Biggest Winners And Losers Of The Week — 6/15/2026

Another week down in the wide world of professional wrestling, and once again, the Wrestling Inc. staff are here to break down some winners and losers!

It's been an eventful seven days since last Monday, with various wrestlers advancing in the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments in WWE, as well as the Owen Hart Cup tournaments in AEW. We also saw championships lost and gained across the spectrum of the wrestling industry (for the first time ever, we're talking a little New Japan in this column) and even an unlikely new champion crowned in the world of professional basketball, which is shockingly not just relevant but relevant again. How do all of these things fit together into one space, and who exactly came out on top this week — as opposed to those who finished on the bottom? Here are your WINC winners and losers for the week of 6/15/26!

Both the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments have felt lackluster this year, seemingly only being used to further other storylines. While the KOTR side of things is still guilty of that, how the QOTR tournament is playing out so far, and where it looks to be going, is just egregious. For that, look no further than the fact Women's World Champion Liv Morgan advanced in the tournament on last week's edition of "WWE Raw."

Morgan defeated Women's Intercontinental Champion Sol Ruca, Becky Lynch, and Alexa Bliss to move on to face Charlotte Flair in the semi-finals. While many fans thought Morgan's involvement in the tournament was ridiculous, some thought maybe she wouldn't get past the first round. Former champion Stephanie Vaquer is seemingly still waiting in the wings to take Morgan out. However, we haven't had an update on Vaquer's injury status in a moment. She wasn't on the European tour, where many expected her to return, and reportedly, the entire reason nobody's even stepped up to challenge Morgan for the title is because WWE is waiting on Vaquer to get back.

Sure, Vaquer could show up to interfere and cost Morgan the match against Flair, but as the weeks go on and more Judgment Day backstage segments play out with Morgan blowing off Raquel Rodriguez, who sits on the opposite side of the bracket and will face IYO SKY on "Raw" Monday night, and Roxanne Perez, it feels more and more like the Queen of the Ring final will come down to a Judgment Day storyline where Rodriguez and Morgan face-off against one another in the final. It's WWE booking at its most predictable, which is the exact opposite of what you want in a tournament.

In WWE history, the King of the Ring, at least, has been used to establish new stars, which is something WWE really isn't in the business of doing anymore. Maybe it's silly to think that the company would ever do the same for the Queen of the Ring side of things. The booking for both tournaments has not been great this year, from WWE jamming as many stars as possible into four-way matches to begin, rather than singles bouts, to most recently, Jey Uso's victory to advance on "WWE SmackDown." Fans looking to see someone fresh established as a challenger going into SummerSlam very well could be disappointed this year, which makes both tournaments, but specifically the Queen of the Ring tournament, losers.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Zaria finally broke her gold duck during "WWE NXT" this past week, dominating over and dethroning Tatum Paxley to become Women's North American Champion.

It marked the culmination of a journey since joining the brand to fanfare in late 2024, debuting as one of three marquee signings along with Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer. But where they were crowned NXT Women's Champion within a few months, the latter doing so as a double champion with the North American title, Zaria has instead had to wait through several unsuccessful attempts at different titles. 

Zaria and Sol Ruca struck up their ZaRuca partnership during this time, adding the women's tag titles to the list of accolades tried and failed for. Meanwhile, Ruca became a double champion with the Women's North American and Women's Speed titles, reigning until an injury forced her out of contention. Zaria even offered to stand in and defend the title for her partner, then went on to lose the defense as Blake Monroe became champion. 

This year has seen the stage in Zaria's journey where enough became enough, turning on Ruca and beating her on the way out of the brand, thus crowning Zaria as a new top heel. This week saw that journey marked with a milestone, continuing the momentum from defeating Ruca with a great performance.

Written by Max Everett

Whenever someone loses a world title, they are naturally going to be in the conversation of being included in this weekly column as a loser. Having your spot as the top guy in a company taken from you is something no wrestler wants, but for Callum Newman, you get the sense that his loss at NJPW Dominion in Osaka-jo-Hall hits a little bit harder in the grand scheme of things.

Newman dropped the IWGP Heavyweight Championship to Yota Tsuji in the main event of New Japan Pro Wrestling's second biggest show of the year, bringing his reign to an end after 71 days and just one successful title defense. On top of that, Newman suffered a dislocated shoulder which will require an MRI scan, and if it's a serious injury, he won't be cleared to wrestle at the upcoming AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view (that's if he's booked to compete at all), or the G1 Climax tournament which starts in July. 

It's safe to say that Dominion wasn't the best night of Newman's career, but he does have one storyline going that can be advanced without the need of a wrestling match — that story being him leading the United Empire stable while the group's founder, current AEW star Will Ospreay, is keeping an eye on his protégé as his attitude has taken a turn over the past year. This will all inevitably lead to a match between Newman and Ospreay, most likely at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 21 in January, but the lack of any advancement in that story over Dominion weekend is a bit alarming considering what AEW and NJPW have coming up. 

Forbidden Door would have been the perfect show to push that narrative in the right direction. After all, you want to get people excited as early as possible for a match that's taking place months down the line. However, Ospreay is in the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament against Swerve Strickland, so you don't want Newman costing him that match because that will impact the AEW All In London main event. You don't want Newman to not be at Forbidden Door at all because that will just look bad on AEW considering he's one of NJPW's top names right now, but if he's injured and not getting involved in the Ospreay match, what is there to do?

It all seems like everything is happening at the exact wrong time for Newman, and while he's still young at just 23 years of age, it looks like he's being left out in the cold during a pivotal time in the wrestling calendar.

Written by Sam Palmer

AEW star Maya World is going through an extremely tough time personally. She announced the death of her older brother only just last Monday, but ahead of "AEW Dynamite," she was revealed by AEW President Tony Khan to be the replacement for Sareee, who was taken out of the Women's Owen Hart Foundation tournament by injury.

Khan revealed World's addition to the tournament in his social media stream ahead of the show on Wednesday, and acknowledged the death in World's family, but said she was backstage at "Dynamite." Khan said that the star wanted to be around the locker room, and he was giving her the opportunity to take Sareee's place against Skye Blue.

She would go on to have a good match against Blue, and in the end, World was able to dodge a Code Blue and score the upset victory with a roll-up. She went on to cut an extremely emotional promo, which was posted to AEW's social media, where she described waking up to finding out about her brother's passing. World said it was her brother who showed her wrestling for the first time, and confirmed that she wanted to be there on Wednesday with her "second family." It was an excellent promo that really made you feel for her, and also made you want to see her get to Forbidden Door to show the world what she's capable of.

World goes on to face ROH Women's World Champion Athena on this week's episode of "AEW Collision." Sadly, it doesn't seem likely that World will advance to the finals of the Owen, as pitting Athena against the recently-returned Mercedes Mone at Forbidden Door in the tournament final seems like the most obvious booking decision. However, Khan could surprise us all, and put World over Athena and continue her feel-good Cinderella story, though World said in her promo she's not Cinderella, she's the "It Girl."

Either way, World is a winner this week for going out there and putting on an extremely brave face to score the victory as a last-minute replacement for Sareee. She should be proud of herself not just for the work she put in against Blue, but her consistent work in AEW that led to her signing back in December. Working hard and showing up, even in tragedy, earned her the opportunity she just received in the Owen. Hopefully World and her family are taking time when they can to heal during this trying time, and we're offering our thoughts and good vibes to them.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It's all going down with the Bloodline and a few Bloodline-adjacent characters, but there doesn't seem to be anything for Jimmy Uso at the moment. 

Over the past few years Jimmy has grown from one half of the longest reigning Tag Team Champions to the Uso that didn't make it as a singles star, having been the first one to officially turn on Roman Reigns originally and sporadically framed as someone to challenge the "Tribal Chief." In fact, when he returned from the injury that saw Jey become the "Right Hand Man" after challenging Reigns for the title – otherwise known as the Bloodline's origins – Jimmy told Reigns to his face that he's no b****. Years of no follow up and a forgotten stint as a singles talent, with a theme song that spoke of standing on his own two feet, and that initial line has been well and truly contradicted. 

Now, Jey is looking to add to his World Heavyweight title by winning the King of the Ring, a mission assigned by Reigns to dethrone Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship. Jacob Fatu has now been forced into Bloodline servitude, but will inevitably take much of the spotlight for his rivalry with Reigns and his ongoing tensions with Jey. Besides, he is Jacob Fatu. Even Solo Sikoa, who has been exiled since trying to usurp Reigns and now grows Tribal Trees, has been taking some of the limelight as Reigns apparently wants him back. 

Jimmy is just ... there. When he is there, he is either a herald for Reigns or the proverbial good cop when Jey isn't feeling very Ucey. It must suck to be one half of arguably the best tag team in the world and unable to be a tag team, while also not getting the space to explore an individual role as part of the biggest faction in wrestling.

Written by Max Everett

Game 3 of the NBA Championship series between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs was infamous for the fact that it was the only game the Knicks lost all series, with many superstitious fans blaming the bad vibes brought by President Donald Trump and the security measures his visit to Madison Square Garden forced on midtown Manhattan. It was also the only game that WWE clown-demon Danhausen attended, and yet, Danhausen is still being celebrated for "un-cursing" the Knicks. It would not be surprising to this writer to see Danhausen at Thursday's victory parade in NYC.

Hell, at this rate, I'm expecting Mayor Zohran Mamdani to appear in full Danhausen-face at some point, as the two have become twin symbols for the Knicks' first NBA championship since 1973. WWE is usually content in sending the champions a WWE title belt with the company logo, but this time there is official Knicks x Danhausen merchandise. I could bring up that he will likely never have to pay for another meal in New York, as long as he's in makeup, or the fact that he is now on the radar of guys like Spike Lee and Timothee Chalamet. I am simply going to point out that he is not carrying the stink of the Game 3 loss as much as the President. Danhausen said it himself — he's the "King of New York," and unlike the outlaw Frank White from the film, he's got the whole system behind him. 

WWE put Danhausen in a position to be one of the biggest winners of the week, especially with much of the roster stuck at the more divisive Freedom 250 event. Very Nice, Very Winner.

Written by Ross Berman