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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 WrestleMania 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 finish off the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal
Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal continued
Breezango
The team of Tyler Breeze and Fandango didn’t do much in the ring this year compared to backstage.
However, they did win a #1 contenders match to face the Usos at Backlash. While they were entertaining with their shtick (Breeze was in disguise mopping the ring), they were unsuccessful. They earned another shot a few weeks later and were unsuccessful again.
Much of the year, they were featured in the very popular Fashion Files clips on SmackDown, as they worked to figure out who attacked them but alas never did. (They weren’t actually good detectives.) They did popular spoofs of Twin Peaks, Miami Vice, Saw, and Pulp Fiction.
Both men are in the Andre again this year.
Best Moment: Earning a PPV tag title shot against the Usos
Worst Moment: Never finding out who attacked them
Stock: Mild increase - While they’re back to where they were, the Fashion Files bits have helped their overall standing.
Sin Cara
Not much doing with Sin Cara this year. He had a pretty good, short TV feud with Baron Corbin for the US title where he showed some fire. He ended up losing that feud.
He’s not really doing much of anything right now. I was surprised to see he’s not in the cruiserweight division right now.
Best Moment: Standing up to Corbin in their feud
Worst Moment: Losing the US title match
Stock: Mild drop - Given the fact I have no idea what he’s doing currently and they don’t bother putting him in the cruiserweight division has me edging him downward.
Mark Henry
The Andre was the last match for the big man from Silsbee.
He’s working for Busted Open radio and is going into the Hall of Fame this year. Somebody gon’ get inducted!
Stock: Retired
Tian Bing
This was a one time thing for Tian Bing, who is still in developmental and hasn’t made TV yet.
I won’t be evaluating him or Killian Dain as they were never main roster members.
Killian Dain
Dain was an NXT featured talent and hasn’t been on the main roster.
He’ll be in a 6-man ladder match at New Orleans to try to become the first ever NXT North American champion.
Unlike Tian, I expect to see him on the main rosters within the next year.
Titus O’Neil
Titus spent most of the year building his brand Titus Worldwide. He recruited Apollo, Akira Tozawa, and eventually allowed Dana Brooke in.
Also, he has Anthony Bourdain, Wale, LL Cool J, and the LA Rams mascot. It’s an exclusive club.
Wrestling wise, he and Apollo had a couple title shots against the Bar, in which they were unsuccessful. But it’s really all about the brand.
Best Moment: Building one of the top brands in the world.
Worst Moment: Not being able to claim gold for the brand.
Stock: Mild increase - He may be back in the Andre this year, but the Worldwide Unit always gives him a bit more purpose.
Apollo Crews
Coming into WrestleMania last year, Apollo Crews was coming off a pretty underwhelming feud with Dolph Ziggler.
He was moved to Raw and Titus O’Neil started recruiting him to his Titus Worldwide Brand. At first, Apollo was reluctant but eventually got on board. This initially upset his friend Kalisto, leading to a series of matches that Kalisto won.
Titus Worldwide earned themselves a couple chances to face the Bar for the tag gold, but were unsuccessful both times.
Best Moment: Finally accepting Titus World Wide.
Worst Moment: Strowman countering his standing moonsault in epic fashion
Stock: Slight increase - This is very slight, but though he’s still not doing much, being part of the Titus stable seems to give him a bit more purpose.
Luke Harper
The fact that Luke Harper was in the Andre last year was disappointing. He looked like he could have been part of that WWE title match and then suddenly wasn’t doing anything and in the Andre.
Harper wasn’t seen much last year until they repackaged him with a returning Erick Rowan as the Bludgeon Brothers. It started with videos of them in the woods with hammers reciting poetry.
Eventually they debuted in a series of squash matches.
At Fastlane, they brutally attacked both the Usos and the New Day. That has set up a match between the three teams for the titles at this year’s show.
Best Moment: Reuniting with Rowan
Worst Moment: Losing the Luke
Stock: Increased
Sami Zayn
Here we have one of the bigger increases of the entire roster.
Zayn meandered for much of the year, but then decided to change things up. He broke bad and aligned with Kevin Owens, who he’s feuded with for years. He aided KO in defeating Shane McMahon at Hell in a Cell and since then, he and Kevin have been the top heels on Tuesdays.
This put him in a perpetual feud with Shane McMahon. He received multiple title opportunities as a heel - way more than he did as a face. However, he and KO went too far when attacking Shane McMahon and then Daniel Bryan. They were initially fired but Daniel Bryan gave them a tag match to allow himself to get some revenge... and because if they were actually fired, there wouldn’t be any payoff at WrestleMania.
Best Moment: Aligning with Kevin Owens
Worst Moment: Getting fired
Stock: Big time increase
Jinder Mahal
Sami was one of the biggest stock increases. Jinder was the biggest.
Jinder was still a big time enhancement talent in this battle royal and it was impressive he was even the runner up.
But then he was traded to SmackDown, aligned with the Singh brothers, won a #1 contenders match, and defeated Randy Orton for the title. He held that title for about six months.
In that time, he defeated Orton twice more, once in a Punjabi Prison match. Yeah that happened. He also fended of Shinsuke Nakamura twice as well.
He finally lost the belt to AJ Styles on SmackDown in the UK.
His run was met with mixed reviews, but there’s no doubt that the man held the WWE title for half of 2017.
He’s now in a midcard title match at WrestleMania, but it’s a pretty stacked match with future Hall of Famer Randy Orton, Bobby Roode, and Rusev. So he’s still in a championship match and doing much better for himself than he did this time last year.
Best Moment: Winning the WWE title
Worst Moment: Losing the title prior to the India tour, where he lost to Triple H
Stock: Way up
Mojo Rawley
If only the stock rise that came with the runner up to this match applied to the guy who actually won it.
With help from his buddy Rob Gronkowski, Mojo won the Andre battle royal. But not surprisingly, it didn’t come with any immediate push. He soon teamed back up with Zack Ryder, reuniting the Hype Bros. They then had the most drawn out break up ever.
It finally happened when Mojo attacked Ryder after they lost one of many matches.
Mojo did very well as a heel, destroying Ryder in cell phone promos that led to their eventual match, one which Rawley would win.
But even as a heel, Mojo didn’t do much. He made it to the semi-finals of the US title tournament in January. That’s really it.
He’ll be back in the Andre.
Best Moment: Turning on Ryder and then destroying him in the cell promo battle
Worst Moment: Getting creepy on Alexa Bliss
Stock: Unchanged - I hate to say it because I really like what he’s done this year. I went from someone who didn’t care for the character to a big fan. But the fact of the matter is, despite winning the thing and then a heel turn, he’s still not doing anything and back in the same match.
We looked at 33 men, 31 of whom I evaluated since I opted not to grade Tian Bing or Killian Dain.
Here’s what we found:
- 17 of those 31, which is more than half, had some increase of stock.
- Only five had an actual decrease.
- Four remain unchanged.
- Three are out injured. (Though, I expect Big Show to be back soon and maybe even on this show.)
- Mark Henry I marked as retired, but of course, who knows if he decides to show up here this year for a final match and maybe a win.
- Only Simon Gotch isn’t with the company any more.
- 20/31 are back in the Andre again or not advertised for the card (and will likely be in the Andre). This does not included injured wrestlers.
So what do these numbers mean?
Well first, take them all with a grain of salt because it’s all my subjective look. Yes, it’s obvious that Sami Zayn and Jinder Mahal had great years. But for all of those who are still in this match, all the movement is subtle. While I think the Ascension have a slightly higher stock due to their time on the Fashion Files, someone else may say no change or even decrease for whatever reason.
That being said, the one thing I believe this shows is WWE paid more attention to wrestlers at the bottom of the card this year. Sure Apollo and Titus O’Neil aren’t doing much, but they at least have direction as Titus Worldwide. Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel were given direction as Miz’s goons. Even Curt Hawkins has a thing even if it’s losing all the time!
Two thirds (20/31 - 65%) of the participants are back in the Andre this year. However, that’s actually better than the last two years, where the percentages were 92% and 81%.
We’ll be back tomorrow with the men’s undercard matches.
Catch up on the prior installments below: