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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 hit the earlier men’s matches.
AJ Styles def. Shane McMahon
AJ Styles
Styles defeated Shane McMahon at WrestleMania and turned babyface soon after.
His first major feud was against Kevin Owens, who moved to Tuesdays as United States champion. They swapped the title back and forth for a bit, though unfortunately, the feud never clicked.
The first change was at Madison Square Garden. Then KO won it back in what seemed to be a botched finish. AJ won it back in a triple threat on SmackDown and retained it at SummerSlam, where his opponent here, Shane McMahon, was the referee.
AJ ended up losing the title to Baron Corbin but soon won the WWE title from Jinder Mahal. He’s held it since, fending off Jinder in a rematch, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at Royal Rumble, and then five other men at Fastlane. He did lose a non-title exhibition vs. Brock Lesnar, though went toe to toe with him.
Styles will be taking that title into WrestleMania and defending it against Royal Rumble winner Shinsuke Nakamura this year. It’s gonna be good.
Best Moment: Winning the WWE title back in the United Kingdom
Worst Moment: When he kept getting screwed due to the McMahon/Daniel Bryan power struggle
Stock: Increase - A match with Shane McMahon is a marquee one given it’s a McMahon. But carrying the top title into WrestleMania is as good as it gets.
Shane McMahon
Shane is a part time wrestler. He didn’t wrestle much though was seen most of the year as SmackDown commissioner. Much of the year was spent building up his feud with Kevin Owens and eventually Sami Zayn.
He was the referee for the aforementioned AJ Styles/Kevin Owens United States title match at SummerSlam. This built to a big Hell in a Cell match that KO won because Sami Zayn pulled him off the announce table as Shane was jumping from the top onto it.
While he had some issues with Daniel Bryan seemingly favoring those guys, and he was right, that never developed into a full blown feud. Instead, he realized that he too was biased and stepped down as commissioner. But that was right after he booked KO and Sami to fight each other at WrestleMania. They didn’t like that so they beat the hell out of him.
The other big plot for Shane was when he waged war on Raw, invading their show and laying siege to them. Unfortunately, his team lost at Survivor Series.
This year he’ll be teaming with a returning Daniel Bryan (!) to face Sami and KO in a tag match as long as he can go. (A legit trip to the hospital put that in question, but it looks like we’re still good to go.)
Best Moment: Laying siege to Raw
Worst Moment: The brutal attack from Sami and Kevin
Stock: Unchanged - It’s Shane. He’s a part time talent and carries the same status as he always does.
Kevin Owens def. Chris Jericho to win the United States championship
Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens was moved to SmackDown during the Superstar Shake-up as US Champion. He started a “New Face of America” gimmick that didn’t really click, which even he admitted to later on.
He lost the title to Jericho, but won it back a couple days later. Then he and AJ had their hot potato US title feud we spoke about above.
This turned into his feud with Shane McMahon, starting at SummerSlam. After he went too far in a promo battle with Shane, the Commissioner attacked him. When Owens threatened to sue, Vince McMahon came to SmackDown to confront him. This ended with a vicious headbutt from the Prizefighter to the Chairman that knocked the elder McMahon to the mat and bloodied him.
Eventually, this all culminated in a Hell in a Cell match against Shane McMahon, which KO would win when Sami pulled him off the announce table just before Shane O’Mac crashed through it.
Now reunited with Sami, these two ran roughshod on SD. And with Bryan in their corner, they received multiple title matches, though never successful in claiming the belt.
After KO and Sami attacked both Bryan and Shane, they’ll be fighting them in a tag match this year.
Best Moment: Headbutting Vince McMahon
Worst Moment: Getting fired by Daniel Bryan
Stock: Increased - This is a marquee match. While he had a one on one match last year, and those are at a premium, facing Shane McMahon and a returning Daniel Bryan is a much loftier spot.
Chris Jericho
Jericho lost the US title to Kevin Owens at WrestleMania but won it back at Payback, taking it to SmackDown. However, KO won it back two nights later and laid out Y2J, effectively writing him off.
Jericho did a one time return as part of a triple threat title match in the summer.
That doesn’t mean this was Jericho’s only wrestling this year. He worked Wrestle Kingdom this year against Kenny Omega, which was a really great match which followed a really great build.
Best Moment: His feud with Omega. Yes, it was outside WWE, but it was baller.
Worst Moment: Getting attacked by Kevin Owens to the point he was pretty much out of WWE.
Stock: No longer with the company... for now
The Hardy Brothers def. The Bar, Enzo & Big Cass, & Anderson and Gallows to win the tag team championships
Matt Hardy
Matt and Jeff Hardy debuted as a HUGE surprise in this match and won the WWE tag championships.
They transitioned into a feud with the Bar (Cesaro & Sheamus) who were still good guys at the time. However, losing to the Hardys changed their demeanor and Cesaro and Sheamus turned heel and reclaimed the gold. The Hardys were unsuccessful in a 30 minute Iron Man when they tried to win the straps back.
Unfortunately, Jeff was soon injured and Matt was on his own. For a while, he just was there until he got the rights to his old Impact “Broken” gimmick.
WWE introduced that gimmick after Matt had suffered a few losses to Bray Wyatt. They went full blast with his special brand of crazy, calling him WOKEN Matt Hardy. He eventually defeated Bray Wyatt in the Ultimate Deletion, the WWE’s version of the Final Deletion.
He’ll be in the Andre Battle Royal this year.
Best of Moment: The Ultimate Deletion - just in the sense that WWE allowed him to go full blast with his creation.
Worst Moment: Failing to regain the tag titles from the Bar.
Stock: Mild decrease - This was a tough one. However, despite finding something with his Woken single’s status, he’s not in any featured match at WrestleMania. Last year, the Hardys were big when they came back. And given how they have Cole always crapping on the Woken bit, I’m leaning towards a decrease.
Jeff Hardy
Jeff’s trajectory followed his brother’s until he got hurt in the summer last year.
Best Moment: The big surprise WrestleMania debut
Worst Moment: Getting injured
Stock: Injured
The Bar
It was a good year for Cesaro and Sheamus.
They won the titles from the Hardys after turning heel and remained in the tag title scene the rest of the year.
The Bar feuded with a reunited Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins and lost the straps to them at SummerSlam. But they won them back prior to Survivor Series, using the distraction of a SmackDown attack as an opportunity to reclaim them.
On Christmas, they lost them to Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan but once again won them back.
Having picked up wins against pretty much every tag team on Raw, they’ll have to face Braun Strowman and a partner of his choosing at WrestleMania. Good luck, boys.
Best Moment: Their heel turn - when they really found their stride
Worst Moment: Learning they have to face the Monster Among Men at WrestleMania
Stock: Increased
Enzo Amore
Settle in because there’s a decent amount to unpack here.
OK, the first major thing was when Enzo was attacked backstage by his own partner Big Cass. This led to a feud between them when Enzo pretty much got his ass kicked all the time. Big Show helped him out a bit, but Zo still got his ass kicked.
However, he won their final match when Cass went down with an ACL injury. Amore found it a good idea to mock him on Twitter for it.
Zo soon moved to the cruiserweight division and defeated Neville to win the championship... as a good guy. But that couldn’t last long since he was basically an obnoxious ass who kept cheating to win.
He kept the title for much of his run, only losing it to Kalisto for 6 days.
While this was all going on, there were numerous reports regarding massive backstage heat and even a time that Roman Reigns kicked him off a tour bus.
He was eventually released when rape allegations came to light, something he knew about for a while and never told the company about.
Best Moment: Winning the cruiserweight title - the only title he held in WWE
Worst Moment: His release - and all that backstage stuff
Stock: Released
Big Cass
Big Cass looked to be in line for a big push. After he attacked Enzo, he beat him multiple times and picked up a win over the Big Show.
However, a knee injury has kept him off the card since the summer.
Best Moment: Beating the hell out of Enzo
Worst Moment: Blowing out his knee, resulting in not just losing a bunch of time, but also losing to Enzo.
Stock: Injured
Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
These two were champions coming into WrestleMania last year. However they lost it to the Hardys and never won them back.
And then they didn’t do much of anything this year. It looked like they may finally find a spark by reuniting with Finn Bálor but not even that brought them much.
Best Moment: Teaming with Balor - because they looked really happy when that happened
Worst Moment: Their general lack of direction
Stock: Dropped
There were four teams in that tag team title match and only one has a tag match at WrestleMania. A combination of injuries, zero creatives, and being Enzo Amore pretty much destroyed that Raw tag division from where it was. They never got a chance to rebuild given their big addition, the Revival, had an injury plagued year. So the Bar were left feuding with makeshift teams of single’s stars.
We’ll be back tomorrow to look at the women’s title matches from last year.
You can catch up below: