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 Paul Heyman being kidnapped in an ambulance by LA Knight, Penta winning the Intercontinental championship from Dirty Dom, and a strange social media beef between Rhea Ripley and Jade Cargill (which was a shoot unless it was a work), a lot of fortunes
were changed.
With that in mind, let’s see whose stock decreased the most this week:
Stock Down #3: Wyatt Sicks
The Wyatt Sicks were one-and-done in the five team gauntlet match on SmackDown, which removes them from WWE tag team title contention. I think there’s an argument to be made that the Wyatts’ act works better when they aren’t involved in a championship feud, but not being part of the title mix increases the chance they won’t be booked in a match at WrestleMania 42.
Stock Down #2: Giulia
Giulia probably knows that the women’s United States championship wasn’t good enough to make the card at WrestleMania last year, so she tried to get in on the women’s tag team title chase on SmackDown last night. She ended up getting pinned by Charlotte Flair’s Natural Selection. This booking looks like yet another case where WWE decided it was more important to protect Kiana James instead of the US champ. So not only is Giulia an inadequate contender for the tag team titles, but her own belt was devalued in the process. I don’t think this one can be blamed on Road Dogg.
Stock Down #1: Drew McIntyre
Drew McIntyre lost the WWE championship to Cody Rhodes on SmackDown. Not only did Drew’s run with the gold last less than two months, but this result also removes him from the main event match at WrestleMania 42.
McIntyre only successfully defended the belt once on WWE programming during his title reign, and that was in a disappointing match in Saudi Arabia against that loser Sami Zayn. Drew spent the rest of his title reign interfering in other people’s matches like a coward instead of dominating WWE like an ass kicker. His run as WWE champion was a bust, and WrestleMania has a better main event now that he’s out of it. It looks like Roman Reigns and CM Punk were right on the money when they recently dismissed Drew as being a lesser star than them.
Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week.
Stock Up #3: Damian Priest & R-Truth
Damian Priest was lost in the shuffle on the road to WrestleMania less than 24 hours ago, but now he’s in a new team with bald Ron Cena, and they are already the number one contenders to the MFTs WWE tag team championship. Priest has always been at his most entertaining when paired up with R-Truth or Rhea Ripley, so there is a decent chance this tag team run can get him some much-needed momentum on the blue brand.
Stock Up #2: Danhausen
Danhausen quickly recovered from his awful mystery crate debut with some very funny first appearances on Raw and SmackDown. The live fans are already saying the word “cursed” with him after he put one on Dominik Mysterio that probably cost him the Intercontinental championship. Danhausen was also paired up with The Miz as his reluctant mentor, which may very well produce some WWE comedy gold in the coming weeks.
Stock Up #1: Cody Rhodes
Rhodes proved to still be the golden boy by winning the WWE championship from Drew McIntyre on SmackDown. Cody is back in the main event of WrestleMania for the fourth consecutive year, which is historically very hard to accomplish. Rhodes’ victory also puts to rest any notion that he may have been losing his grip as the number one babyface in WWE.
There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?
