WWE Stock Report: Jaxson Ryker is the worst babyface

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 Piper Niven wrestling in place of Eva Marie on Raw, a Hell in a Cell match on SmackDown, and Drew McIntyre finally pinning Bobby Lashley with a Claymore, a lot of fortunes were changed.

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

Stock Up #3: Commander Azeez

Apollo Crews’ right hand man made his in-ring debut on last night’s (June 18) SmackDown in a tag team match, where he put down Kevin Owens with the Nigerian Nail. It wasn’t quite Omos levels of dominance and no-selling, but Azeez was still presented as the best of the four men involved.

Stock Up #2: Alpha Academy

Otis has a new look and mean streak, and it’s resulted in lots of pain for Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins over the last two weeks.

Stock Up #1: Shinsuke Nakamura

Nakamura pinned Baron Corbin with his Kinshasa finisher last night, officially making him the one true king of WWE. The current partnership between Nakamura and his jester Rick Boogs remains incredibly entertaining, and the obsession with the crown allows Nakamura to effortlessly show off his elite charisma.

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

Stock Down #3: Naomi

Naomi was squashed on this week’s (June 14) Raw in just over a minute by Doudrop Eva Marie’s friend, who the commentators somehow had no idea was actually NXT UK’s Piper Niven. I guess Naomi can argue that she was prepared for a fight with Eva, and not Piper, but the bottom line is that she wasn’t even slightly competitive in this bout.

Stock Down #2: Elias & Jaxson Ryker

If you told me that WWE would eventually turn Jaxson Ryker babyface after last year’s very dumb and bad tweet, I would have said that sounds like a terrible idea. Now here we are a couple of weeks into Ryker’s babyface run, and there’s nothing there. He’s just a guy.

WWE booking isn’t doing him any favors either, with both of his Raw matches against Elias ending in count out after Elias cowardly left the fight. With uninspired finishes like that, it’s hard to imagine anybody getting excited to see more matches from these two wrestlers. This is the most boring and bland feud in WWE today.

Stock Down #1: Cedric Alexander

Cedric Alexander has spent the last two episodes of Raw losing matches against Jeff Hardy. He couldn’t even beat Hardy on this week’s episode after Hardy had already lost a match against John Morrison.

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