In all honesty and frankness, this wasn’t the most thrilling week in wrestling. That comes as a disappointment with SmackDown having a go-home show before Fastlane, and in a head-scratching move, put five of the six competitors against each other in a fatal five-way just days before they will do it all again. Nonetheless, events went down on both shows. Let’s get into this week’s power rankings.
10. Asuka
She once again staved off Nia Jax, remaining undefeated. These two have great chemistry in the ring together. What more is there to say? No one is ready for Asuka.
9. Jinder Mahal
It’s not exactly clear what the Maharaja’s role will be at Fastlane, but he continues to needle in between the feuding Bobby Roode and Randy Orton. Presumably, he’ll have something to do with the ending of their match on Sunday, but it was he who was prevailed on Tuesday, pinning Orton after an argument with Roode at ringside.
8. The Bar
The seemingly last contender in sight was The Revival. Defending the titles again, The Bar was victorious, once more dispelling any other Raw tag team contenders. This team continues to put on great matches, but the continuation of the same formula is starting to get stale, they need a fresh story for Mania.
7. “Woken” Matt Hardy
We finally get the Hardy Compound. In a gimmick the WWE has squandered with the “woken” character, that has failed to reach the heights of indie’s popularity, this last ditch effort to a lackluster feud has added a much-needed wrinkle in his “war” with Bray Wyatt.
6. Paul Heyman
The advocate and mouthpiece for Brock Lesnar got you to pay attention as he normally does, despite regurgitating similar bullet points to many of his Brock promos. What became odd was when Heyman discussed to Roman Reigns about being there all the time when you’re champion, which is weird because Brock’s never there, and Roman has been a champion before. Heyman did have a killer line though digging into Reigns, saying “Afa WrestleMania, you can Sika new title to challenge for”. Which is in reference to Reigns Samoan background (Afa and Sika) and possibly the name of a family member.
5. Seth Rollins/Finn Balor
Heading towards a triple threat match at ‘Mania, these two combatants have played wonderfully as “frenemies”. The duo teamed up and took down The Miztourage in handicap match Monday.
4. AJ Styles
Everyone wants Shinsuke Nakamura versus AJ at the show of all show’s. Styles has to focus on Sunday’s six-pack challenge but did a fine job on the mic both promoting how great he and Shinsuke will be, while also boosting his own confidence by talking about the difficulties of going against five others, but still saying he’ll be the one to win.
3. Ronda Rousey
After all the wait and speculation to see what Ronda would be like in the ring, we got a slight taste of it on Monday. Rousey first challenged Stephanie McMahon to a match and then her hit with a Samoan drop. Probably not the move that was expected since she has an MMA background, but these characters have been the most interesting part of the show each week.
2. Kurt Angle
The former Olympic gold medalist has been the driving point in making the entire beef spectacular. From informing Rousey about what Triple H and Stephanie said about her, to calling out H after getting sucker punched by him and setting up the mixed tag match between all of them, Angle is the catalyst of this beef. He got the upper hand by putting Triple H in the ankle lock once everything went down, but this is far from over.
1. Sami Zayn
Right before Fastlane, Sami pulled a fast one. After weeks of telling his buddy Kevin Owens that he would lay over for him and let KO win the title, Zayn turned the tables on Tuesday hitting the Helluva Kick on him and getting the 1-2-3. It obviously was quite peculiar that SmackDown pretty much had their Pay Per View match sans John Cena in the main event, though despite that Zayn set the table for the impending WrestleMania between him and Owens. The surprise moment has set this all in motion.
Honorable Mention: Rusev, Shinsuke Nakamura
Fastlane has a somewhat predictable show coming up, will there be any surprises? It’s still something to look forward to, for the fans sake it would be great to leave with AJ as champion, setting up him and Shinsuke to battle for the first time one on one in a WWE territory.