WWE Stock Report: They forgot about Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross

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 Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, Tamina going one-on-one with Nia Jax, and Baron Corbin wrestling in the main event of Raw, a lot of fortunes were changed.

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

Stock Up #3: Rhea Ripley

Rhea Ripley turned on Asuka during a tag team match on this week’s (Apr. 5) Raw, making things more personal between the two superstars, and cementing Rhea’s spot as the heel in their upcoming match at WrestleMania 37.

Stock Up #2: Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode

I was genuinely surprised to see the Top Dirty Dawgs win this week’s (Apr. 9) fatal 4-way match for the SmackDown tag titles over the Street Profits, the Mysterios, and Alpha Academy. Roode & Ziggler have essentially wiped out the competition for their tag titles multiple times over the last three months.

Stock Up #1: Bad Bunny, Damian Priest, The Miz, John Morrison

The story between these four men received a huge focus on Raw; things escalated quite a bit from the previous weeks of trading guitar shots.

It started when Miz & Morrison gave Bunny’s multi-million dollar car a custom paint job and then ambushed him afterwards. This led to a very long but mostly effective promo from Bunny asserting that the Miz is going to get his ass kicked at WrestleMania. To cap it off, Priest and Morrison were officially added to the match. That’s a good thing, because they are both much better workers than their respective tag partners.

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

Stock Down #3: Elias & Jaxson Ryker

WWE wants us to believe that 51 year old Shane McMahon is a better professional wrestler than both Elias and Jaxson Ryker.

Elias & Ryker continually get fed to Braun Strowman (this week in a handicap match) while Shane is the athlete who Braun struggles to take down. These two guys come off as total jabronis while playing the role of Shane’s hapless lackeys.

Stock Down #2: Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, RECKONING

There’s been a lot of consternation over Bayley’s glaring absence from WrestleMania 37. But these three women are also missing from the card, and it’s worth talking about.

WWE tried to get most of the women’s division on the WrestleMania card by booking a Tag Team Turmoil match. Five teams will compete in that match, including the completely made-up team of Billie Kay and Carmella. I understand if RECKONING can’t be paired with anybody due to her terrible RETRIBUTION gimmick, but what about Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross? Surely there’s room for one additional makeshift team in the turmoil match, no?

According to CageMatch, Mia Yim has not wrestled a match in 2021. Royce was left out in the cold despite her obvious history with Billie Kay, reinforcing that the breakup of The IIconics was a pointless decision. And Nikki Cross is lamenting on Twitter about how she just wants to wrestle, and it’s what she was born to do. Unfortunately, it looks like she won’t get to do it at WrestleMania 37.

Stock Down #1: Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin

I don’t know who these guys pissed off, but they continue to get beaten into the ground. Lashley beat the hell out of both of them on Raw, and then they were bounced very early on during the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on SmackDown. This is the fourth consecutive week that Benjamin and Alexander have appeared on the Stock Down side of this column, and the third straight week where they’ve landed in the very worst spot.

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