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 things such as 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?


Adam Rose lost to Cesaro this week on Superstars. I always thought Adam Rose was a decent wrestler who was given some terrible material to work with.


Jimmy Uso is trying to hold down the fort in his brother's absence, but he came up short this week on Main Event against the IC Champion, Kevin Owen


The Ascension lost this week to the Prime Time Players on Superstars.


Sin Cara made a rare appearance in singles action against Kevin Owens on Raw. Owens got the better of him, but Sin Cara lost gracefully.


Team Bella had a terrible week after suffering losses on both Raw and SmackDown. The former queens of the Divas division have been knocked down a peg since the arrival of the NXT women. Still, they manage to stay relevant among the stir of new talent.


Rusev's character has spiraled into absurdity. He used to be the Bulgarian Brute and it was awesome. Creative, however, has slowly turned him into the Bulgarian Bozo by putting him in ridiculous storylines and having him job to guys like Ryback, which he did this Thursday on SmackDown.


Neville was defeated twice this week, once by Sheamus on Raw, and again by King Barrett on SmackDown. Neville is one of those guys, however, that looks good even when he loses. He is an unbelievable athlete and really does seem to defy gravity sometimes.


Ziggler needs to find his footing again on the upper-midcard. Ziggler is an awesome performer and really could have been great if given the right creative treatment. Its not too late, however, as he still continues to put on great matches even if his storylines are ridiculous.


PTP picked up a win against the Ascension on Superstars. Just like I predicted, however, any significant storylines involving PTP have been put on the back burner while the Dudley's Feud with New Day for the tag-team championships. That's a shame too, since they have been red hot since their return and reinvention a few months back.


Charlotte and Becky Lynch teamed up with Natalya to score a victory over Team Bella on SmackDown. These Divas teams are getting old. I can't wait until they break all of them up so there is a real woman's roster in the WWE. Charlotte, for example, deserves to shine as a champion singles competitor, not a member of some high school clique. Still though, both of these women are awesome in the ring and can work well in any type of match.


King Barrett picked up a win against Neville this Thursday on SmackDown. Hopefully this is a sign that Barrett will start picking up some wins and be taken seriously by creative.


Cesaro has been relegated to the jobber shows for the past few weeks, but at least he's been winning. This week he picked up a win against Adam Rose on SuperStars.


For years, Natalya was the only real wrestler in the Diva's division. Now that there is this big influx of female talent, we are seeing women who can compete on her level. She picked up a win against Paige in singles competition this week, as well as a win on SmackDown in 6-person tag action.


I was never a huge fan of "The Big Guy", but he is over as hell and never seems to lose. He continuously re-imagines himself and keeps his character fresh, and his wrestling ability has improved tremendously over the years. My personal feelings aside, Ryback is a skilled performer who will probably be around for quite some time.


Sheamus continues to hold onto to his MITB contract and beat most of the opponents put in front of him. His match with Neville this week was kind of a fluke, but The Celtic Warrior is still a formidable figure on the upper midcard.


Lesnar cut a promo with Heyman this week on Raw. He then gave an F-5 to the Big Show. I was going to put Lesnar at a higher spot on this list, say 2 or 3, but I'm assuming we won't see him until Hell in a Cell. Still, I had to honor his overwhelming presence on the roster by placing him in the top 10.


The Dudleys wrestled to a no contest on Raw against Rollins and Kane. The match was entertaining, plus watching D-Von and Bubba Ray 3D people through tables never gets old.


The Wyatt Family have been dominant in their feud against Ambrose, Reigns, and whoever they find as a partner for the night. The tides seem to be shifting toward Reigns and Ambrose as they steamroll towards the third chapter of this epic 6-man rivalry. The Wyatt Family, however, is a rare phenomenon in pro-wrestling that pushes the theatrical elements of the sport to their limits. Whoever ends up coming out on top of this rivalry doesn't matter. The Wyatt Family aren't just another faction, they are a story within a story and deliver some quality and sure-to-be classic pro wrestling moments.


Owens has been on the warpath since winning the IC Championship. His path of destruction continued this week with wins against Sin Cara and Jimmy Uso on Raw and Main Event, respectively. I hope he retains when he and Ryback eventually meet again, so he can have a lengthy and meaningful run with the belt.


These three guys teamed up on Raw, and then Reigns and Orton teamed together on SmackDown. They earned victories on both shows as they continue their fantastic feud with the Wyatt Family.


Rollins continues to be haunted by Demon Kane. On Raw he was chokeslammed through a table by the Big Red Machine, and that was the highlight of his week on WWE Programming. I can't wait to see Rollins and Kane go at it in singles competition. Kane is a veteran and one of the best big men ever, and I believe that he and Rollins can put on the best match Kane has been involved in in years.


Kane only made one appearance this week on Raw in a tag match with Rollins against the Dudley Boyz, but his storyline continues to be one of the most interesting things currently going on in the company. Its awesome to see Kane involved in a storyline this good, especially for someone approaching the twilight of their in-ring career.


These three guys are red hot right now and definitely the most interesting heels to come along in a while. Besides their entertainment value, all three men are decent enough workers and deserve their spot at the top of the tag-team division. Big E in particular had a great week as he main evented Raw against John Cena and defeated Dolph Ziggler on SmackDown. Big E was never known as a technician in the ring, but his match on Monday proved that he can run with the best of them, and that he still has a future as a singles wrestler if New Day dissolves.


Cena continues to steal the show on just about every episode of Raw with the U.S. Championship open challenge. This week, he continued with a title defense against Big E. People like to joke about how Cena buries everybody, but this open challenge has allowed a bunch of younger guys to showcase their athleticism and wrestling ability against one of the all time greats. I can't wait to see who answers the challenge this week.


Sasha Banks made history this Wednesday night as she headlined NXT: Respect in the main event rematch for the NXT Diva's Championship against Bayley in the first ever iron-woman match. (Both women deserve this spot, but Bayley is not on the main roster (yet) so according to my non-existent Power-Rankings rule book, she is ineligible for the Rankings.)

Wednesday was an important night for a number of other reasons as well. Chief among them is that it showed how far this business has come in the past two decades in regards to gender equality. During the widely exalted Attitude Era, women were routinely objectified throughout all of WWE Programming. Characters like the Godfather, for example, paraded prostitutes around the ring and degraded females everywhere by referring to them exclusively as “Hoes”. After the Attitude Era, women were further objectified in the company with the proliferation of the term "Diva" and the establishment of the "Divas" Division. This is the wrestling my generation, "the millenials”, was raised on, and it seems like we have come to reject the misogynistic elements of that golden era and the years that followed. Characters like The Godfather have become footnotes, while female icons such as Lita and Trish Stratus have been rightly exalted and immortalized in the WWE Hall of Fame.

Thanks to NXT, and a slew of Indy promotions throughout the country, women's wrestling has been revolutionized from being the match on the card reserved for bathroom breaks, to often times the highlight of a show. No one embodies this new kind of female wrestler more than Sasha Banks. When Banks came to NXT in 2012, fans were hungry for something different throughout the entire industry. They were tired of failed fitness models and C-List actresses filling up the WWE Divas division. They were sick of female competitors being referred to as "Divas". They paid to see wrestlers. The time was ripe for Banks and her peers to literally takeover the division and show the world that it was time to smash the pro wrestling patriarchy.

Banks almost immediately made a name for herself with the BFF stable, and climbed the NXT ranks along side Charlotte and Summer Rae. Since then her character has transformed from an evil and jealous sidekick to “The Boss”, perhaps the most badass female to ever lace up her boots. Her rise has been slow and steady. She started in the indys and worked her way up the hard way. Through a mixture of raw talent and dedication, she has already accomplished more at 23 than most wrestlers could hope to achieve in a lifetime. This Wednesday's iron woman match was an achievement not only because of its social implications, but also because Banks and Bayley managed to captivate a crowd of hardcore wrestling fans for a half hour straight. The pure wrestling ability on display from these two young women was nothing short of spectacular.

With the current “Diva's Revolution” storyline filling up the women's airtime, Banks is often overshadowed by the feud between PCB and the Bellas. Hopefully creative has something in store for Banks, because she really does have it all: a deep knowledge of and experience in the business, athletic ability, stunning looks, and top-notch mic skills. A revived feud between Banks and Charlotte on the main roster would be terrific to show the world who Banks is, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Until then, I look forward to seeing how WWE runs with all the momentum currently behind women's wrestling. It truly is a great time to be a wrestling fan. Things are changing for the better, and as long as women like Sasha Banks keep pushing the boundaries and blurring traditional gender roles, we are set to witness another great age in pro wrestling.