WWE Stock Report: The women’s tag team titles are definitely cursed

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 New Day returning to Raw, JD McDonagh inserting himself into Judgment Day business, and LA Knight using The Miz as a stepping stone, a lot of fortunes were changed.

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

Stock Down #3: Karrion Kross

Karrion Kross has wrestled three singles matches against AJ Styles on SmackDown over the last few months, and he’s lost all three of them, even with Scarlett cheating on his behalf. Karrion is at least teasing that he’ll be the leader of a new faction, but at this point it’s not clear why anybody would want to be a disciple of this loser.

Stock Down #2: Austin Theory

Theory’s very boring and underwhelming reign as United States champion abruptly came to an end this week on SmackDown at the hands of Rey Mysterio.

Cagesider travisfs120 asked a very interesting question this week: “Has anyone ever gotten less out of a win over someone like John Cena than Austin Theory has?” You might be able to name a few others, but the point is, the WWE machine has been behind Austin in a big way yet it doesn’t appear to be working.

Stock Down #1: Sonya Deville

WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Sonya Deville had surgery this week to repair a torn ACL, once again creating the possibility that WWE will need to vacate the belts. Sonya got injured just 11 days after winning the belts with Chelsea, giving folks like me another good reason to describe the WWE women’s tag team titles as cursed.

To give you an idea of how much of a struggle it has been to find stability with the women’s tag team titles, check out how short the last several reigns have been (per CageMatch) ever since Becky Lynch and Lita won the belts in February:

• Becky Lynch & Lita: 42 days
• Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez: 39 days
• Vacant: 10 days
• Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler: 33 days
• Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez: 16 days
• Sonya Deville & Chelsea Green: 26+ days

I’m a numbers and math guy, so I am well aware that such curses don’t actually exist in reality. However, sometimes supernatural things do happen in pro wrestling kayfabe. And right now, a kayfabe curse might just be the best way to explain why disaster seems to fall upon every team that possesses the WWE women’s tag team belts.

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

Stock Up #3: Chad Gable

LA Knight takes up so much oxygen in the room that it might be easy to overlook just how over Chad Gable is right now. The fans are responding in a big way to his shtick in Alpha Academy, and it’s not a coincidence that he scored a win on this week’s Raw in a four-way match against Ricochet, Tommaso Ciampa, and Matt Riddle. Gable now has a chance to prevent GUNTHER from becoming the longest reigning Intercontinental champion of all-time.

Stock Up #2: Shinsuke Nakamura

Nakamura pulled double duty on Raw, first beating Big Bronson Reed before helping Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes defeat The Judgment Day in the main event. Nakamura capped off a great night by taking out Rollins with the Kinshasa, setting himself up to be Seth’s next challenger for the world heavyweight championship.

Stock Up #1: Jey Uso

In the main event segment of this week’s SmackDown, Jey Uso single-handedly beat the hell out of Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, and Jimmy Uso. He then walked out of WWE, creating a lot of intrigue about what will happen next. Just like that, WWE once again found a way to keep things very interesting with The Bloodline story.

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