Stock Up and Stock Down on Top WWE Stars Heading into WrestleMania 36 Season

WrestleMania season in WWE brings with it a plethora of Superstars whose stock is rising at the right time.

They are the competitors who have momentum on their side and clear direction heading into the Showcase of the Immortals. They may be competing for championships or wrapping up rivalries months in the making. They might be enjoying a career renaissance destined to culminate on wrestling's biggest night.

For those enjoying upward momentum, there are others who are not so lucky.

Their stock is down, the result of uneven booking or a crowded top of the card that simply has no room for them.

In preparation for WrestleMania 36 in Tampa, take a look at these top WWE stars and which side they fall on as The Granddaddy of Them All rapidly approaches.

When one looks back at Drew McIntyre's road to WrestleMania 36 and his WWE Championship match with Brock Lesnar, they will understandably point to his Royal Rumble win as the defining moment, but in reality, it was a series of crowd-interactions that built the momentum to even put himself into consideration for the Rumble victory.

In the weeks leading into the annual January spectacular, McIntyre began winning audiences over with promos in which he polled them, showed his real personality and had them counting down to his devastating Claymore finisher.

By inviting them in, by allowing fans to see McIntyre as something more than the sinister Scot whose intensity and aggression fueled heel runs with Roman Reigns just a year ago, Drew discovered the one ingredient missing from all previous pushes.

With the people on his side and a genuinely intriguing showdown with Lesnar on the horizon, his stock is through the roof as WrestleMania approaches.

King Corbin spent the last year as the undisputed best heel in all of WWE. Unafraid to be disliked and unabashedly arrogant, the 2019 King of the Ring rose to the top of the industry, first challenging Seth Rollins for the Undisputed Championship on Mondays, then jumping to SmackDown and engaging Roman Reigns in a months-long rivalry that culminated Friday night in his own dog food shower.

While everything about that would seem to indicate Corbin trending upward, the conclusion of the Reigns feud leaves him without any clear direction on the road to wrestling's biggest night.

Who does he engage in a rivalry next, and does it have any realistic chance of being as high-profile or red-hot as the feud with The Big Dog?

The answer, at least on the surface, is a resounding "no."

Thus, it is almost impossible to consider Corbin's stock ahead of WrestleMania as anything but barreling downward.

The only Superstar who could stop it? Daniel Bryan.

As the goody-two-shoes babyface leader of the Raw brand, Seth Rollins was boring and decidedly uncool.

As the egotistical heel, "Monday Night Messiah," and leader of a faction consisting of Buddy Murphy and AOP, he has rediscovered his strength as a wholly unlikable, cunning bad guy who gets on fans' nerves and pisses them off with glee.

His current role is one that best suits him. We witnessed as much back in 2014 and '15, when he was at the top of the wrestling world as The Authority's hand-picked champion and the heel around whom the entire show was built.

While he currently finds himself out of the title picture, he is still the centerpiece of the flagship's creative efforts and a star Paul Heyman clearly feels confident in building top-tier stories around.

While he may not enter WrestleMania with quite as high a profile spot on the card as challenging Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship this year, he still figures to participate in a significant match that will only build on the momentum he has going for himself.

It was not all that long ago that Rey Mysterio found himself in the WWE Championship picture, challenging Brock Lesnar for the top prize in the sport at Survivor Series. While no one ever really expected him to dethrone The Beast, he turned in a fantastic performance that reminded fans of the magic he musters in the highest-profile situations. 

From there, he engaged Andrade in a rivalry over the United States title that culminated in another loss for The Master of the 619, this time in a brutal and violent ladder match that threatened the wellbeings of both competitors.

Now, with the Royal Rumble behind us, Mysterio feels like a legend on an island.

With most of the other top stars busy in other storylines, he finds himself without an obvious dance partner for wrestling's most prestigious event, left to twiddle his thumbs and wait for another significant story to come his way.

Given Mysterio has not had a defining WrestleMania match since 2006 in Chicago, where he captured the World Heavyweight Championship in Eddie Guerrero's memory, the future Hall of Famer is more-than deserving of a big-time dance on the grand stage.

Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out exactly how he gets it as WWE brings together the pieces for the year's biggest card.

Randy Orton's vile and disgusting attack on former friend and tag team partner Edge to close out the January 27 episode of WWE Raw accomplished two things: it built on the red-hot return of The Rated R Superstar and set The Viper up for his most significant WrestleMania match since 2014.

The raw emotion of the beatdown, which saw the third-generation star credit Edge with pulling him out of the hole he created for himself with his own destructive behaviors during his youth was superb. The hesitation between each blow he dealt Edge was equally as great.

Having left the Hall of Famer and returning hero lying in a heap following a con-chair-to, Orton is officially the most despised villain on the Raw brand and on a collision course with Edge for a match at WrestleMania.

Considering the creative inconsistencies The Viper has endured at times over the last year, it is a spot that is well-deserved and one that should make for some excellent television in the weeks leading into the annual showcase.

As if being beaten up and down by the likes of Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre was not bad enough, the shoulder injury he suffered at Royal Rumble after taking a spear from Edge was a cherry on top of a rotting sundae.

The Phenomenal One has been a staple of WrestleMania events since his debut with the company in 2016 and suddenly finds himself on the outside looking in. Like Mysterio, there is no clear-cut program for him to showcase in. Add the injury to that, and the fact that he is missing key television on the road to the big event, and you have a recipe for disappointment for one of WWE's most consistently great performers.

Hopefully, the injury does not prove too significant and Styles has the chance to utilize his talents in a manner that is befitting his excellence. As it appears now, though, it is tough to find another star with a resume as sparkling as his whose role on the biggest night in the industry is as uncertain.

And that was before Sunday's Rumble spectacular.