Bengaluru, November 23: AJ Styles lost the WWE Championship in a strange way on last week's episode of Smackdown, where he ended a title run that lasted for 371 days. We expected him to hold the WWE Championship until the Royal Rumble PPV. But, he wasn't able to do so and eventually failed to break the record for holding the WWE Championship for the maximum number of days in the modern era.

CM Punk curently holds the record with a 434-day reign. His bittersweet relation with the WWE is well-known to the pro-wrestling fans. Hence, AJ Styles was certain to get past the milestone set by him. But all the plans came to an end on the go-home Smackdown edition of Survivor Series. Daniel Bryan turned heel and snatched the title away from him.

The Dirty Sheets revealed the exact reason why this major switch happened in the main event of Smackdown Live. They say that AJ Styles' contract with the WWE is coming to an end on December 31, 2018. WWE is indeed interested to sign the former champion in a multi-million deal for several years to come. But the two parties are yet to come to terms regarding the deal.

The Phenomenal One signed with the WWE in January 2016 for three years. He wants to extend the deal for three more years with limited booking. But WWE offered him a five-year contract on a full-time basis. He will have to carry Smackdown both on TV and non-televised shows in that case.

AJ is not looking forward to continuing working in such a rigorous schedule at this point. Spending very little time with family is one of the main reasons, as reported by wwfoldschool.com.

"The negotiations have been going on for so long that WWE officials actually used some of Styles’ reasoning for a reduced schedule in feud with Samoa Joe, where Joe pointed out Styles isn’t at home much for his family (which is one of the main reason why Styles wants reduced dates on his new contract)".

As you can see that WWE officials have been unable to sign AJ Styles even after a long period of negotiation. So they pulled the trigger on him and took the title away to secure the future of WWE Championship. Meanwhile, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has also offered a big deal to AJ Styles. It means there are chances that he ends up leaving WWE after December.



This uncertainty over AJ Styles career also scrapped Wrestlemania plans from Smackdown. Earlier, he was supposed to square off against Daniel Bryan at the grandest stage of them all. But there is no point of a concrete plan in case AJ leaves. Thus, Daniel Bryan won back the WWE Championship after four years.