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

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

Yes, a lot of this involves us going back to the well with SNME and DON, because it’s difficult to talk about this past week without bringing up those events, but we have brand new winners and losers from those shows to discuss, plus another winner that didn’t appear on either (bet you can’t guess who it is). With that in mind, Here are your WINC winners and losers for the week of 5/26/26!

When Sol Ruca was called up to WWE’s main roster following WrestleMania 42, she faced two of the strongest competitors in the women’s division today, having went one-on-one with Liv Morgan and IYO SKY, but she failed to score the victory against both of them. Therefore, her non-title match with Women’s Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch this past weekend at Saturday Night’s Main Event would’ve been the perfect opportunity to give the new star a much needed clean win. Instead we got one of the worst booking decisions of the entire week.

Instead of having a legitimate match with Lynch, the contest ended in just two minutes after “The Man” pulled referee Jessika Carr into (a botched version of) Ruca’s Sol Snatcher in order to avoid taking the finishing move. This led Carr to call off the match, which not only made Ruca look weak despite getting a victory over Lynch, but also disappointed the fans in attendance who booed the decision while the champion walked up the entrance ramp. Following Saturday Night’s Main Event, it was announced that Ruca would get an opportunity to challenge Lynch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship this upcoming Sunday at Clash In Italy, but the way the 26-year-old has been booked during her first month on “WWE Raw” has left fans feeling concerned that the company could already be fumbling her main roster run.

The best way to rectify the mistakes that WWE has made with Ruca is to have her become Women’s Intercontinental Champion on Sunday, especially since Lynch has already held the title three times within the last year. However, another loss for Ruca in what would be her biggest match since arriving to “Raw” would be a damaging move and a step in the wrong direction for her character.

Written by Julien D’Alessandro

Given that Konosuke Takeshita is only a year removed from winning New Japan’s G1 Climax tournament and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, it would seem downright sacreligious to suggest anything could top those moments as the biggest of his career. 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, may not be as big a deal as winning the G1 or New Japan’s biggest championship.You know what is as big, or bigger though; beating Okada, the man who is arguably the greatest Japanese star of the last decade, and doing it in the way Takeshita did.

There have certainly been quibbles about how AEW got to this point, especially since Okada and Takeshita have seemingly been feuding since the dawn of time, and have somehow only had two singles matches against each other. But those complaints seemed quaint once the bell rang on Sunday and Takeshita and Okada had the match many fans always dreamed they could have, trading blows and moves as if this was a Tokyo Dome main event. From a kayfabe perspective, Takeshita winning that match was enormous, and would’ve been regardless of how the match went. But winning it in what many considered to be the best match on an all-time great show? That’s 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 biggest accomplishment Takeshita may have achieved over the weekend was losing just as much as he won. And boy did Takeshita take an L in the afterglow of his victory. Now sure; some would argue that Takeshita getting removed from the Don Callis Family was long overdue. But it wasn’t the removal that stung; it was the fact that Takeshita was betrayed by long-time friend Kyle Fletcher in the process, the most devastating ending to a friendship since Steve Rogers told Tony Stark that Bucky Barnes was his friend, only for Stark to sadly reply by saying “so was I.”

Now look, friendships in wrestling are like bones; they are fragile and meant to be broken. There was always going to come a day when Fletcher and Takeshita’s bromance was going to come to a sad conclusion, with the two now destined to fight in a series of matches that may even rival the one Takeshita and Okada just had (sorry; looking for positives). It still doesn’t mean 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 with his best friend. And now he has no group, no best friend, and worst of all, that former best friend decided he’d rather be friends with Takeshita’s rival instead. The Okada match may have been Takeshita’s Austerlitz, but the post-match right now is looking a lot like his Waterloo.

Written by Eric Mutter

This will 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 at the Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York or what?

Truth be told, out of all of the veterans that 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 who have had me rushing back to my TV to see what they do next. The initial feud with Cage was fine, as was his AEW TNT Championship run until he broke his leg. But the feud with the Death Riders and the feud with FTR that has somehow gone on for OVER ONE CALENDAR YEAR JUST TO POINT OUT, have soured me on the “Rated-R Superstar.” However, for all of the “Edgeheads” who still say that their favorite part of any show he’s on is hearing Alter Bridge, this was your night.

In 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 first time in I don’t know 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 will have a new dad” character that had him booed out of every building, being a genuine babyface in the face of the dastardly villains, and performing at a level of in-ring precision that makes you remember that sometimes, age is just a number.

Will their AEW World Tag Team Championship reign be any good? It might not be, but honestly seeing them with tag team gold for the first time in a quarter of a century, I’m here for a cheeky nostalgia run, so long as it doesn’t outstay its welcome. They have 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’s completely fine as well. I’m expecting whatever was meant to happen with The Hardys in 2022 before their nostalgia run was canned, and as long as we hear some hits, have a sing-a-long and remember the good old days, then let’s create something with the benefit of flash photography. 

Written by Sam Palmer

How dare Kevin Knight upset poor “Speedball” like that? I know his taste in shoes might be questionable to the point where it might be best he goes barefoot for every aspect in life, but that doesn’t mean you can upset him like that.

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

The midcard in AEW is stacked to the point where it feels like every other week, a new person comes along that could easily be an AEW TNT or National Champion. It obviously helps that Knight is currently the TNT Champion, and that title will eventually end up with “Speedball” at some point, but if there is a feud to be had between Bailey and Knight, would it really make any sense for Knight to lose so soon after making it to the main event? Even if Bailey does beat Knight for the belt, it’s not like he’s going to have a long reign with it because, again, there’s a laundry list of people waiting in the wings that should have a title in the near future, and the TNT Championship is a perfect title to hot potato between people.

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

“Speedball” does have a natural ability in the ring — just look at his Continental Classic run to see how good he consistently is — but Knight’s heel turn gives me the feeling that that’s all he will be from here on out: a consistent, reliable hand who will put on great matches but ultimately fall short on the big occasions. It’s fine if that’s where he sees himself, but Bailey is far too good to end up being referred to as “Kevin Knight’s former tag team partner.”

Written by Sam Palmer

It’s been quite the week for Danhausen, the former AEW star who showed up at Elimination Chamber and has improbably become the #2 merchandise seller in WWE. That’s according to an employee town hall where, according to reports, Danhausen was singled out for praise. He also continues to be a regular presence on both 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 favorite basketball team of Danhausen rival The Miz) in their Eastern Conference Finals series against the recently un-cursed New York Knicks.

It’s that series that really has the Danhausen-Mania running wild. Over the last seven days, the Cavs played the Knicks four times; the Knicks won all four games, sweeping the series and advancing to the NBA Finals for the first time in decades. The victories ranged from Game 1’s incredible fourth quarter comeback to Game 4’s decisive blowout, but the point remains the same regardless of the box score: 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, of course, but the question 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 remains to be seen — a Knicks sweep in either series would not be a safe bet. But that’s 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 always craved.

Written by Miles Schneiderman