Some places do power rankings. Here at Cageside, we do a stock report.
In this weekly series, we identify three Superstars (or groups of Superstars) who are on their way up, and three that are moving in the opposite direction. After a busy week that included Asuka saying goodbye for now, Jacob Fatu refusing to acknowledge Roman Reigns as his Tribal Chief, and Royce Keys almost taking away GUNTHER’s WWE title match at Clash In Italy, a lot of fortunes were changed.
With that in mind, let’s see whose
stock decreased the most this week:
Stock Down #3: Ricky Saints
Saints has had three matches on SmackDown since being called up from NXT, and his only win came against Matt Cardona. Ricky’s big talk about bringing the revolution to WWE won’t mean much until he shows that he can do a lot more than just beat the lowest ranking jabroni on the roster.
Stock Down #2: Sol Ruca
Ruca’s calling card is her spectacular Sol Snatcher finishing move. It should be a top priority for WWE to establish this move as one of the coolest things on Raw each week, but the results so far are not great.
Sol’s signature move wasn’t able to beat Liv Morgan on the Raw after WrestleMania, as Morgan rolled out of the ring after being hit by it. Ruca then botched her next big attempt at it on Becky Lynch during a contract signing segment. On this week’s episode, IYO SKY simply dodged the move and quickly took advantage to beat Ruca.
WWE seemingly forgot that the Sol Snatcher needs to be presented as an automatic win knockout blow before getting cute with finishes where the opponent can roll out of the ring or dodge the move. Instead, Ruca has yet to pick up any wins with her finisher on Raw. NXT fans may not need to see how effective the move is, but what happened in NXT doesn’t matter much anymore now that a different audience is learning about what Sol brings to the table on Raw.
Stock Down #1: Los Garza
Los Garza was completely annihilated on this week’s Raw as part of Oba Femi’s open challenge. It’s never a good sign for a team when one man destroys them so easily. Keep in mind that the last time Oba Femi did this to a team, it was with the War Raiders in early February, and they have yet to compete on Raw since. Berto and Angel’s recent social media activity raises questions about their future in WWE, as does this kind of booking.
Stock Up #3: Talla Tonga
It’s been hard to take MFT’s threats seriously ever since the group’s inception last summer, as Jacob Fatu already had his falling out with Solo Sikoa by that point, and there was no other killer in the faction. WWE is now trying to give MFT some teeth by pushing Talla Tonga as the intimidating force who will make quick work of anyone who gets on Sikoa’s bad side. He did so this week by attacking Shinsuke Nakamura backstage, and beating up Damian Priest after his win against Tama Tonga.
Stock Up #2: Carmelo Hayes
Carmelo Hayes was back on SmackDown this week after not making the cut for WrestleMania 42. Melo outsmarted Ricky Saints to win his return match, and was talked up by the commentary team as if he is next in line for United States Champion Trick Williams. There is a lot to look forward to in a program of Trick vs. Melo, so this is a very good way for Hayes to return to WWE after being a non-factor for more than a month.
Stock Up #1: Jade Cargill & Charlotte Flair
Jade Cargill may be gunning for WWE Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley right now, but this week’s episode of SmackDown made a big effort to get fans excited for a showdown between Cargill and Charlotte Flair. With Rhea absent from the show and already having seen her face Cargill at WrestleMania, I think there’s a lot of juice to squeeze from a major rivalry between Flair and Cargill this summer. We’ll get our first glimpse of it when they are on opposite sides of a 6-woman tag team match on Saturday Night’s Main Event next weekend.
There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?
