It's been another week in the wide world of professional wrestling, and as always, the Wrestling Inc. staff are here to name the latest winners and losers!The last seven days have given us plenty to discuss, both in WWE (which, among other things, saw Carmelo Hayes challenge for the United States Championship in his hometown of Boston) and in AEW (which welcomed Swerve Strickland back to the roster just in time for All In 2026). And that's not all NJPW's 2026 G1 Climax also concluded this past week, and you'd better believe the WINC crew has some thoughts about that.Who does WINC think shone the brightest this week, and who was stuck in the mud? That's what we're here to find out. From The Vision's mightiest member to the latest wrestling-adjacent rapper, here are your WINC winners and losers for the week of 8/17/2026!
Now look, I don't know that a feud with Oba Femi is going to go terribly well for Bron Breakker in the end. Femi is coming off a three-match Brock Lesnar feud that saw him literally anointed as "the future" after the main event of WWE SummerSlam Night 1; Breakker is coming off being the third or possibly fourth wheel in the Maxxine Dupri heel turn storyline. If the two of them have a match together, I'm pretty sure I know who would win.But that's kind of the point, isn't it? A feud with Femi is currently a massive step up for Breakker, who was himself at one time touted as "the future" but has since been relegated to "Austin Theory's tag partner." Femi's profile is absurdly high at the moment, and being put in a program with him can only help Breakker's stock, even assuming he ends up losing the feud. The entire angle is built around Breakker reminding everyone that Femi isn't the company's only young rising star, and that isn't just kayfabe; with their confrontation on"WWE Raw" seemingly making their feud official, Breakker has the chance to remind the audience for real. I'm not saying it's his only shot at breaking out of tag team purgatory (in WWE, being in a tag team is always death), but it desperately needed to happen if Breakker had any aspirations of reclaiming his tremendous upside as a singles star.It might not end well for him, but it's still a big-time angle, and nobody in the industry in August 2026 needed a big-time angle like BronBreakker did. That's why he's one of our biggest winners this week.Written by Miles Schneiderman
While things at the top of the card in "WWE NXT" are pretty straightforward going into Heatwave on August 30, even with the sudden debut of Zilla Fatu, the same can't be said for the set-up for the developmental brand's lower card titles on the weekly show. For weeks now, "NXT" General Manager Robert Stone has put together the most convoluted stipulations surrounding multiple titles.Last week, it was determined Vanity Project's Jackson Drake will take on Shiloh Hill on this week's edition of the show. If Drake wins, he earns a shot at Myles Borne's North American Championship at the upcoming premium live event, and his stablemates, Brad Baylor and Ricky Smokes, will get a shot at Borne and Tavion Heights' NXT Tag Team Championships. If Stone simply set up the number one contender's match for the NA title, it would make sense. Instead, Borne playing double duty at Heatwave likely leads to the heel turn of Heights when they lose their tag titles.Instead of Smokes and Baylor earning their way back to a rematch for the tag gold by getting at least one victory ahead of Heatwave, they're relying on someone not even involved in the tag picture. The subsequent match will then impact yet another story in "NXT" between Borne and Heights, making the titles feel more like props than anything.That messy set-up last week wouldn't have felt so ridiculous, had this not already been an ongoing theme in "NXT" over recent weeks. It began with Borne successfully defending his singles title in order for he and Heights to challenge Vanity Project for the tag titles in the first place. Around that very same time, Stone ruled that WWE Women's Speed Champion Wren Sinclair needed to defend her gold in a five-minute Speed match against Women's North American Champion Zaria. If Sinclair won, she would get a shot at Zaria's title.To make things worse surrounding that build, Zaria continuously put down the Speed title as inferior and brushed it off more than once. Now, the women are set to "unify" the belts, or, more than likely, the Women's Speed Championship will just go away with a Zaria retention at Heatwave. Which then leads to questions surrounding the future of Lexis King's Men's Speed Championship, which hasn't been defended on TV in more than two months.With "NXT" being WWE's developmental brand, things need to be much more straightforward than they have been over the last few weeks. While Heatwave likely serves to right things going into the latter part of the year, fans have still had to endure head-scratching stipulations to get there, with two more episodes until the event in Texas.Written byDaisyRuth
Swerve Strickland hasn't had the best year in 2026, but with his return on last week's edition of "AEW Dynamite," he's set to make waves in the weeks to come, and presumably at AEW All In. No matter what happens ahead of the big event, Strickland's return is a massive win for AEW, as fans have been clamoring to see him following his Forbidden Door loss to Will Ospreay in the finals of The Owen.Interestingly, he returned to confront the new AEW World Trios Champions, Brodido and "Hangman" Adam Page, which somehow made perfect sense, as he has had ongoing issues with all of them. Perhaps most importantly, the move has fans speculating online about who could back him up if he finds himself in a trios match at All In. Many online believe that Strickland's return will lead to the debut of the former New Day in WWE, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, who are now going by Kofi and Austin Creed."The Most Dangerous Man in AEW" teaming up with Kofi and Creed would be a huge boost for him this year. It would be major for AEW, overall, as the company can right the heel turn of the team that WWE got so wrong ahead of the pair's departure from the company. With a little under two weeks left until All In, the speculation surrounding Strickland's teammates for the presumed match will only further drive wrestling fans to tune in the remaining two episodes of "Dynamite," purchase All In, or even attend the event if they're on the fence and in the area.Strickland's return is huge, as he's a major figure in AEW who is unlikely to be left off the All In card. It also seems highly unlikely AEW President Tony Khan would bring him back into the fold to slot into the trios division without having the massive surprise of Kofi and Creed in his back pocket. Anything can happen, of course, but the seemingly chronically-online Khan has to know better.For now, Strickland being back on AEW television and involved once again with Page, which will forever be a white-hot feud in AEW, is a big win, for both Strickland and fans. The addition of the beloved Brody King and Bandido alongside Page is also fantastic, and with The Demand also in the picture, wherever the feud goes is bound to be brutal and exciting.Written by DaisyRuth
Words escape me when it comes to the treatment of Carmelo Hayes in WWE. Genuinely, it's getting to the point where you think to yourself "Who did he annoy backstage to be put in these spots?" Where has it all gone wrong for our pick for one of the biggest losers of the week?Cast your minds back to the spring of 2024, a time where WWE could do no wrong because, for a lot of fans, the company were doing a lot of things right. One of those things WWE did right was call Carmelo Hayes up to the main roster during that year's WWE Draft, to the point where he was the third WWE superstar to be drafted in the entire draft, and the first male superstar that "WWE SmackDown" wanted on its books.Nearly two-and-a-half years later and Hayes has achieved almost nothing. Okay, he won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal in 2025, but in winning that match, he was left off of WrestleMania 41 less than a year after being the third overall draft pick. At the end of 2025, he won his first piece of gold on the main roster, the WWE United States Championship, and put together a reign that was easily the highlight of Friday nights when "SmackDown"reverted back to three hours in January. He was building a nice little set of feuds with the likes of Sami Zayn and especially Ilja Dragunov, who Hayes had great chemistry with in "WWE NXT," so who did he face at WrestleMania 42? No one he wasn't on the show, he wasn't the US Champion, he was forgotten about again.Hayes could have re-lit the fire underneath the fantastic rivalry he had with Trick Williams in "NXT," especially since Williams won the US title at WrestleMania 42, but no, that didn't happen either. That title is now around the waist of a recently-returned Baron Corbin, who beat Hayes to retain his title on the August 14 episode of "SmackDown" in Hayes' hometown, no less.What are we doing here? Seriously, what are we actually doing with Carmelo Hayes? One of the most charismatic guys on the roster, a genuinely great worker in between the ropes, someone who can work both babyface and heel, and he's an afterthought virtually every week. I'm not one to wish for people get fired or anything, but if Hayes got released within the next year, it would probably be the best thing that could happen to him. At least AEW would let him wrestle the way he wants, or TNA would treat him like a top guy. What is there for him in today's WWE?Written bySam Palmer
Originally, Ryohei Oiwa was going to be one of our winners this week for winning the G1 Climax tournament over in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. However, that final against Yuya Uemura has got so many people talking, and is so critically acclaimed, that it would be rude to just focus on Oiwa when NJPW as a whole have won big this summer.Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, NJPW has chased the high that the company had throughout the 2010s, but has never quite managed to reach it. Restrictions due to COVID-19, the departures and retirements of those who made the 2010s boom period what it was, and the teething problems that naturally come with a company that is in transition all of these things have contributed to NJPW feeling like a company that has taken one step forward and two steps back in recent years.The G1 Climax 36 tournament however was 19 steps forward, and if you want to include the final as its own entity, let's round it up to an even 20 steps forward.Oiwa vs. Uemura might be the most important match of the decade for New Japan and I'm not even exaggerating. The question of who is going to fill the shoes left by the likes of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, Tetsuya Naito, Will Ospreay, Jay White and so on has been asked by everyone over the past few years, but looking at the G1 final, that's two guys who you can easily be your next top stars. The idea of a match in 2026 being 35 minutes long and being entirely based around a wristlock and a headlock seems absurd, and yet, Oiwa and Uemura had Ryogoku Sumo Hall shaking with how invested people were in this match. A truly special match, one that is so good, it's got a genuine case of rivaling Tanahashi's retirement match from Wrestle Kingdom 20 in the Match of the Year debate.Outside of Oiwa and Uemura, look at the young guys on this roster who have come out of the other side in better shape than when they walked in. Callum Newman, Drilla Moloney, The Knockout Brothers, Aaron Wolf, Boltin Oleg all of them are primed to be the future of the company. On top of that, we haven't mentioned the true MVP of the G1 Climax, the IWGP Heavyweight Champion himself Yota Tsuji, who is doing what he promised by leading a young group of guys to the promised land in the best company in Japan. Regardless of what your taste in wrestling is, when NJPW hits the nail on the head, they are virtually untouchable.Written by Sam Palmer
I have to start this by saying that, in general, Pat McAfee is a winner. He is the face of ESPN, who keeps giving him more and more money. He has essentially an open door to WWE, where he gets to partake in what could be called "Celebrity Wrestling Fantasy Camp." He went from being an NFL kicker to the voice of sports broadcasting in the 2020s. He has seemingly won at this game called "life."So someone should probably tell him.Despite his wild success, McAfee released an album called "Diary of a Polarizing Figure,"which is as a aggrieved in its content as it is in its title.To hear McAfee tell the story, he is a misunderstood outsider, one who the establishment turns up its nose at, despite the fact that he just got an immense pay raise from ESPN to essentially keep doing what he's been doing. Tastemakers, gatekeepers, CEOs, and other so-called custodians of The Establishment could not be happier with McAfee, which makes the whiny, petulant tone of his new album all the more egregious."They say the good die young, and I'm afraid I'm great," is a great line from someone who came from nowhere. It doesn't sound as sweet from someone who has had the red carpet rolled out for them ever since they retired from professional football.There is simply nothing more annoying than a sore winner. McAfee has enough money and clout to write his own ticket for the rest of his life, and yet he still would have you believe he's some kind of Bart Simpson-esque rebellious underachiever. You can't be a firebrand and get personally courted by Bob Iger, the latter will negate the former.Written by Ross Berman
