WWE Power Rankings: Counting Down the Company's Top 15 Superstars

WrestleMania season is a great time to have momentum, but with only a select few spots on the card, not very many WWE superstars are going to have it.

A boatload of lower-card and even mid-card workers are going to find themselves fighting to get on TV, and many will be left off anyway, leaving fewer than 20 wrestlers with a legitimate chance to make an impact as we head to the biggest pay-per-view of the year.

So who's taking advantage of their opportunities and building up the most momentum as we get closer and closer to WrestleMania? 

Better yet, who's having a rough time climbing up the WWE ladder?

Let's take a look, with the March 26th edition of the WWE Power Rankings.

15. Mark Henry (Last Week: Unranked)

Mark Henry had a really rough night on last week's Raw, losing to John Cena and then getting hit with a post-match Rock Bottom by The Rock.

But for someone who gets a lot of criticism for his wrestling ability (or lack thereof), Henry put on a very enjoyable and entertaining match with Cena that had the crowd really into it.

This was one of the best Henry matches in recent memory and probably better than anything we've seen from him since his Hell in a Cell match with Randy Orton last fall.

The World's Strongest Man followed up that strong performance on Monday's Raw with an easy win over R-Truth in a three-minute match on SmackDown and figures to be one of the stars of the Team Teddy vs. Team Johnny match at WrestleMania. 

Perhaps the WWE is starting to build Henry back up for another main event run after WrestleMania.

14. Santino Marella (Last Week: 10)

Santino Marella has been booked absolutely atrociously since becoming United States Champion several weeks back.

We know that Santino is always going to be more of a comedy character, but all he's done over the last few weeks is lose.

And he did it again on last week's Raw when he took yet another loss to David Otunga—in less than two minutes.

I get wanting to give members of Team Johnny some wins as we head to WrestleMania, but having Santino lose so many times is making both him and the US title look really bad.

Another loss like this for Santino could take him off these rankings altogether.

13. Undertaker (Last Week: 14)

Not much changed for The Undertaker last week.

His WrestleMania match with Triple H has been hyped up entirely through promos, and last Monday's episode of Raw was nothing all that different from what we've already seen multiple times before on the road to the pay-per-view.

Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Triple H were in the ring together yet again, and they talked up the WrestleMania encounter as an "end of an era" match yet again.

This promo was more about Triple H than it was the other two men involved, but I will give Taker credit for his great line at the end of it: "Do you remember when I said Shawn was better than you?"...(Pause)..."He is."

12. Triple H (Last Week: 13)

Triple H was the star of Raw's show-ending promo.

The main purpose of the segment was to put over the history that both he and Undertaker have in the Hell in a Cell match, and he did an excellent job reminding us fans that those two men are essentially synonymous with that type of match.

The only impact that Triple H can make on the road to WrestleMania is through his promos, and even though it's been hard to keep up fan interest with promo after promo every week, The Game has been able to do that with some of his best promos in recent memory.

Last Monday's promo was arguably his best during Part Two of his feud with The Undertaker.

11. Kofi Kingston (Last Week: 11)

The last several weeks have been like Kofi Kingston's career—win or lose, he basically stays in the exact same spot.

Kingston's not going to fall down the card too much or climb up it, either, as evidenced by his performances last week when he and R-Truth lost to Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger on Raw (although Truth got pinned thanks to interference from Vickie Guerrero) and then made a brief appearance on SmackDown that caused Ziggler to get destroyed with a big chop from The Great Khali.

Still, Kingston looked as impressive as he's always done during his tag-team match on last week's Raw and should be in line for some memorable spots at WrestleMania 28.

10. Kane (Last Week: 12)

Kane stepped into the ring on last week's Raw for the first time since Elimination Chamber, and he managed to get himself a very quick victory over The Big Show.

Sure, it only happened because of Cody Rhodes' interference, but that's what heels do—they cheat.

It's only going to help Kane build up some momentum when he beats Show in less than a minute.

SmackDown wasn't as kind to Kane, who had Rhodes interfere in his second match with Show and cause the DQ, then fell victim to an RKO by Randy Orton.

But Kane's first win in what seems like forever catapults him up these power rankings, even though his feud with Orton is still falling incredibly flat.

9. Randy Orton (Last Week: 8)

Randy Orton is getting the shaft.

All we got from him on last week's Raw was he informed us that his name was indeed Randy Orton, and all we got from him on last week's SmackDown was an RKO on Kane.

Yeah, that's it.

This is one of the WWE's top two or three superstars we're talking about here, but the WWE creative team gave him like three minutes of total TV time last week. That's weak.

Even with that RKO he hit on Kane, Orton has little to no momentum just six days away from WrestleMania 28.

8. The Big Show (Last Week: 5)

The Big Show probably wishes that he could have a redo of last week.

Show's week started off on the wrong foot when he lost to Kane in less than a minute on Monday's Raw (thanks to that interference from Cody Rhodes), and then when he had another chance to get his hands on Kane on SmackDown, Rhodes interfered yet again to give Show a victory, but one that came by DQ.

Post-match, Show tried to lay the beat-down on Rhodes, but Rhodes was able to escape through the crowd.

A loss, a DQ win and failure to get his hands on Rhodes sends Big Show plummeting down this week's power rankings.

7. The Rock (Last Week: 9)

I loved what we got out of The Rock on last week's episode of Raw.

He delivered a fantastic pre-taped promo that really helped stress the importance of his WrestleMania match with John Cena, even likening Cena to both Hulk Hogan and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at one point when he said that he needs to beat Cena to be considered the greatest of all-time.

The Rock's work on the mic was excellent as usual, but for the first time since he returned to WWE several weeks back, he got physical by destroying Mark Henry with a huge Rock Bottom—right in front of Cena.

We got the best of both worlds from The Rock, who proved that he could make a big splash in Philadelphia despite the fact that he only appeared live for about 30 seconds.

6. CM Punk (Last Week: 7)

CM Punk started off last week's Raw with a bang, when he delivered a heartfelt and emotional promo about his father's alcoholism.

Of course, that promo was interrupted by Chris Jericho, who pissed Punk off so bad that he was yelling expletives directed toward Jericho on the Titantron.

Punk was able to recollect himself, however, and on SmackDown, he and Sheamus got a big tag-team victory over Daniel Bryan and The Miz.

I'm sure Punk would have loved for his show-opening Raw promo to end differently, but a great showing on the microphone on Raw and in the ring on SmackDown made it a really solid week for the WWE Champion overall. 

5. Cody Rhodes (Last Week: 6)

Want proof that you can move up these rankings without even wrestling? Look no further than Cody Rhodes.

Although he didn't compete in an actual match last week, Rhodes got the best of The Big Show when he interfered in Show's Raw match and caused him to lose and then followed that up by interfering in Show's SmackDown match, causing him to win by DQ and then escaping through the crowd.

Rhodes has done an amazing job of getting to Show without stepping in the ring with him, and though this wasn't a feud I thought I was going to be interested in, he's built it up really well thanks to his heel cowardice.

We want to see Show get his hands on Rhodes, but for now, we'll just enjoy watching Rhodes continue to embarrass The World's Largest Athlete.

4. Daniel Bryan (Last Week: 3)

It was a bit of an up-and-down week for World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan.

He squashed Zack Ryder on Raw and did a great job of playing the prick of a boyfriend role in the opening segment on SmackDown, but he wound up losing the SmackDown main event tag-team match to CM Punk and Sheamus (even though he wasn't pinned).

It's hard to drop Bryan down too far, though, because he didn't take the pin in the tag-team match, destroyed Ryder and really delivered on the mic.

His slide down these rankings has more to do with others rising than it does with him falling.

3. John Cena (Last Week: 2)

We give John Cena a lot of crap about "not being able to wrestle," and by we, I mean all those Cena haters out there.

But this guy managed to get a very good and surprisingly entertaining match out of Mark Henry on last Monday's Raw. Yes, Mark Henry.

The crowd was incredibly hot for Cena/Henry, and these two guys showed some great chemistry that probably shocked a lot of people. Oh yeah, Cena got the win, too.

We knew that Cena was going to get the victory over Henry to build up some momentum as we get closer and closer to WrestleMania, but that doesn't change the impact it had.

Cena won, and without even cutting a promo this week, he spiked my interest in WrestleMania 28.

2. Chris Jericho (Last Week: 1)

Chris Jericho did it again.

Following CM Punk's gut-wrenching promo at the start of Raw, Jericho cut another fantastic promo via Titantron, in which he blasted Punk's sister for being a drug addict.

It was just the latest masterfully executed promo from Jericho, who has done a tremendous job of building up the animosity between himself and Punk.

Jericho has been on top of his game when it comes to cutting promos, and even though he failed to compete in a match last week, he's still going to stay near the top of the WWE.

He didn't move down because he had a bad performance last week. He moved down because someone else had a great one.

1. Sheamus (Last Week: 4)

What a week for The Great White.

Sheamus has been booked like an unstoppable monster over the last several months, and that was never more evident than last week, when he easily beat The Miz on Raw and then followed that up by pinning The Miz yet again in the SmackDown main event.

That's two huge wins over a former WWE Champion for Sheamus, who looks more and more like he's going to become the next World Heavyweight Champion.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.