WWE Stock Report: Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans have completely fallen off the grid

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 Brock Lesnar sending Seth Rollins off in an ambulance, Roman Reigns falling victim to a forklift mishap, and Trish Stratus accepting Charlotte Flair’s challenge for SummerSlam, a lot of fortunes were changed.

With that in mind, let’s see whose stock has increased the most this week:

Stock Up #3: Cedric Alexander

Cedric Alexander’s death-defying leap was the highlight of the wild brawl at the end of this week’s (July 29) Raw. Alexander has quickly gone from a cruiserweight who was lost in a sea of jobbers chasing after the 24/7 champion, to a superstar who has defeated Drew McIntyre and appeared in multiple main event segments on Raw. It looks like Cedric Alexander could be a Paul Heyman Guy; he has thrived ever since Heyman became Executive Director of Raw.

Stock Up #2: Maria Kanellis

The 24/7 title scene has been a bright spot in WWE primarily thanks to the efforts of R-Truth, Carmella, and Drake Maverick. But the direction of the title may have finally changed this week when Maria Kanellis defeated her husband for the strap on Raw. Maria gloated backstage and obnoxiously rubbed her victory in everyone’s face, outright daring any superstar to strike a pregnant woman. It remains to be seen which superstar will cross that line, so Maria has a chance to become the longest reigning 24/7 champion in history.

Stock Up #1: Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson

Gallows and Anderson recently reunited with AJ Styles, and it didn’t take long for them to win the Raw tag team titles. The Good Brothers were also heavily involved in the extended brawl that closed out Monday’s show, and they played a ringside role during the main event match on SmackDown between AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston. Gallows and Anderson have benefited greatly from Styles’ heel turn, and they should continue to have a significant presence on WWE television going forward.

Now let’s see whose stock has decreased the most this week:

Stock Down #3: Sami Zayn

Sami Zayn was pinned in less than a minute by Rey Mysterio during a gauntlet match on Raw. Zayn has generally been presented as a loser on WWE television for the last few months, and it’s not clear why anybody should take him seriously as the next challenger to Aleister Black.

Stock Down #2: Ember Moon

After a couple weeks of strong booking, Ember Moon was pinned clean by Alexa Bliss in a tag team match on SmackDown this week (July 30). Considering that Moon’s upcoming title shot at SummerSlam was a result of simply being chosen by the champ, rather than earning it through typical means, she really can’t afford to take a loss like this. This kind of defeat makes it look like Ember doesn’t deserve the title match that Bayley was nice enough to grant her.

According to Dave Meltzer, one reason Moon was pinned here is because the other Raw stars who appeared on SmackDown (AJ Styles, Drew McIntyre) were booked to lose, and WWE didn’t want to have all the Raw stars lose on Tuesday night. Therefore Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross had to win their match. If there’s any truth to this claim, then WWE is seriously overthinking the booking here and doesn’t understand the current irrelevance of the brand split.

Stock Down #1: Baron Corbin & Lacey Evans

Raw really hit a low point after WrestleMania 35 with the elevation of Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans into top level storylines as the leading heels. This misguided push culminated when the duo actually competed for the top championships in the main event of Extreme Rules. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Corbin and Evans have been nowhere in sight on the last two episodes of Raw, and the quality of the show has seen a drastic improvement. We’re roughly one week away from WWE’s biggest wrestling show of the summer, with potentially 15 matches planned for SummerSlam, yet Corbin and Evans currently have no spot on the card. They’ve plummeted right off the grid.

Without traditional pay-per-view buyrates being relevant in the era of WWE Network, it can be much harder to make sense of why certain stars are chosen for main event spots. The brief rise of Evans and Corbin into the main event story on Raw will rank right up there with Jinder Mahal’s push from 2017 as an all-time great example of “What the heck was Vince McMahon thinking?”

There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think has changed the most this week?