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Welcome to the WrestleMania stock report, our yearly series where we look back at all the players from last year’s WrestleMania card and see how they fared over the year. You can take a look at where people were at this time last year in last year’s final report here.
WrestleMania is the perfect time to see how the stock of a wrestler has moved over 365 days. It serves as a “season finale” to the year of WWE. This is where they pay off their big storylines and where they want to showcase their best. Where someone lands on the Mania card says a lot about what their stock is currently. Given there are so many people vying for spots on the biggest show of the year, it’s a good look at how WWE views certain talent.
Today, we’re going to start tackling the beast that is the Andre battle royal. I decided to break it in half given the amount of men in it.
Andre Battle Royal
Primo and Epico
The Colons were actually part of the tag scene after the Shake-Up landed them on SmackDown in a more serious, less timeshare selling version of them. But they were still not featured much and then Primo suffered an injury in the summer. It’s unclear if he’s still out with the injury or if they’re just not being used.
Best Moment: Getting a win over American Alpha
Worst Moment: Primo getting injured
Stock: Dropped
Kalisto
Kalisto had a couple moments of note this year.
The biggest is a feud with Braun Strowman, when the big man was still a heel. Kalisto actually picked up a fluke win over the Mountain Amongst Men in a Dumpster Match when the big man tripped into the dumpster. Braun made Kalisto pay for it dearly.
He was eventually moved to the cruiserweight division (what took them so long?) and he won the title from Enzo Amore. But he only held onto it for six days before losing it back to Enzo.
He’s not advertised for WrestleMania this year and could find himself back in the Andre if they fill it with cruiserweights. If they don’t use the cruisers in the match, he won’t be on the card.
Best Moment: Beating Braun Strowman (which is a bigger feat than winning the cruiserweight title)
Worst Moment: Getting utterly destroyed for it
Stock: Mild Increase - Being in the cruiserweight division gives him more time on television, even if it’s not on Raw or SmackDown. That’s more than could be said for him coming into Mania last year.
Simon Gotch
The Andre was Gotch’s last match before being released.
He’s now wrestling as Simon Grimm. Grimm has made a couple minor appearances for Ring of Honor and is working the indies.
Stock: Released
Heath Slater
It was a pretty down year for Slater. He and Rhyno are still a team but they really haven’t done much of anything. It looked like there was a story where Kurt Angle was trying to get them fired up, but that didn’t go anywhere.
Slater did have an intercontinental title shot against the Miz, in which he was unsuccessful. And he had a PPV match with Curt Hawkins which he won. No one saw it, but it got the most five stars in the Cageside Community Star ratings ever.
Best Moment: His epic five star classic against Hawkins
Worst Moment: No one seeing it.
Stock: Slight dip - The reason I’m giving him a downward rating is because he and Rhyno were still a bit more active as a team in the SD tag division than the Raw tag division.
Rhyno
Rhyno’s story is pretty much the same as Heath, but without the couple singles exploits Heath had. Only reason I did them separately is because I wanted to highlight that Hawkins/Slater CLASSIC.
Stock: Slight dip - For the same reason as Slater.
The Usos
The Usos were tag team champions this time last year but were still pre-show fodder. However, they still had a great year.
They spent much of the year trading the titles with the New Day, having epic matches with each other, including a Hell in a Cell match. The feud ended with the Usos holding the belts. They also fended off the likes of Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable and Rusev Day.
Coming into Mania, they are feuding with the New Day and the dangerous Bludgeon Brothers (Harper and Rowan). This is their best chance to avoid the Kickoff show and finally make it to a main roster Mania match.
Best Moment: Their epic New Day feud
Worst Moment: Getting laid out by the Bludgeons during their last New Day match.
Stock: Sizable increase
Goldust
The Golden One’s year was a bit busier than I initially recalled.
This time last year, he was still part of the Golden Truth. However, after they lost too many times, Goldust turned on R-Truth. They had themselves a pretty long feud that was pretty much confined to Raw which Goldust won.
Goldust also had issues with Bray Wyatt when the Eater of Worlds removed Goldy’s face paint after he defeated him. This was all part of Bray’s issues with Finn Bálor as the Demon. Goldust resented Finn helping him and lost a match to him too.
Most recently, he lost a match with John Cena on Raw. He was also a part of the Mixed Match challenge
Best Moment: Winning his feud with R-Truth
Worst Moment: Losing the rest
Stock: Unchanged
R-Truth
R-Truth had his feud with Goldust, which gave both men some time on television. Goldy won the feud.
After that, Truth wasn’t on TV too much and then eventually got injured.
Best Moment: His feud with Goldust getting them consistent TV time
Worst Moment: Losing that feud with Goldust
Overall: Injured
The Ascension
The Ascension have spent most of their year on the Fashion Files as the enthusiastic, but often unwanted, friends to Breezango.
They’re sometimes the voice of reason, pointing out that Tyler Breeze and Fandango haven’t actually solved a case. But whatever their role, they’re very funny in it.
That all being said, they’re probably back in the Dre this year if they’re on the card at all.
Best Moment: Almost all of them on the Fashion Files
Worst Moment: The time they looked to have died on it
Stock: Mild increase - While not on TV often, the Fashion Files have helped their stock.
Curt Hawkins
All he does is lose lose lose no matter what.
Best Moment: The time he got to lose on a PPV match (even though no one saw it)
Worst Moment: Holding the longest losing streak of the modern era... or is this a best moment?
Stock: Mild increase - Honestly, he’s more interesting with the losing streak than as a random enhancement talent who wins some and loses some.
Aiden English
It was a strong year for the Artiste.
Found alone when Simon Gotch was released, he returned to his Artiste gimmick, which is an operatic singer heel. Soon, Rusev enlisted his services for a one time only Rusev Day celebration.
That turned into a year long, super hot gimmick as Rusev’s personal bard and occasional tag team partner. They’ve had a couple of title shots, but were not able to claim the tag team gold.
Best Moment: Teaming up with Rusev
Worst Moment: Having his beautiful melodies interrupted by an RKO
Stock: Big increase - even though he’ll likely just be cornering Rusev (and maybe take a spot in the Andre), his bit with Rusev has made him bigger than he’s ever been in WWE.
Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas
Curtis and Bo found success as Miz’s two goons who help him keep his Intercontinental title.
They were revealed this summer by wearing bear costumes and attacking Dean Ambrose on behalf of the Miz. It’s where Kenny Omega got the idea. (OK, probably not... maybe.)
Whatever the Miz did and wherever he went, they were there. They were part of the Miz’s feud with the Shield (which they did not fare well with). They were part of Miz’s feud with Roman alone for the IC championship, where they helped the A Lister win back his title.
They’ve been active in the Miz’s WrestleMania feud as well, where he is defending his title against Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor.
Best Moment: Joining forces with the Miz
Worst Moment: Getting destroyed by the Shield
Stock: Increased - Despite cornering the Miz in the ladder match and maybe back in the Andre, their status is higher now that they’re with the Miz.
Jason Jordan
Jordan is out injured but even with that, he had himself a great year.
WWE tapped Jordan to play Kurt Angle’s bastard son and moved him to Raw. It was a slow burn heel turn where Jordan played an obnoxious brat, whining and making excuses when he’d lose matches or wouldn’t get his way.
He had matches against top guys such as Roman Reigns and John Cena (both losing efforts). He had an intercontinental feud with the Miz (also a losing effort). He also won the tag team championships with Seth Rollins, despite grating on the Architect’s nerves.
JJ was also the reason they lost the titles to the Bar. He later cost Roman Reigns and Seth a chance at the tag titles. It wasn’t on purpose (probably) but more that he’s just too dense to know what’s going on.
Unfortunately, he is out of action with a neck injury currently. While it’s never a good time to get injured, he was doing so well as a heel that this one particularly hurt.
Best Moment: Learning who his real dad is
Worst Moment: Injuring his neck, keeping him off Mania.
Stock: Injured - It would have been a big increase otherwise
Chad Gable
Jordan’s tag team partner didn’t have as great of a year as Jason did. Not that it was terrible.
Chad Gable had a run of single’s matches after his old partner left for Raw. He had a particularly great one against Rusev. He also unsuccessfully challenged Kevin Owens for the US title.
Gable ended up teaming with Shelton Benjamin. They had good chemistry and did rather well in the tag division. However, when it came to facing the Usos later in the year, they kept getting screwed out of victories over and over. In the end, they were swept in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
Chad is unfortunately likely back in the Andre.
Best Moment: Learning that Daniel Bryan is his father
Worst Moment: Continually getting screwed in the feud against the Usos
Stock: Unchanged
Dolph Ziggler
Dolph’s first post Mania feud was with the debuting Shinsuke Nakamura. It was your typical 50/50 affair.
Dolph was here and there most of the year, with a bit of time off, until last fall when he started working a gimmick where he didn’t understand why fans loved certain wrestlers. He just assumed it was their entrances so he started mocking a bunch of popular entrances.
This led to a feud with a man with a very popular entrance - Bobby Roode. Roode won one, Zigs won one, and then Dolph lost the 2 out of 3 fall rubber match, which was also a SmackDown Survivor Series team qualifying match.
The Show Off won the US title in December only to relinquish it. He showed back up a month later to be unceremoniously eliminated from the Royal Rumble. He was part of the WWE title match at Fastlane, but really, who wasn’t? And now he’s back in the Andre.
Basically he gave up the US title, walked out, and negotiated a return just to be back in the Andre.
Best Moment: Winning the US title
Worst Moment: His unceremonious return after walking out
Stock: Unchanged - He just took quite the journey to get there.
Big Show
Big Show’s year was often tied to Braun Strowman... and Enzo Amore.
He had the big ring breaking match with Braun Strowman on Raw earlier this year. That was awesome. Then his next major feud was being Enzo’s big buddy when Zo was feuding with Big Cass. In the end, Show put over Cass at SummerSlam.
Show had another match with Strowman later in the year in a steel cage when he ended up being tossed through the cage wall. He has not been seen since.
He revealed that there were some pretty serious complications from planned hip surgery. Show recently signed a new contract and is competing in the Saudi Arabia battle royal later in the month, so he’s sounds healthy.
Could he be Braun’s tag partner this year?
Best Moment: Breaking the ring with Strowman
Worst Moment: Being Enzo’s friend
Stock: Injured
Braun Strowman
Braun had a hell of a year coming into last year’s WrestleMania and his momentum continued.
He had a star-making feud with Roman Reigns where he’d perform insane acts like flipping ambulances over. The feud was lengthened due to a minor elbow injury that sidelined him for a couple months.
The Monster Among Men was part of the fatal 4-way Universal title match at SummerSlam, where Brock Lesnar retained. He’d earn a one on one match with Brock and while he looked good in the build, he was put down pretty easily with one F5 during the match.
Strowman was recruited by the Miz as part of his Shield killing force for TLC. Unfortunately, his team turned on him and put him in a garbage compactor. Unkillable, Braun returned for revenge on all those who wronged him.
He found himself in another Universal title match at the Royal Rumble, this time a triple threat involving Kane and Lesnar. In the build, Braun would use a grappling hook and pull down scaffolding crushing his opponents. Lesnar would win this match as well, and dealt a stiff shot to Braun in retaliation for a stiff knee from Braun, though Kane took the pin.
Braun needs to find a partner to face the Bar for the tag team titles at WrestleMania this year.
Oh and he played a stand-up bass like a guitar.
Best Moment: Flipping the ambulance
Worst Moment: Losing to Brock after just one F5
Stock: Big increase
We’ll be back tomorrow when I’ll really hit the analysis on this match.
But I think with this first half look alone, it’s clear that the Andre is no death sentence. Even if they don’t have room on the card for someone this year, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a better spot next year. Look at Braun Strowman, the Usos, Sami Zayn and Jinder Mahal (who we’ll get to tomorrow.) If Jason Jordan wasn’t injured, he’d definitely be in a big match.
We’ll see you tomorrow as we finish the Andre.
Catch up on the prior installments below: