Welcome to the WrestleMania Stock Report. This annual five-part series looks at everyone on last year’s WrestleMania card and what they’ve been doing since to make a determination of whether they’re in a better position in April 2026 than they were in April 2025. Was it a good year? Was it a down year? Are they the definition of Even Steven?
Most folks who were not on last year’s card will not be included, though I made a few exceptions for those who I felt deserved some time.
We’ll go match-by-match
from Night One through Night Two. With many of the people on the WrestleMania 41 card, I’ll try to pinpoint their best and worst moment of the past 12 months. Sometimes that’ll be in-story. Sometimes I’ll focus more on booking/real life. Some folks didn’t do enough this year to really warrant much discussion of either, but that’s something for y’all to debate in the comments. Premium Live Event records are listed for each wrestler evaluated; in addition to wins and losses, that’s interesting information because it tells us how active someone was during the year (records include multi-person matches, including the Royal Rumble). These do not count Saturday Night’s Main Event.
I will make the call on how much everyone’s stock is up or down, or if it’s unchanged. Of course, such judgments are subjective, and feel free to debate those as well. If you want a reminder to where we left folks last year, feel free to check out last year’s edition here.
And a final note: When I use the term “last year” I mean since WrestleMania 41 and not calendar year 2025.
Jey Uso def. Gunther (c) to win the World Heavyweight Champion
Jey Uso
PLE overall record (2-4), one on one (none), championship (0-1)
Just given the way the card fell, we’re starting with one of the most interesting duos of the whole year.
Jey Uso had his career moment to open WrestleMania 41 where he’d defeat Gunther to win the world heavyweight title. I was there and will attest that the crowd went wild, yeeting in celebration.
The title run itself was nothing special with only one successful title defense against Logan Paul on its ledger before dropping the title back to Gunther. Rumors at the time indicated that it was always the plan to get the gold back to Gunther.
Jey Uso continued on as a single act and they started to present him as becoming more unhinged after he lost his title — maybe even starting to act like his cousin, Roman Reigns. That was quite an interesting wrinkle in his character. But instead of really exploring that, they reunited Jey with his brother Jimmy and they won the tag team titles, which they held until very recently losing those straps to Logan Paul & Austin Theory of the Vision.
There was a lot of noise online in regards to how bad Jey’s title run and singles run in general was. I think that was overblown. Fans in the crowd responded well. His ring work as a solo act almost surprisingly lagged where he is as a tag act, but wrestling ability is not the number one thing in WWE. All that said, I think creative was aware there were limitations in a long singles run.
I wonder at this point if he’s just a tag act again with his brother. They likely will still use him in the singles scene when they need multiple folks in a tournament (Money in the Bank, King of the Ring) but it’s entirely possible that his real time as a singles act is over.
At WrestleMania, he’ll be teaming with his brother alongside LA Knight against the Vision & iShowSpeed in a celebrity match.
Best Moment: Winning the world title at WrestleMania
Worst Moment: The underwhelming title reign that followed.
Stock: Of course it’s dropped. He won the world title at WrestleMania. That’s an exclusive club. It’s not unreasonable to say that he’ll never reach this height again in his career. It was clear this was a brief title reign to reward how over Jey got during his singles run. He never felt like a true main event guy like Roman or Cody or Punk — the type of guy who gets to experience a title match at WrestleMania multiple times.
Gunther
PLE overall record (2-2), one on one (2-1), championship (0-1)
You can certainly argue that Jey’s high point was Gunther’s low point for the year as he didn’t just lose, but he tapped out to Uso and lost his title. (I felt then and maintain now that he could have just taken a pin and it would have had the same affect with the crowd and avoided the extra humiliation to someone they clearly had plans for.)
As we noted prior, he wasn’t without the gold for too long. After reclaiming his belt, he retired Goldberg (it was a planned retirement whether Gunther won or not) before losing the title to CM Punk at SummerSlam.
This led to some time off before returning later in the year to win the Last Time is Now and the right to face John Cena in his final match. He would go ahead to retire Cena (again, scheduled retirement), but more amazingly, he tapped out the man who Never Gave Up.
This generated some pretty good heat for the Ring General, who would ride the wave to retire AJ Styles (the only match that was career threatening and not a scheduled retirement). Then inexplicably, just as the Road to WrestleMania was heating up, Gunther disappeared from TV.
Reports say that’s due to injuries affecting plans (perhaps he was going to face Rey Mysterio, but only Dom is going to retire Rey). He finally returned to attack Seth Rollins and set up that Mania match. It surely feels slapped together, but Rollins is an individual at the level of Gunther.
There were certainly questions if Gunther was the man who should retire John Cena and we’re going to touch on that more when we talk about John, but next year will be really telling when we’re looking at his stock next year.
Best Moment: Tapping John Cena
Worst Moment: Tapping to Jey Uso
Stock: He’s no longer champion, but his stock is clearly elevated given they let him be the man who ended John Cena’s career. While it’s surprising that they didn’t have a marquee match for him at WrestleMania, I’d still say his stock has increased.
The New Day def. the War Raiders to win the world tag team champions
The New Day
No PLE matches in the past year
It’s easy to forget that this New Day title win was coming off of nuclear heat when they went off on Big E. (It’s probably easy to forget this match happened in general.) That heat had fizzled by the time they finally got to claim these tag titles.
They had one successful title defense a month later before losing the titles to the Judgment Day.
I think it’s safe to say that since then, they meandered: Took on Grayson Waller as their third, Xavier Woods recently got hurt.
There’s a bit of a story they’re currently telling with Kofi trying to take J’von Evans under his wing and maybe some tension with Waller. But it’s not enough to get them on the Mania card.
Best Moment: Winning the tag titles at WrestleMania
Worst Moment: Being relegated to backstage segments much of the year.
Stock: Dropped
The War Raiders
No PLE matches in the past year
Not much to say here. They’ve almost been on Main Event and in AAA as much as they’ve been on Raw.
It doesn’t help that the men’s tag title scene is very forgotten in general in WWE. Those titles were often decorative for the Judgment Day. The Usos holding the titles always feel special, but now they’re decoration for the Vision. You can’t say too much better over on SmackDown where they just put those titles on a thrown together team of R-Truth & Damian Priest after being decorative for the MFT/Wyatt Sicks feud that’s been more about a lantern than the gold
Stock: Dropped
Jade Cargill def. Naomi
Jade Cargill
PLE overall record (2-1), one on one (2-1), championship (0-1)
For someone they continue to present as a big deal, Jade’s year has felt underwhelming.
Cargill failed to defeat Nia Jax in a #1 contenders match when Naomi acted as a distraction. She’d rebound to win the Queen of the Ring to earn a title match against Tiffany Stratton at SummerSlam. Cargill came up short against Stratton at SummerSlam in a rather underwhelming match.
As a babyface, her best was to beat Naomi twice — at WrestleMania & at Evolution. But she certainly didn’t feel like the bigger deal of the two when all that was said and done.
Creative have must have felt the same way because they went with a heel turn for Jade. As a baddie, she easily bested a compromised Stratton for the WWE women’s title. But even as champion, she’s felt underwhelming. She rarely defends it, which she will have to do with the more polished and more popular Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania.
It feels like this is a make or break performance for Cargill. Win or lose, she needs to show she belongs in the same ring as the top of the women’s division. Their promos didn’t click. Let’s hope they have in-ring chemistry. An underwhelming loss here will be a lot for Jade to overcome.
Best Moment: Winning the WWE women’s title
Worst Moment: The underwhelming SummerSlam match
Stock: Despite not feeling like it’s clicking, a title match against one of the top stars in the company at Mania is a big increase.
Naomi
PLE overall record (3-1), one on one (0-1), championship (2-0)
Naomi’s path with Jade intertwined until Naomi lost the feud at Evolution. But things took a big turn when Naomi cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase she won a month earlier to insert herself in the Iyo Sky/Rhea Ripley women’s world title main event of the Evolution PLE and walked out with the gold.
She’d successfully defend that title at SummerSlam against both Iyo & Rhea.
Soon after, she had to relinquish the title because she was pregnant, but still cut a kick ass promo on the way out.
I’m obviously happy for Naomi in her journey to start a family with Big Jim. In a vacuum as a viewer, losing her at this time was a bummer because she was undoubtedly doing the best work of her career. Her “Proceed with Caution” character that developed out of the Jade attack elevated her to a new level. The fact she could drop a heel promo after she announced she was leaving to have a child (the biggest babyface move there is) and making it work was primo stuff.
Best moment: Career wise – the title win. I’m sure personally, it’s getting to start a family.
Worst moment: The Ls to Jade.
Stock: Materity leave
We’ll be back tomorrow to look at how a disappointing LA Knight year wasn’t that bad and a tough return for Tiffany Stratton.
