Smark Out Moment

Welcome to WWE Power Rankings from Smark Out Moment; an interactive segment which charts the best performers from WWE TV this week. Each week, we will break down the current roster and examine who has gone up the WWE hierarchy and who has taken a step down the ladder. Factoring in wins and losses, suspensions, injuries, making a name for one's self, being humiliated, and more, who is at the top of the food chain and who needs to make up some ground next week?

While my own personal rankings will help create the Power Ranking each week, your opinion is just as important in determining who places where. Every week, we're going to create a Power Poll where you can select the 10 Superstars that you think had the best showing on RAW and Smackdown. The percentage of votes each Superstar receives in the Power Poll will be converted into 'points', and will be added to the points I allocate myself; my #1 ranked wrestler will get 25 points, my #25 ranked wrestler will get 1. This means that your votes could significantly affect the ultimate Power Ranking, so keep an eye out for the link to the Power Poll on the website throughout the week, or join the Mega Maniacs Facebook page (link at the bottom of the page). All clear? Let's get going with this week's Top 25.


Someone out there is enjoying Adam Rose, but I don't share the same enthusiasm. Rose's act is somehow already tired, and was brought up from NXT before it could get proper refinement. The bunny had more significant TV time this week than Rose himself. Someone's got to be #25.


The Miz is doing well with his 'arrogant movie star' character, and bringing in Damien Sandow as his bitch stunt double has only made the act better. Cheating to beat Dolph Ziggler on RAW furthers the feud effectively, and hopefully they can have an even better match at Night of Champions.


Stephanie McMahon is somehow staying alive despite driving the Bella vs Bella train wreck. Her disingenuous promos are still getting heat, but it's clear that she's being kept busy with the Bellas until Daniel Bryan returns and she can spit her venom at him.


Reigns as the future 'The Guy' isn't doing it for me. He has charisma, but doesn't know how to use it. He has a fantastic presence, but can't wrestle a match longer than 5 minutes on his own. He's still very much the 'hot tag' guy and nothing more, and super-protecting his booking isn't going to make him any better. His performances this week were good, since he got to be the hot tag guy, but I'm not sold on Reigns as the future. The Power Poll is more positive than I am though.


Sheamus has been invisible as the US Champion, but his match with Cesaro at Night of Champions promises to be really good, and their work in the tag team match on this week's RAW showed that promise. People are still into Sheamus, but he seems a long way from the main event right now.


The Slator Gator train keeps rolling, with Slater getting beaten up by the bunny on RAW, and jobbing to Jimmy Uso on SmackDown. Slater is perfect in the comedy jobber role though, and it seems like people are still enjoying him post-3MB. For Heath to climb these rankings higher though, Slator Gator are going to need a proper feud.


If we'd started these rankings around SummerSlam, Swagger would definitely be in the top 10, because his work with Rusev was excellent. Swagger was kept relatively strong despite losing every match against Rusev, but this isn't New Japan and Swagger was never going to grow in popularity by losing so many times. However, his feud with Bo Dallas is picking up and Dallas is a great foil for a new babyface, so expect to see more and better things from Swagger in the coming weeks.


Triple H played MC on both RAW and Smackdown this week; literally becoming Teddy Long on the latter show. He's mastered the art of putting over people and working the crowd in the show-opening segment though, so he's still putting in good performances despite having no-one in particular to antagonize.


Sandow's cosplay character finally went somewhere this week, firming up his role as The Miz's 'stunt double', and giving him something to actually focus on and develop. I got a kick out of his cronyism, as did the Power Poll voters. Sandow could be even higher up this list next week.


Lana is consistently great at riling crowds up and getting them into Rusev's feud, which may otherwise have been overlooked so far. Her line about America's heart being 'made in China' was excellent, and her continual distain for American culture is a tried and true heat magnet for Rusev. We saw how much better Rusev vs Swagger was with a hot crowd behind it, so hopefully Rusev vs Henry will continue that.


Paige didn't do too much this week, outside of saying the word 'bloody' on RAW and carrying Brie Bella on SmackDown, but I'm still enjoying her continued fued with AJ, even if it has been co-opted by the Bellas. Vince Russo is a broken clock, but he's right about Paige being a truly special talent. I just wish she got more than 5 minutes each week to actually show it.

In Paige-related news, the bidding war between Nasser and Nhronis still rages on at WWE Auction, in what is a sleeper contender for Feud of the Year.

'The other Dust brother' is not the focus of the Gold/Stardust team, but he's still holding up his end as they transition to heels. Goldust is better as a dark heel than a jokey face anyway, and I'm very much looking forward to Dusts vs Usos. Their attack on the Usos on RAW looked vicious and their promo on Smackdown was their best one since Stardust... happened.


No love for Orton in the Power Poll, but he's doing his damnedest to get Roman Reigns over, as seen on RAW this week where he called him out and then immediately backed down in a great chickenshit heel move. He's also looking better than usual in the main event tag matches, showing that he hasn't lost motivation just because he's putting others over. Good week for Randy.


Rusev is delivering on the heat that Lana gets him, and is one of the most interesting acts on RAW every week now. He has a lot of residual good will from me after his great series with Swagger, so I hope he can continue that with the Henry feud.

The Usos are still the best tag team in WWE, and have another feud to sink their teeth into with the Dust brothers. Jey sold the Dusts' attack really well, while Jimmy got to squash Heath Slater, so a good performances from the brothers individually this week as well.


Heyman was only on RAW for a short time this week, but still cut another good promo putting over Brock Lesnar and hyping up his rematch with Cena at Night of Champions as another brutalising, which is what a lot of people want to see and will make it all the more exciting if (when) Cena brings the fight to Lesnar.


Cena's booking as an unstoppable superbeast in recent tag team main events is really dire, but Cena's promos have actually been pretty good, particularly his show-opener on Smackdown. He's selling the Brock rematch exactly as he should on the mic, but his in-ring booking is the complete opposite.


Henry's stepped up his game as of late, which is in no doubt mostly due to having a proper feud to focus his work on. He's the latest to step up and defend America from Rusev, but he's holding up his end of the feud well, bringing his 'Hall of Pain' badass attitude but with a babyface presentation, which is something he had gone away from in the past year or so. It's good to see that fire back in Henry.


People are still very much into Jericho, despite only filling up the numbers in main event tag matches this week. His spiel is still entertaining yet repetitive, and I'm excited to see what he and Bray Wyatt can do in a cage this week.


Iowa loves Seth Rollins, and he made the most of their reactions on RAW this week, teasing an MITB cash-in to Cena and being the stand-out performer in the main event. He seems destined to be fed to Roman Reigns soon, but I'm really looking forward to him re-starting his war with Ambrose once Dean stops wandering the streets (he's actually filming a movie, if you want to ruin the magic).


This was a break-out week for the Stardust character, finally showing that maybe it wasn't a bad thing to completely retcon 'Cody Rhodes' out of existence. His promos have been the right sort of weird and spooky, and you show the character's motivations actually make insane sense. He's angry because he thinks Jey Uso is faking his injury and preventing him from getting a title shot, but can't properly express that, hence the Dust brothers' heel turn. It's good when characters in wrestling evolve logically, rather than Rollins' 'I did it because you don't need to know why I did it' story.


Another character who had a great week was Bo Dallas, serving as a great pest heel to Jack Swagger's self doubting character. If there was ever a guy Bo would want to 'Bolieve', it's Swagger, and so this feud also makes great sense, and is more interesting as a result. Bo really got undercut by having his winning streak end to R-Truth, but he's becoming more relevant than ever now that he has a proper feud.


The fans love AJ, and I doubt that will ever change. She's the one female wrestler that is consistently over, and managed to pull out something from the crappy Bella segment this week by staring down Stephanie McMahon, potentially setting up a match down the line which is only enhanced by the rumours of her eventual departure from WWE. 'CM Punk' chants aside, AJ is a joy to watch every week, even if she never reaches her 2012 peak ever again.


Cesaro takes #2 because of his in-ring showings this week, working Dolph Ziggler on both RAW and Smackdown, first in a tag team match, then one on one in the WWE match of the week. Cesaro is a little directionless now after having so much promise back at WrestleMania, but if he continues to show his talents as he did this week, it won't be long before he gets a proper look at the main event. Just please get rid of the ambulence sirens.


Ziggler claims top spot this week because, like Cesaro, he proved just how good he is in the ring. Ziggler and Cesaro compliment each other so well, and a title unification feud would not go amiss if Cesaro were to defeat Sheamus. Ziggler is looking properly motivated again ever since he won the IC Title, and when Ziggler is motivated, there are few wrestlers in the world better than he is. That is why Ziggler was the #1 performer in WWE this week.