WWE stock report highlights Austin Theory and Jey Uso's struggles

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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 the fallout from Night of Champions, a lot of fortunes were changed. With that in mind, let’s see whose stock decreased the most this week: Stock Down #3: Jey Uso Over the last month, WWE revisited the idea that Jey Uso is a viable world champion with his push to the King of the Ring final. But his two major losses over the last week to Oba Femi at Night of Champions and Cody Rhodes on SmackDown have established that Jey just isn’t at the level of challenging for the WWE championship or World Heavyweight Championship. I guess he’ll have to settle for the consolation prize of getting to kick LA Knight’s ass. Stock Down #2: Rusev Do you know why Rusev wasn’t featured on this week’s episode of Raw? It’s probably because he was busy losing against Dragon Lee on Main Event. Ouch. Stock Down #1: Austin Theory The Vision is in limbo right now while WWE presumably tries to decide if the group is worth keeping around, or if it’s time to kill off the faction after Seth Rollins defeated Bron Breakker at Night of Champions. Based on the cold reception Austin Theory got from Paul Heyman on this week’s Raw, combined with Theory’s loss to Joe Hendry, it’s very clear that nobody needs WWE to keep the group going more than this guy. Bron Breakker, YouTube douchebag Logan Paul, and Paul Heyman will be fine, and perhaps better off, if WWE kills The Vision, whereas Austin Theory’s push completely depends on being a member of this group. There isn’t any reason to expect WWE will suddenly push Austin as a singles wrestler, so if The Vision goes away, he’s pretty much screwed. Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week: Stock Up #3: Raquel Rodriguez WWE needs strong contenders for its various women’s championships, and Raquel Rodriguez looked the part on this week’s Raw when she helped lay out IYO SKY, attacked Danhausen, and easily defeated Maxxine Dupri to earn a future title match against Women’s Intercontinental Champion Sol Ruca. Sol hasn’t exactly had the best rollout on WWE’s main roster, so it’s not crazy to think there’s a scenario where Raquel can beat her for the belt. Stock Up #2: Cody Rhodes Even though Rhodes lost the WWE championship to Sami Zayn at Night of Champions, the Golden Boy already earned a rematch for the gold on next week’s (July 6) Raw in Chicago by defeating Jey Uso in a number one contender’s match. Rhodes walks into Raw as the favorite to win back his belt less than 10 days after he lost it, and head into SummerSlam as the defending champion. Stock Up #1: Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman It doesn’t matter to Paul Heyman if WWE keeps The Vision around or not, because The Advocate returned to Raw this week with his meal ticket Brock Lesnar by his side. Lesnar kicked King Oba Femi in the dick and laid him out with an F5 to set up a Hell in a Cell match at SummerSlam. Oba is a dummy and gave up his guaranteed world title match at SummerSlam as a result of Brock’s attack, but one might argue that his decision makes Lesnar seem even more important and like the biggest bad guy around in WWE. There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?