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 Jelly Roll winning his first singles match in WWE, Oba Femi knocking Brock Lesnar on his ass again, and Seth Rollins getting arrested for violating a restraining order he was never served, a lot of fortunes were changed.
With that in mind, let’s
see whose stock decreased the most this week:
Stock Down #3: Grayson Waller
While trying to recruit Je’Von Evans into the New Day a couple weeks ago, Kofi Kingston told Grayson Waller there are people who don’t see what he and Xavier Woods see in Waller. It came off as Kofi’s way of telling Grayson that he needs to step up his game after not winning a match on Raw since 2024. Grayson followed that up by losing against Evans on this week’s Raw. The booking makes me think there’s a chance New Day will kick Waller to the curb as they try to persuade Je’Von to align with them.
Stock Down #2: GUNTHER
GUNTHER has been absent from the last three episodes of Raw and is completely irrelevant to the WrestleMania 42 card. That’s not what anybody would have predicted after he killed the wrestling careers of Goldberg, John Cena, and AJ Styles over the last year. Maybe the Ring General should practice his hosting skills if he still wants to land a major role at WWE’s biggest show of the year.
Stock Down #1: Carmelo Hayes
During my recent attempts to predict the full list of matches at WrestleMania 42, I often found myself making room for Sami Zayn vs. Trick Williams by leaving off United States Champion Carmelo Hayes. WWE has been working on the same puzzle and apparently decided the best solution is to just put Carmelo’s title in the Zayn/Trick story. That’s what happened last night on SmackDown when Carmelo’s weekly open challenge finally blew up in his face and he lost the title, less than one month away from WrestleMania 42.
Hayes better hope WWE has a plan to add him to the Zayn/Williams match at WrestleMania and make it a 3-way (or more). If not, Melo looks bound to compete for another Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal trophy after missing his most important shot of the year.
Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week.
Stock Up #3: Bayley & Lyra Valkyria
Bayley and Lyra Valkyria defeated the Kabuki Warriors on Raw to earn a WWE women’s tag team title match next week at Madison Square Garden. They also sent a message by attacking The Irresistible Forces on SmackDown. Even if Bayley and Lyra don’t win the belts next week, it looks like they are now on the same level as the Bella Twins and Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss when it comes to being in the title mix at WrestleMania 42.
Stock Up #2: Danhausen
Danhausen’s curses remain undefeated in WWE. He added YouTuber IShowSpeed to his list of victims on Raw, and then cursed Kit Wilson into actually losing against non-wrestler Jelly Roll on SmackDown. Most importantly, one of the loudest pops of the night on SmackDown happened when Danhausen appeared on screen. This guy is over, and he did it without having to step back into a WWE ring after his bad debut.
Stock Up #1: Sami Zayn
Sami Zayn has mostly been a losing loser who loses on the road to WrestleMania 42, but now he’s a winner again after beating Carmelo Hayes for the United States championship on SmackDown. Sami got his smile back and was immediately booked to defend his title in a match at WrestleMania 42, putting to rest any doubt that he might not make the cut. Now let’s see if babyface Sami is so desperate to hang onto the gold that he won’t continue doing the weekly open challenge that he reintroduced to WWE last summer.
There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?
