WWE Stock Report: Drew McIntyre is headed to SmackDown, isn’t he?

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 Charlotte Flair defending championship gold against Nia Jax, Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair signing a contract for Extreme Rules, and the return of The Demon, a lot of fortunes were changed.

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

Stock Up #3: Randy Orton

Bobby Lashley has a big target on his back, and tag team champion Randy Orton has emerged from the field as the next man in line to receive a shot at The All Mighty’s WWE title. Orton has RKO’d Lashley on two consecutive episodes of Raw, and will challenge for the biggest prize in WWE on next week’s (Sept. 13) episode.

Stock Up #2: New Day

When we last saw Kofi Kingston, he was damn near squashed in a WWE championship match at July’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view.

New Day was back in action as a team on this week’s (Sept. 6) Raw in a tag team turmoil match. Kingston and Xavier Woods didn’t win the gauntlet, but they did assert their dominance over most of the Raw tag division by eliminating five teams in the process.

Stock Up #1: Seth Rollins

Edge is the best of the WWE part-timers. He and Seth Rollins tore the house down once again on last night’s (Sept. 10) SmackDown, telling a great emotional story and putting Seth over big in the process. Seth went to the darkest of places to send Edge out of Madison Square Garden on a stretcher, and he’s well-positioned to move into the main event picture sooner rather than later.

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

Stock Down #3: Natalya & Tamina

The Women’s tag team champions are not very good at winning championship contenders non-title matches. They’ve already lost three such matches to Shotzi & Nox on SmackDown, and then lost another one to Rhea Ripley and Nikki A.S.H. on this week’s episode of Raw. When the champs lose this often, it makes the titles look worthless.

Stock Down #2: Drew McIntyre

Not only has Drew McIntyre fallen out of the WWE championship picture over the last month, but the last two weeks have also established that he’s just not quite good enough for the United States championship.

McIntyre has spent the last two episodes of Raw being pinned by Damian Priest and Sheamus, respectively. With the losses taking their toll on Drew, he even attacked Sheamus after their match this week, leading some fans to suspect he might be turning heel.

It’s a bit too early to be confident about that potential direction. But given that McIntyre can’t challenge Bobby Lashley for the WWE championship, and is now being used to put others over on Raw, it does seem like a move to SmackDown in the upcoming WWE Draft might be exactly what Drew needs to get out of this funk and revitalize his push towards the top.

Stock Down #1: Jeff Hardy & Jaxson Ryker

Hardy and Ryker joined a field of jobbers to chase after the 24/7 title on this week’s Raw, and they failed to win it. This is a pretty big fall for Hardy, who is a former WWE champion and even beat the previously unstoppable Karrion Kross not too long ago.

Ryker was never at Hardy’s level, of course, but he is undefeated since June when he parted ways with Elias and became a babyface. Now that Elias is being repackaged, Lil’ Hogan is running wild with a bunch of jobbers instead of moving up the card.

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