Biggest Winners And Losers Of The Week — 4/27/2026

The last week of pro wrestling has been dominated by the fallout from WWE WrestleMania — most dramatically in the form of WWE's year round of talent layoffs that saw the company let go of Kairi Sane, the Motor City Machine Guns, and the entire Wyatt Sicks, among others. That's not all that happened in the last seven days, but it is the biggest thing, and it will be dominating this week's winners & losers column.

Now to be clear — nobody who got released from WWE this past week will be named as a loser in this space, because we're not about that here. But could anyone on that unfortunate list be considered a winner? And what about the people replacing the recently released on "Raw" and "SmackDown?" And what about the industry as a whole? If you're interested in all those questions and more, here are your WINC winners and losers for the week of 4/27/26!

However you feel about the recent wave of WWE releases, one thing that can't be denied is that the vast majority of them weren't really doing anything important at the time of release. The Wyatt Sicks had just lost a seemingly endless feud, MCMG were mostly doing backstage segments with a comatose Johnny Gargano, Apollo Crews and Alba Fyre just weren't really being used, and the likes of Zoey Stark and Santos Escobar were either out with injury or preparing to return from injury. It sucks that all these people got fired, but the on-screen product will largely remain unimpacted by their loss, as sad as that is to say.

The same cannot be said of Kairi Sane, who was an instrumental piece of an eight-month storyline between IYO SKY and Asuka that will now be incredibly difficult to pay off, if it pays off at all. Kairi had literally become the thing IYO and Asuka were fighting over — her abusive relationship with Asuka was the thing IYO was trying to end. Not only did the IYO/Asuka match ultimately not make the WrestleMania card (a huge loss in and of itself) but now they've literally lost the central cog in the entire storyline. What do they fight over now? Is the story still worth telling, or should it just be dropped? That's how important Kairi Sane was to a long-running angle that is now left without even the possibility of a satisfying resolution. At least in terms of the on-screen product, it's hard to lose more than that.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Motor City Machine Guns and WWE has always felt like something of a victory lap for both parties. Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley got a WrestleMania moment, and WWE got a couple of major proverbial pelts to rub in AEW's faces. Now that WWE has let MCMG go, I think it's safe to say that the two journeymen have come out as winners.

MCMG are a lot like like Tommaso Ciampa or Roderick Strong, indie superstars for whom the original Black & Gold "NXT" was designed. Unfortunately, WWE and "NXT" has outgrown its need for "match guys" who are there to give the fans 15-20 blistering minutes of action every week. I would not be surprised if they find their way to AEW, where they can do as Ciampa and Strong have done, rehabbing their reputations as bell-to-bell artists.

The AEW tag team division is desperate for a team like MCMG, as there are only so many combinations of Cope, Christian, FTR, and The Young Bucks that one can stomach. They stayed in WWE long enough to cash some of those sweet, sweet WWE checks, and now they are leaving with knees that should still be able to handle a "dream match" or two across the road in AEW. Sounds like winners to me.

Written by Ross Berman

While there are plenty of incredible talents still working their butts off on the "WWE NXT" roster, the developmental brand took a major hit this week, from call-ups to the main roster to a slew of post-WrestleMania releases on Friday. While head of "NXT" creative Shawn Michaels has been open about knowing these things happen often, and his stars aren't meant to stick around for years, it still has to suck for him and everyone involved behind the scenes.

Not including the likes of Oba Femi, Je'Von Evans, and Trick Williams who were called up prior to WrestleMania, "NXT" has now lost Blake Monroe and Ricky Saints, who are set to debut on "SmackDown" on Friday, as well as Joe Hendry, Sol Ruca, Jacy Jayne, Fallon Henley, Lainey Reid, and Ethan Page. A majority of those stars are former champions on "NXT," from Women's North American champs to all the most recent holders of the NXT Championship.

Thinking of everyone called up over the last few months, "NXT" had taken one of the biggest hits to its roster in recent memory. Thankfully, the women's roster remains strong, with the likes of champion Lola Vice (who herself may not be long for "NXT"), Tatum Paxley, Kendal Grey, Wren Sinclair, Jaida Parker, and more, but the men's roster hasn't been as deep as the women's since the days of "NXT" Black & Gold. There's going to be a lot of pressure on guys like current NXT Champion Tony D'Angelo, who returned with a completely revamped gimmick to end 2025, Keanu Carver and the Vanity Project, all who just were called up from developmental's developmental, "WWE EVOLVE," and North American Champion Myles Borne.

The releases were more so developmental talent who hadn't debuted on Tuesday nights, or had only wrestled a handful of televised matches, but it was still be a hit to "NXT." And don't get me started on the fact that talents from the new season of "WWE LFG: Legends & Future Greats" were released prior to the season even premiering on Sunday. The season already had a new premise which wasn't as exciting, and now, knowing that talent on the show have already been released, I don't exactly think there's much incentive to watch.

Written by Daisy Ruth

As someone who's been around long enough now to not only see, but cover quite a few main roster call-ups from "WWE NXT," the arrival of former two-time NXT Women's Champion Jacy Jayne and Fatal Influence on "WWE SmackDown" on Friday was something else, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. Sure, some fans within the IWC seem to think that the boos for Jayne, Fallon Henley, and Lainey Reid were piped in, but since I have absolutely zero proof of that via any reports at this point, I'm choosing to believe that Fatal Influence, especially Jayne, actually did garner that much insane heat.

They got a pretty good reaction when they interfered in the women's tag match earlier in the night, but the heat was at its highest level when Jayne interrupted new WWE Women's Champion Rhea Ripley. Though the segment was nearly an identical format to what Sol Ruca did to Liv Morgan on "WWE Raw," with the heel and babyface roles reversed, this just felt so much more effective. The crowd drowned Jayne out with their boos, so loud, to the point both women looked surprised. I don't quite know how you can fake that with piped-in noise.

Between the crowd reaction, the stable appearing in two segments during the night, and the fact she got a match against Rhea "Bloody" Ripley on the night of her "SmackDown" debut, Jayne can only be deemed a huge winner this week. Of course, Henley and Reid interfered in the match, causing a disqualification, but Jayne held her own throughout the bout, showing off what she could do to main roster fans who may have not seen her work before.

It was inevitable that Jayne, after two reigns with "NXT's" top women's title and five years on the brand, was going to be called up to the main roster, but things were a bit more uncertain with the rest of Fatal Influence, to the point you could say that Henley and Reid are even bigger winners over Jayne. If Jayne's going to be going for the top title, or even the Women's United States Championship, there's no reason why Reid and Henley can't challenge for the women's tag titles. Or for the mid-card title on their own, as Henley is a former Women's North American Champion and has only gotten better in the ring over the last few years. Really, the possibilities are pretty endless for the entire stable, and it was a huge win for all three of them to be called up. The "SmackDown" women's roster needed a boost, and it certainly got one with the trio.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It is the biggest month on the wrestling calendar, which of course means corporate overlords casting their eyes over the spreadsheet and saying "Number not big enough," ensuring that a handful of wrestlers are sent on their way, oftentimes before the end of their agreed contract. 

One could put it down to cost-cutting or needs-must for a business adjusting its cash flow, but this is a company that rather proudly brags every time it makes even the slightest bit of money – and they have been bragging constantly since the merger went through. Ari Emanuel pocketed $67 million for 2025, Mark Shapiro nabbed himself $42 million, and it was not long after those financial declarations dropped that news started to break that they were making cuts. Some were "Well, it's not like they were getting anywhere" names, which is quite a callous even if surface-level pragmatic response. Some were Kairi Sane and the Motor City Machine Guns, which is simply insane. At the end of the day, people lost their jobs with very little reason as to why, and the why that has always been given does not work in the current climate. 

Even beyond its cost-cutting and manufactured inflation of stockholder value, TKO had quite the week at demonstrating how completely morally detached it is as a company. WWE President Nick Khan sat in front of senators arguing for the House-passed Muhammad Ali Boxing Revival Act, which is all but guaranteed to go through and be signed into law. Nico Ali Walsh was arguing against it, given his grandfather is the one the bill is named after, and said both that the proposal reverses much of what Ali had fought for in the first place and that he would like his name removed from the legislation if it is passed. 

Khan made inaccurate claims in an attempt to present boxing as a sporting dystopia to be saved by the model already implemented in UFC and WWE. And then just days later, the company exemplified what opponents of the new act have been saying — TKO is looking to shift control away from the independent contractors to whichever organization they have anchored to that respective industry.

That's without getting into the fatigue from fans over pricing and creative under TKO, and the doubling down of executives in light of that criticism. Meanwhile, UFC's President was at the White House Correspondents Dinner, raising his bald head above the panic and distress over an assassination attempt to say he thought it was "F***ing awesome." There's such a disconnect between the members of this sports-entertainment oligarchy and the people who really, actually care about the medium, whichever form it may take. TKO doesn't.

Written by Max Everett

There is absolutely no way that the wrestling industry doesn't collectively see a benefit from the stars entering free agency now. 

Kay Lee Ray, known as Alba Fyre for way too long, is legitimately one of the best women's wrestlers in entire world. AEW's women's division is getting fuller and fuller everyday but she has it in her to stand above the rest, especially with a UK show on its way. 

Likewise with Nikki Cross, a solid worker, by all accounts a great person to know and work with, and also a great character worker. She made Nikki ASH almost kind of work for a little bit; she can handle something much more substantial. There was a lot of unexplored potential in the Wyatt Sicks as well, and that is something you could imagine weird-ing it up with Rosemary and Allie in the Undead Realm on Thursdays. 

Kairi Sane ... is Kairi Sane. She could go to Soft Ground Wrestling and it'd become the best promotion in the world. Hyperbole? Sure. But she is that good. One would like to think she would fit in great with the AEW/NJPW/Stardom relationship, but the point is that if continuing wrestling is her choice she would be a great get for any organization. 

Zelina Vega and Aleister Black might actually be good gets for a company like TNA or as an indie act altogether. As we already mentioned the Motor City Machine Guns are probably better off elsewhere, in a company that actively cares for tag team wrestling. They could even slot into the main event of TNA at this rate. 

Santos Escobar is another one that really fits in anywhere, whether that be in Mexico, the US, or anywhere else. Apollo Crews had all the makings of a blue-chip prospect in "WWE NXT" and then seemed to have his wings clipped through no fault of his own. It will be nice to see him get some success that doesn't involve putting on an accent. Even Andre Chase is a great hand that made a really bottom-rung gimmick work and completely outlived what had been designed for him in the company. 

At the end of the day, that's a lot of great and varied talent hitting the market around about the same time. It stands to reason that at least more than half of those names find a place sooner rather than later, and that can only be positive for the health of the business.

Written by Max Everett