Smark Out Moment

Welcome to another edition of Power Rankings from Smark Out Moment! Each week, we will break down the current roster and examine who has gone up the WWE hierarchy and who has unfortunately 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?

This week, I'm including the NXT guys who debuted on RAW in these Power Rankings, and I'm considering expanding the Rankings to including the NXT roster as well. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to see the NXT roster become a permanent part of these Power Rankings, and don't forget to vote in the Power Poll which will help determine future Power Rankings.


Swagger is feeling pretty irrelevant these days after losing the Rusev feud. He and Bo Dallas weren't even on RAW this week, and had a forgettable encounter on SmackDown, and that's a shame because their work last week was pretty good. Swagger scrapes onto the Top 25 due to his match with Rollins on Main Event, which was 'good enough'.

Ziggler falls a long way from #1 last week, mainly due to the diabolical writing of his 'comedy' segment on RAW. Ziggler's delivery of the promo was half-hearted at best, and they pixelated the only thing in the 'leaked' Miz photos that could have been in any way funny. Ziggler's on the list for the funny 'R-Ziggler' bit on SmackDown, but that was mainly Truth, not Ziggler. Let's hope for a bounce back to form for the IC Champ next week.


Rowan is obviously worse than his Wyatt partner Luke Harper, but he's more than holding up his own end of the team, as he got to prove on SmackDown in an 8-man tag match. I hope Harper and Rowan get a bigger focus soon, because they are a great team and work great with the Usos.


I said last week that AJ is always a joy to watch, and I stand by that, but her almost-lesbian angle with Paige has jumped the shark at this point, especially now that the Bellas have co-opted any heat that it had. AJ didn't get to do much other than skip this week, and I don't even have an AJ/Paige PPV match to look forward to now that Nikki Bella is in that match as well. I'll facepalm if Nikki wins the title, but I won't be surprised. If you want real women's wrestling with legitimate stories and characters, watch NXT.


Kidd got on RAW for the first time in forever, and while he didn't do anything special, he did look like he belonged on the show based on his in-ring performance. Kidd gets shitty crowd reactions every time he's on RAW, but that's because the crowd don't have a reason to care about him, but if his Beta-male 'Natty's husband' character that has been the best part of NXT for months now was graduated to RAW, I think he could actually get over as a pest heel. He more than deserves it after his great work in NXT and his willingness to put over Adrian Neville at every opportunity.


While Paige was over-acting in a storyline that has jumped the shark on RAW, at least she got to look completely bad ass on Friday by destroying Summer Rae with a Black Widow, which is really how she should always be presented, rather than as a catty, crazy bitch. How I wish just one diva didn't have to be either 'crazy', a 'bitch', or a 'crazy bitch'.


I'll admit it; I got a kick out of 'R-Ziggler' on SmackDown. It was silly, sure, but it completely worked and it could have legs to even become a permanent tag team. I say 'could', because I know that the commentators and the writers of RAW would run it into the ground immediately, but as a one-off thing, it's made R-Truth feel relevant for the first time in years and got a laugh out of me, so Truth more than deserves a place on the Rankings this week.


Lana is heading towards 'Vickie Guerrero nuclear heat' levels now, and her mic work is helping Rusev get great reactions every week. The Rusev/Henry match feels more important thanks to Lana's presence, and that's exactly what she's there to do.


Harper continues to be awesome in the ring, as he proved on SmackDown in the opening match. He may have only had a few minutes in the ring, but I'll acknowledge the hard work he's putting in by ranking him this highly. He's not being featured right now, but as soon as he is, Harper is going to shine, because he's one of the best in-ring performers in WWE right now.


A pretty good week for Reigns, as his RAW main event match with Orton was better than their SummerSlam encounter, and the post-match angle made Reigns look strong but not invulnerable, which is exactly what he needs to be. If Reigns turns into another 'Super-Cena', then any good will I have for him will fly out of the door, but if they can present him as believably bad ass, then I can still buy into him winning the title at 'Mania 31. Only if he improves in the ring between now and then, mind.


Damien Miz-dow is working for me, and he legit made me laugh by imitating Miz's gestures during their entrance. Let it be known that the Power Poll voters preferred Miz-dow's corny comedy over Roman Reigns' 20 minute main event.


Henry has been great in his feud with Rusev so far, and on SmackDown this week got to show some vulnerability after running Rusev out of the ring in their last couple of encounters. Henry sold Rusev's kicks very well, and has really helped sell their match at Night of Champions. Henry is getting back close to his best.


Orton continues to be overlooked in the Power Poll, but he's putting in good performances every week in the ring, and carried Reigns to another above average main event on RAW this week. Orton's work is under-rated and under-appreciated, but he's making Reigns look way better than he actually is, and working with Orton is helping Reigns become better.


Rusev got to stand still for a few minutes on RAW, but on SmackDown he really stood out (again) with two vicious-looking kicks to a vulnerable Mark Henry, getting great heat in the process. Despite the corny arm-wrestling gimmick, this segment really worked thanks to all three participants, and Rusev is thriving as a monster with tons of heat behind him. The match at Night of Champions should be interesting.


No love for Cena on the Power Poll this week, despite a pretty good and heartfelt promo on RAW. I wish he would cut the stuff about war veterans and charity work, which comes across as desperate pandering, but Cena's delivery of the lines is still top-notch, and he's really getting into this feud with Heyman and Lesnar. When Cena's motivated, there are few better in a WWE ring, so I'm looking forward to another great show at Night of Champions. Just please don't have Cena win. Please?


The Usos didn't get to do much on RAW, but they shined on SmackDown in the opening 8-man tag match, where they continued to prove that tag team wrestling can often be the best part of a WWE show. I request many more matches involving the Usos/Wyatts/Dusts, perhaps even a 3 way tag match down the line. 


The Dust brothers only got to squash Los Matadores on RAW, while on SmackDown they got a lot more involved with the opening 8-man tag match, where they even got to double suplex Big Show. Goldie is ranked way higher here than I would have placed them, but evidently people are into the Cosmic Twins


The Power Poll voters love them some Dust brothers. I'm keeping Star and Gold separate on these Rankings for the time being, because I see them as two different 'acts' in that the tag team is essentially designed to get Stardust over, whereas the Usos are essentially one entity and couldn't split up and still continue their current gimmick. Anyway, Stardust's week was essentially the same as Goldust's, but I like the Stardust character more right now. Cody has won me over after I had written Stardust off just a couple of months ago. He's really embraced the weird and it's kind of enthralling.


Cesaro's awesome paraphrasing of Bret Hart on Main Event this week showed just how charismatic he is on the mic. His speaking style may not be archetypal for a WWE wrestler, but it definitely works, and Cesaro really deserves more promo time. No in-ring action for Cesaro this week, which is a crime, but "Who are you to judge Zack Ryder?" is too awesome a line to under-rate.


Heyman is doing a great job of promoting Brock Lesnar and the WWE Championship match at Night of Champions. He provided good foil for John Cena's heavy-handed promo, and I'm looking forward to next week when Lesnar will be back, to stand beside Heyman and stare and into the hard camera. Much like Lana, Heyman is giving his guy great heat and making his matches that much more important, so he's acing the job description.


Hearing 'Ole' chants on RAW was just a little bit sureal, but they signal the arrival of Sami Zayn on the big stage, and while he wasn't the biggest star of the NXT showcase match, Zayn showed what he could do and carried most of the match very well as they babyface in peril. The match wasn't designed to make him look awesome, but he got in a cool dive to the outside and generally proved that he belongs on the main roster. His underdog gimmick overlaps a little too much with Daniel Bryan's, so Zayn may be better served to stay in NXT


Seth Rollins almost became Death Rollins this week, as his close encounter with the Temple of Doom-esque death spike on the lowering steel cage very nearly made him the meat on a kebab. If Rollins had been skewered by the spike, I don't think RAW would even be on the air next week. Luckily, Rollins got out of the way just in time, and then ruined Jericho's big cage dive by doing one himself, lowering the impact of both. I don't know how that got past the writing team. Still, I won't blame Rollins for that, and he had a very good night outside of that, delivering another good performance against Sheamus.


Jericho hasn't been overly impressive during his 2014 run, but his Cage match on RAW was one of his better performances in recent years, and was capped off with a crazy dive from the top of the cage which would have been even more awesome had Rollins not done another one 3 hours later. Jericho was so impressive on Monday, I'll forgive him for having Eva Marie on Talk is Jericho. I'm definitely looking forward to his match with Orton at Night of Champions.


This week's #1 had one of the most exciting RAW debuts ever. 80%+ of the crowd at RAW had never heard of Adrian Neville before that match, but if they were going to remember one thing from RAW, it was Neville's incredible Red Arrow Corkscrew Shooting Star Press that never fails to amaze me, even after seeing it dozens of times on NXT. The commentators, in a rare moment of competence, went out of their way to put over Nevile and his signature offence, which helped make him look like a star. There are rumours that the NXT stars will be returning to RAW very soon, and that would be thanks in no small part to Neville's performance on RAW. Vince can also thank Neville for all the WWE Network subscriptions he just sealed, because many more people will be wanting to watch NXT now that they know what they can expect from it.