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AJ Styles

American professional wrestler

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ83816
Source-derived summary

Allen Neal Jones (born June 2, 1977), better known by his ring name AJ Styles (alternatively stylized as A.J. Styles), is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE as a talent scout and coach at the Performance Center. He is also best known for his tenures in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), and Ring of Honor (ROH). Jones debuted in 1998 and competed for various independent promotions as well as World Championship Wrestling (WCW) before gaining initial mainstream exposure in TNA.

Jones gained prominence after signing with TNA, having been described as "the cornerstone of the company since its inception"; he won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship twice, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times, and was the inaugural titleholder of the X Division Championship, which he won six times. He is also the first TNA Triple Crown and Grand Slam champion. Jones simultaneously appeared in ROH from 2002 to 2006, where he became the inaugural ROH Pure Champion. Jones also wrestled extensively internationally, in promotions such as NJPW, where he is a two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion and the United Kingdom-based Revolution Pro Wrestling (RevPro), where he is a former RPW British Heavyweight Champion.

Jones first appeared in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 2002, but declined a developmental contract. He returned to the company in 2016, and won the WWE Championship twice. With his second victory in Manchester, England, Jones is recognized by WWE as the first wrestler to win the title outside North America.

Editorial summary

“AJ Styles” enters the record as american professional wrestler. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Styles, American and professional can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977, 1998, 2002, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977-06-02. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Styles, American and professional.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“AJ Styles” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Styles, American and professional provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q83816. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1998, 2002 and 2006.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “AJ Styles”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow AJ Styles primary sources, AJ Styles archive and Styles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “AJ Styles”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from AJ Styles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.