen on U.S. soil, and only happened once in Japan, this could be huge.
I need some payback [for his loss a NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10] but he doesn’t have the home field advantage this time.
So, it’s exciting to think that something like that could happen even if it’s not the main event, they’re going to wish it had been.
I expect this match to be amazing. Nakamura is a great talent here and I feel like were going to tear the place apart to be honest with you.”
