WWE Stock Report: Nia’s ‘hole’ is money, unless it backfires

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 return of Seth Rollins, the return of Shane McMahon, and the return of Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton, a lot of fortunes were changed.

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

Stock Down #3: The Mysterios

The Mysterios did manage to cheat their way to a win over King Corbin one week ago, but things returned to normal last night (Feb. 12) on SmackDown when Rey and Dominik failed to qualify for the Elimination Chamber match by losing a tag match against Corbin and Sami Zayn. Even worse, Dominik ate a face full of table in defeat. At this point, it’s not clear if Rey still has a back-up plan for dealing with Corbin, or if that idea has been dropped altogether.

Stock Down #2: Riott Squad

As 2020 came to a close, It looked like Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan were being positioned as interesting potential challengers for the Women’s tag team titles. But their fortunes have turned south thus far in 2021, where it seems like they are mostly on television to put others over and join Billie Kay in the losers’ column.

Stock Down #1: Matt Riddle

Keith Lee returned to Raw this week (Feb. 8) and immediately displaced Riddle as the primary threat to Bobby Lashley’s United States championship. A lot of pro wrestling fans are wondering why WWE even bothered to include Riddle in the upcoming triple threat match (with Lee and Lashley) for the United States title at Elimination Chamber 2021, considering how he’s been completely outmatched by Lashley whenever they clash. The answer is clear - Riddle is there to take the fall. Lee or Lashley will win that match, and Riddle will be the fall guy. He’s not actually a serious threat to the champ, as WWE tells us rather frequently.

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

Stock Up #3: Nia Jax

The clip of Nia Jax screaming ‘My hole!’ on this week’s Raw went viral, turning her into an instant hit on the internet. There’s a chance that Nia’s ‘hole’ could backfire on her if WWE uses this to humiliate her every week, but for now, it’s a very popular moment that WWE has the opportunity to turn into money.

Stock Up #2: Cesaro

Cesaro’s recent push continued on last night’s episode of SmackDown, where he not only qualified for the SmackDown Elimination Chamber match with a victory in the television main event, but also played a key role in the return segment for Seth Rollins.

Stock Up #1: Kevin Owens

There was a chance that Kevin Owens’ main event run could have ended at Royal Rumble 2021, when he failed for the third time to win the Universal championship from Roman Reigns. But on last night’s episode of SmackDown, Owens got the big ring-clearing babyface finisher spree to end the show. That shows he is still the number one babyface on the blue brand heading into Elimination Chamber 2021, where he’ll have another opportunity to earn a championship match against Reigns.

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