AJ was blessed from the start. Incredible feud with Roman, money feud with Cena (which he has a winning record over, too) and a really good title program against Ambrose. After that, he never really needed to bust his ass, because those three feuds were so, so good. From in-ring performances to promos, he was a complete worker.
He occasionally has some good matches against the likes of Rico and Cedric, but yeah. Dude's not going as hard as before.