Bayley faces speculation about WWE future following recent matches

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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 Saturday Night’s Main Event in Madison Square Garden, a lot of fortunes were changed. With that in mind, let’s see whose stock decreased the most this week: Stock Down #3: Dominik Mysterio Dominik Mysterio once had nuclear heat when he was doing things like beating John Cena for the Intercontinental championship in John’s last ever PLE match. Now he’s one of the butts of Danhausen’s comedy shtick and getting chokeslammed through a table by a basketball player like a total jabroni. Stock Down #2: Bayley Speculation about Bayley’s WWE contract status has picked up in recent months following a rumor that indicated she could sign with AEW as soon as 2027. Her best friend Mercedes Mone continues stoking those flames too, leading some fans to think Bayley’s timeline for leaving WWE could be even sooner than that. It’s easy to see why all this talk about Bayley’s future has picked up given her booking this week. After she got her ass kicked by Lyra Valkyria on Raw, Bayley did the job for Lyra at Saturday Night’s Main Event, which included a vicious post-match beatdown where Bayley was left for dead after taking the Nightwing finisher on the steel steps. Perhaps it will just lead to a hardcore rematch and the feud going on from here, but Michael Cole talked like this could already be the end of their story. Stock Down #1: Jacy Jayne Jacy Jayne’s main roster run started off hot at the end of April when she went right after top stars like WWE Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair. It looked like Jayne could be positioned as Ripley’s challenger at SummerSlam. Fast forward to today, and she can’t even win a qualifying match to be one of five women competing for an interim title at SummerSlam. Ouch. Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week: Stock Up #3: Finn Balor Balor has picked up wins over Tama Tonga and Talla Tonga on the most recent episodes of SmackDown, and the commentators are talking as if Finn is moving on up to WWE title contention soon. The win over Talla is especially notable, as I’m pretty sure it is Talla’s first televised singles loss since debuting on SmackDown nearly one year ago. Stock Up #2: Lyra Valkyria Kayfabe may be deader than it’s ever been, but the jarring sight of Lyra Valkyra losing so much blood from her busted nose at Saturday Night’s Main Event instantly turned her match with Bayley into a compelling fight that fans now had a great reason to care about. It seemed like the match might be stopped soon after the injury occurred and things were falling apart, but Valkyria hung in there with the kind of gusty performance that could lead to a breakthrough for her new heel gimmick. It also helps that she won the match and viciously beat the shit out of Bayley afterwards, of course. Stock Up #1: Nick Aldis SmackDown GM Nick Aldis responded to GUNTHER’s attack by blasting him in the face with the WWE championship at Saturday Night’s Main Event and screwing him out of a high stakes win against Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. It sure looks like this is leading to Nick’s long-awaited return to the ring in a match against the Ring General at SummerSlam. There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?