The Wrestling Examiner

Yes, my last Stock Check was almost a month ago, so I have quite a bit of ground to cover here. The original goal was to do this every two weeks, as it would be easier to chart the progress of all the wrestlers. Every week would be a bit of an overkill, as it takes time for things to develop. Hopefully I'll be able to do one of these every two weeks from now on. The main focus on this Stock Check: WWE Battleground . While this was by no means a marquee pay-per-view, a lot happened to affect the stocks of some superstars. Let's take a look at how it affected them. Up: Brock Lesnar: In the last month, Lesnar has only appeared once in a WWE ring and hasn't even competed. But that one appearance was on the most recent Raw episode, where he was named the #1 Contender to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. At SummerSlam , he will take on John Cena for the title, and by all accounts, he is expected to win. Xavier Woods: The former NXT star hasn't made much of an impa...

First of all, I want to point out that the official name of the show is WWE Battleground  (which I've used in all of my previous articless), but I'm just going to stick with Battleground because it's a lot easier to type. Now that that's taken care of, we can get down to business. A few nights ago, the second-ever Battleground PPV took place. Last year's event was regarded as one of the worst pay-per-views in recent years. The main event (Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton for the vacant WWE title) ended in a no contest and none of the other matches were really good, except for the tag match between the Rhodes Brothers and The Shield's Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, which was one of the best matches of the year. Also, there was an amazing spot in which Cesaro swung The Great Khali, but the whole event was a dud. This year's edition was definitely better, but it still wasn't a hit. In this article, we'll break down each match and segment to figure out why. ...

At WWE Battleground , there will be an over-the-top-rope Battle Royal to determine who will be the next Intercontinental Champion. The title was vacated in June when Bad News Barrett suffered a shoulder injury. Twenty superstars will be competing in the Battle Royal, including The Great Khali, Xavier Woods, and the United States Champion Sheamus. There were twenty-two competitors as of yesterday, but Adam Rose and Damien Sandow were dropped, presumably to have a match. Out of all the competitors in the match, there is no one more suited to win than Bo Dallas. The "Inspirational" Bo Dallas debuted on the main roster in May, and has been picking up traction ever since. The next logical career move: give him the Intercontinental Championship. Here's ten reasons why. 10. He's Over- The main problem with Adam Rose: he hasn't been well-received by fans. The WWE hoped fans would chant his theme song, like they did with Fandango, but that hasn't exactly panned out. ...

The title might be a little confusing, but it's actually quite simple. We're identifying ten superstars who are set to have a good rest of the year. The next five months or so will be better than their previous seven months or so. This article might have been more appropriate in June, but better late than never right? Before we start, I want to clarify what upward trend means. It doesn't necessarily mean big matches or championships. Rather, it has more to do with relevance. A superstar may not win all of their matches, but if they're having actual feuds and pay-per-view matches, it means that they are relevant. So, we now look at ten superstars primed for a good rest of the year. 1. The Miz- Seeing as The Miz was out of action for a few weeks recently (due to filiming The Marine 4 ), the fact that he's simply around automatically means he'll be on an upward trend. His biggest match so far this year was the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania...

The Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) does not like John Cena. They don't like him at all. If that wasn't apparent to you, and you call yourself a wrestling fan, where have you been? Since Cena is the face of the WWE, they constantly push him and try to get him over with the fans. When the fans respond with boos, the WWE incorporates that into Cena's character (which pisses the fans off even more). There have been calls to turn Cena heel for years, but so far that hasn't come to fruition. Here's five reasons why the turn will never happen: 5. The WWE Doesn't Always Listen To the Fans Isn't this one obvious? The WWE may be funded by the fans, but that doesn't mean it takes direction from them. Sometimes, the WWE has listened, such as when they put Daniel Bryan in the main event at this year's WrestleMania. Most of the time however, they don't listen. For example, think back to Zack Ryder (remember him?) in 2011. Thank to his Youtube videos, h...

In a series of articles, I've been analyzing the five qualities a superstar needs to possess in order to be considered a total package. So far, we've looked at technical ability and the right look, now let's look at mic skills. In order to be a main event star, a superstar must either have decent mic skills or be managed by someone with them. Great mic skills tend to get fans invested into a character and generally can make a superstar's stock rise. In this article, we'll look at ten superstars who could talk the talk. Since we're focusing on wrestlers only, people like Paul Heyman and Zeb Colters are ineligible for this list. 1. CM Punk- Why not start with arguably (and in my opinion) the greatest mic worker in the history of the WWE? That seems like a good place to start. Let's start with the pipe bomb, the most famous promo of all time. That alone is enough to warrant him a place on this list. We still don't know if we will ever see him again, but w...

To say this week's Raw was good is a bit of an understatement. In my opinion, this was the best Raw of the year. There was just so much that happened. Two matches were announced for WWE Battleground , Bad News Barrett was stripped of the Intercontinental Championship, AJ Lee returned, AJ Lee won the Divas Championship, AJ Lee turned face, Jack Swagger turned face, Paige turned heel, The Miz returned, Chris Jericho returned, the Wyatt Family attacked Chris Jericho, Summer Rae kissed Dolph Ziggler twice, Dolphz Ziggler beat Fandango, Kofi Kingston beat Cesaro, Cesaro destroyed Kingston, and Seth Rollins tried to cash in on John Cena. Yeah, it was crazy. I won't be able to cover everything in this recap, but I'll try and recap whatever best I can. One of the best segments of the show was between Rusev and Jack Swagger. It started with Rusev and Lana bragging about his latest win and dumping on the U.S. This prompted Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger to come out and defend America....

Two nights ago, we had the Money in the Bank pay-per-view. It received mixed reviews, with most of the negative reviews attacking the booking decisions. But we're not here to look at that, we're here to recognize the top performances from last night. I know I had seven entries last time, but I'm increasing that to ten. This was tough, because there were some excellent performers. The criteria for grading includes in-ring performance, crowd reaction, impact on the show, and match results. But before I get to the stars, I would like to point out some of the negatives. Let's start with Cesaro and Bray Wyatt. These are two of the hottest performers in the WWE, but they were mostly invisible during the title match. Cesaro did a great job with the ladder balancing spot, but Wyatt really didn't stand out at all. Next, the managers. Both Paul Heyman and Zeb Colter were total non-factors. Also, we saw a ref move Colter out of the way just before Kane's pyro exploded. T...