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 The Judgment Day beating up El Grande Americano on Raw in Mexico City, Sami Zayn’s latest WWE championship reign lasting longer than seven days, and Danhausen blocking some guy named Mickie from calling Nick Aldis, a lot of fortunes were changed.
With that in mind, let’s see whose stock decreased the most this week:
Stock Down #3: Randy Orton & Jade Cargill
Both of the 3-way Money in the Bank qualifying matches on this week’s SmackDown had the same finish, with a former world champion heel hitting their finishing move on a weaker babyface, only for the third person to steal the pin for the win. In this case, Orton and Cargill are the top stars who seemingly had their respective matches won but couldn’t seal the deal.
The idea behind the booking logic is to protect Randy and Jade from taking the fall, but what I see are two wrestlers who got outmaneuvered and are a little worse off for it, given that they both talk so much trash about being the best and winning back the world title. If they can’t pull out all the stops to beat non-main event stars and qualify for MITB, then why should I expect they’ll be able to get the job done when the stakes are even higher against the actual world champions?
Jade also didn’t do herself any favors by botching Jacy Jayne’s name during her pre-match promo.
Stock Down #2: Bakusai
Like with Randy and Jade, the finish of Bakusai’s match against MFT on this week’s SmackDown was meant to protect Shinsuke Nakamura and Kyoki from eating a pin. However, Bakusai is still in that very early phase as a team where they need to kick some ass and/or do cool shit to give the fans a reason to care about them. Getting laid out by Haku and MFT mostly does the opposite of that. There’s a time and place for this kind of babyface booking while chasing heel tag team champions, but not when Bakusai’s only win so far in WWE is against jobbers Kit Wilson and The Miz.
Stock Down #1: Big Cass
After returning to WWE last month with Big Boot attacks, Big Cass has now wrestled two matches on Raw. He won the first match against Je’Von Evans at the end of August, but it wasn’t a good match and Cass didn’t come off looking like a monster or a star. Cass was then pinned by Evans in a Money in the Bank qualifying match on this week’s Raw, so he’s already starting to lose. Cass looks physically impressive, but not much else is really clicking in his return to WWE so far.
Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week:
Stock Up #3: Johnny Gargano
Gargano has been a fixture in the WWE championship scene ever since he stopped laying down backstage. Sure, he’s mostly there to take finishing moves from top babyfaces like CM Punk and Kevin Owens, but the constant interference is keeping Johnny Wrestling relevant in Sami Zayn’s main event story for now, and giving him more time to talk on TV too.
Stock Up #2: Lola Vice
Vice debuted on Raw by pinning Women’s Intercontinental Champion Raquel Rodriguez and qualifying for the Money in the Bank ladder match. That’s not too shabby.
Stock Up #1: Roman Reigns & Chad Gable
World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns and Intercontinental Champion Chad Gable both successfully defended their titles on Raw in Mexico City against home country heroes Penta and Dragon Lee, respectively. The fact that WWE didn’t book at least one title change given those circumstances indicates there is no rush to take the belts off either star. Their two championship matches also got rave reviews and helped make it one of the best Raw episodes of 2026.
There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?
