Sunday night's Money in the Bank pay-per-view featured AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura going to war for over 31 minutes in a Last Man Standing match over the WWE championship. Styles earned a decisive victory and retained his WWE championship in the midst of creating one of the shining moments of his WWE career.
Monday morning brings another key moment for him with news that he will be the cover superstar for WWE2K19 -- the latest edition of the annual WWE video game set to be released this October.
"It's pretty huge, actually," Styles said of the opportunity. "It's one thing to be in a game -- it's another to be on the cover. Just knowing that when I go and look at the video game section of a GameStop or wherever else they're selling these video games, there I will be. It'll be a weird moment."
Styles follows previous WWE2K cover superstars such as Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, John Cena and The Rock. He's as timely a cover star as the WWE 2K games have had, considering both his popularity at the moment in WWE as well as his well-documented love of video games that dates back to his childhood. He even has his own vintage video game-focused show on Xavier Woods' UpUpDownDown YouTube channel, which recently released its debut episode.
That dedication to video games, which carries on to this day, will come in handy when Styles directly takes part in a massive contest that will award the winner $1 million -- as long as they can beat Styles head-to-head.
With WWE2K19's Million Dollar Challenge hanging over his head, Styles is anxious to dig into the game and make sure his notoriously competitive nature is on full display.
"I'm not going to lose to someone just to lose -- that's not how I'm made," said Styles, "Especially when it comes to video games. I'm one of the sorest losers -- I admit it, there's probably no one worse than me. I love a good challenge."
A full list of features as well as the full roster reveal is still yet to come over the next few months. No matter what's in store for this game, for Styles, whose wrestling video game interest dates all the way back to the Nintendo Entertainment System and a game literally entitled Pro Wrestling, this opportunity is a dream come true.
If the 8-year-old Styles who paid 25 cents to older kids in the neighborhood in order to get a turn to play the game could see him now, Styles thinks that that kid would be blown away.
"If I could go back and tell this guy who struggled with a lot of different things -- never had a lot of money, his parents didn't do well [and] didn't know how to handle money but worked hard -- and I'd say, 'listen man, you keep working hard and you're going to be on the cover of a video game,' I think there's a chance I may have worked harder."