Biggest Winners And Losers Of The Week — 5/26/2026

It has been quite the eventful week within the wrestling world! This past weekend featured each WWE Saturday Night’s Important Event and AEW Double or Nothing 2026, and we have now already named our winners and losers for each those shows! But are we done naming winners and losers for the last seven days overall (well, eight days, since Monday was a vacation)? Not by an extended shot!

Yes, lots of this involves us going back to the well with SNME and DON, since it’s difficult to speak about this past week without bringing up those events, but we have now brand latest winners and losers from those shows to debate, plus one other winner that did not appear on either (bet you may’t guess who it’s). With that in mind, Listed here are your WINC winners and losers for the week of 5/26/26!

When Sol Ruca was called as much as WWE’s essential roster following WrestleMania 42, she faced two of the strongest competitors in the ladies’s division today, having went one-on-one with Liv Morgan and IYO SKY, but she didn’t rating the victory against each of them. Due to this fact, her non-title match with Women’s Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch this past weekend at Saturday Night’s Important Event would’ve been the proper opportunity to present the brand new star a much needed clean win. As an alternative we got one among the worst booking decisions of your entire week.

As an alternative of getting a legitimate match with Lynch, the competition resulted in just two minutes after “The Man” pulled referee Jessika Carr into (a botched version of) Ruca’s Sol Snatcher in an effort to avoid taking the ending move. This led Carr to call off the match, which not only made Ruca look weak despite getting a victory over Lynch, but in addition disenchanted the fans in attendance who booed the choice while the champion walked up the doorway ramp. Following Saturday Night’s Important Event, it was announced that Ruca would get a possibility to challenge Lynch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship this upcoming Sunday at Clash In Italy, but the way in which the 26-year-old has been booked during her first month on “WWE Raw” has left fans feeling concerned that the corporate could already be fumbling her essential roster run.

The very best solution to rectify the mistakes that WWE has made with Ruca is to have her turn out to be Women’s Intercontinental Champion on Sunday, especially since Lynch has already held the title 3 times throughout the last 12 months. Nevertheless, one other loss for Ruca in what can be her biggest match since arriving to “Raw” can be a harmful move and a step within the unsuitable direction for her character.

Written by Julien D’Alessandro

On condition that Konosuke Takeshita is just a 12 months faraway from winning Recent Japan’s G1 Climax tournament and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, it will seem downright sacreligious to suggest anything could top those moments as the most important of his profession. And yet, Takeshita did that this past Sunday in his AEW Double or Nothing match against Kazuchika Okada. Now sure, winning the AEW International Championship, for the second time no less, is probably not as big a deal as winning the G1 or Recent Japan’s biggest championship. what’s as big, or larger though; beating Okada, the person who’s arguably the best Japanese star of the last decade, and doing it in the way in which Takeshita did.

There have actually been quibbles about how AEW got up to now, especially since Okada and Takeshita have seemingly been feuding because the dawn of time, and have by some means only had two singles matches against one another. But those complaints seemed quaint once the bell rang on Sunday and Takeshita and Okada had the match many fans at all times dreamed they may have, trading blows and moves as if this was a Tokyo Dome essential event. From a kayfabe perspective, Takeshita winning that match was enormous, and would’ve been no matter how the match went. But winning it in what many considered to be one of the best match on an all-time great show? That is what the guy from those old Mastercard commercials would call “priceless.”

Written by Eric Mutter

As great as Konosuke Takeshita’s AEW International Title victory over Kazuchika Okada was at AEW Double or Nothing, the most important accomplishment Takeshita could have achieved over the weekend was losing just as much as he won. And boy did Takeshita take an L within the afterglow of his victory. Now sure; some would argue that Takeshita getting faraway from the Don Callis Family was long overdue. However it wasn’t the removal that stung; it was the proven fact that Takeshita was betrayed by long-time friend Kyle Fletcher in the method, essentially the most devastating ending to a friendship since Steve Rogers told Tony Stark that Bucky Barnes was his friend, just for Stark to sadly reply by saying “so was I.”

Now look, friendships in wrestling are like bones; they’re fragile and meant to be broken. There was at all times going to return a day when Fletcher and Takeshita’s bromance was going to return to a tragic conclusion, with the 2 now destined to fight in a series of matches which will even rival the one Takeshita and Okada just had (sorry; on the lookout for positives). It still does not imply this turn doesn’t hurt though. Poor Takeshita was on top of the world, having bested his rival, won back his International Title, and seemingly reunited together with his best friend. And now he has no group, no best friend, and worst of all, that former best friend decided he’d quite be friends with Takeshita’s rival as a substitute. The Okada match could have been Takeshita’s Austerlitz, however the post-match immediately is looking so much like his Waterloo.

Written by Eric Mutter

This can actually go against what our resident winner and loser picker Ross said in his piece exclusively dedicated to AEW Double or Nothing 2026. To his credit, even he said calling Adam Copeland and Christian Cage losers on that night was controversial, which it was because man did Cope and Cage win big on the Louis Armstrong Stadium in Recent York or what?

Truth be told, out of the entire veterans which have made the jump to AEW for one last run before they hang up their boots, Copeland has been lower down on the list of those that have had me rushing back to my TV to see what they do next. The initial feud with Cage was advantageous, as was his AEW TNT Championship run until he broke his leg. However the feud with the Death Riders and the feud with FTR that has by some means gone on for OVER ONE CALENDAR YEAR JUST TO POINT OUT, have soured me on the “Rated-R Superstar.” Nevertheless, for the entire “Edgeheads” who still say that their favorite a part of any show he’s on is hearing Alter Bridge, this was your night.

Within the near three years he’s been in AEW, this was Copeland’s finest hour. It genuinely felt like he was on top form for the primary time in I do not understand how long, and when the weakest member of the match is firing on all cylinders, it only makes everyone else look great as well.

This was also a grand night for Christian Cage. He walked that delicate line of staying in his “Don’t let your mother near me or else you’ll have a brand new dad” character that had him booed out of each constructing, being a real babyface within the face of the dastardly villains, and acting at a level of in-ring precision that makes you keep in mind that sometimes, age is only a number.

Will their AEW World Tag Team Championship reign be any good? It won’t be, but truthfully seeing them with tag team gold for the primary time in 1 / 4 of a century, I’m here for a cheeky nostalgia run, as long as it doesn’t outstay its welcome. They’ve already had an interaction with The Young Bucks which looks like their Wembley Stadium match, and if it does all end under that big London arch, that is completely advantageous as well. I’m expecting whatever was meant to occur with The Hardys in 2022 before their nostalgia run was canned, and so long as we hear some hits, have a sing-a-long and remember the nice old days, then let’s create something with the advantage of flash photography. 

Written by Sam Palmer

How dare Kevin Knight upset poor “Speedball” like that? I do know his taste in shoes may be questionable to the purpose where it may be best he goes barefoot for each aspect in life, but that does not imply you may upset him like that.

No in all seriousness, for as excited as all of us are for “The Jet” to fly high within the essential event scene, I personally have one worry right out the gate that “Speedball” Mike Bailey might fall by the wayside within the wake of his tag team partner going to the dark side. I’m not saying Bailey goes to find yourself being the Marty Jannetty of JetSpeed, however the ceiling for Knight and what he could do as a essential event player is so high that outside of the inevitable feud that the 2 men could have, what is going to “Speedball” actually do flying solo?

The midcard in AEW is stacked to the purpose where it appears like every other week, a brand new person comes along that might easily be an AEW TNT or National Champion. It obviously helps that Knight is currently the TNT Champion, and that title will eventually find yourself with “Speedball” in some unspecified time in the future, but when there may be a feud available between Bailey and Knight, would it not really make any sense for Knight to lose so soon after making it to the essential event? Even when Bailey does beat Knight for the belt, it isn’t like he’ll have an extended reign with it because, again, there is a laundry list of individuals waiting within the wings that ought to have a title within the near future, and the TNT Championship is an ideal title to hot potato between people.

Knight has the age factor on his side being 29 years of age, and while Bailey is not exactly a pensioner at 35, you do get the sense that if Bailey and Knight were the identical age, they’d be feuding over the AEW World Championship quite than Bailey seeing his tag team partner have the rocket strapped to him.

“Speedball” does have a natural ability within the ring — just take a look at his Continental Classic run to see how good he consistently is — but Knight’s heel turn gives me the sensation that that is all he shall be from here on out: a consistent, reliable hand who will placed on great matches but ultimately fall short on the massive occasions. It’s advantageous if that is where he sees himself, but Bailey is much too good to find yourself being known as “Kevin Knight’s former tag team partner.”

Written by Sam Palmer

It has been quite the week for Danhausen, the previous AEW star who showed up at Elimination Chamber and has improbably turn out to be the #2 merchandise seller in WWE. That is in line with an worker town hall where, in line with reports, Danhausen was singled out for praise. He also continues to be a daily presence on each WWE programming — he continued to work in his science lab on “SmackDown” this past Friday, with many fans speculating he’s working to bring Baron Corbin back to WWE — and ESPN, where he got significant attention for cursing the Cleveland Cavaliers (by happenstance the favourite basketball team of Danhausen rival The Miz) of their Eastern Conference Finals series against the recently un-cursed Recent York Knicks.

It’s that series that actually has the Danhausen-Mania running wild. Over the past seven days, the Cavs played the Knicks 4 times; the Knicks won all 4 games, sweeping the series and advancing to the NBA Finals for the primary time in a long time. The victories ranged from Game 1’s incredible fourth quarter comeback to Game 4’s decisive blowout, but the purpose stays the identical whatever the box rating: Danhausen’s curse lives, and continues to be discussed with regularity on ESPN. Knicks star Jalen Brunson was even asked about it during a post-game press conference (he no-sold it, after all, however the query was still asked).

Will Danhausen go on to curse Knicks’ NBA Finals opponent, be it the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Santonio Spurs? That continues to be to be seen — a Knicks sweep in either series wouldn’t be a secure bet. But that is immaterial; this week represented a definitive win for the curse, and for the unlikely hero who appears to have finally given WWE the mainstream attention it has at all times craved.

Written by Miles Schneiderman