WWE Stock Report reveals Baron Corbin's rise over Carmelo Hayes

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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 Jade Cargill trying to out-dumbass Charlotte Flair, another accident between CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, and Nick Aldis relinquishing his duties as GM before getting powerbombed through a table, a lot of fortunes were changed. With that in mind, let’s see whose stock decreased the most this week: Stock Down #3: Dragon Lee Lee’s job this week was to get speared and pinned by Bron Breakker in the opening tag team match on Raw. The future of lucha libre is not looking so good considering how often WWE has used that phrase to describe Dragon right before he loses another match. Unfortunately for Lee, he injured his thumb somewhere along the way and was pulled from his weekend match in AAA. Stock Down #2: Kiana James It’s not a good sign for Giulia or Kiana James that their rematch was dumped onto this week’s episode of Main Event rather than being saved for SmackDown. Kiana went on to lose that match, and she also lost a qualifying match (against Chelsea Green) for the interim WWE women’s championship ladder match at SummerSlam. Stock Down #1: Carmelo Hayes & Ricky Saints After this week’s episode of SmackDown went off the air, WWE shot an angle between United States Champion Trick Williams and Baron Corbin that set up a one-on-one title match between them at SummerSlam. In doing so, Baron has quickly displaced Carmelo Hayes and Ricky Saints as the top contender for that belt, leaving those guys without a spot on SummerSlam’s two night event. This is becoming a pattern for Melo, who also didn’t make the cut for either night of WrestleMania 42, and has somehow not been booked in a WWE PLE match since the men’s 2025 Royal Rumble. Now let’s see whose stock increased the most this week: Stock Up #3: Danhausen Danhausen continued tormenting the cursed Judgment Day this week, which led to Oba Femi destroying JD McDonagh, IYO SKY getting some payback on Liv Morgan, and Joe Hendry beating that little shithead Dominik Mysterio in a match on Raw. Some folks are wondering if the point will come when WWE’s Danhausen overload starts to make a large number of fans tired of his comedy shtick, but we aren’t there yet. Stock Up #2: Nikki Bella Bella made her surprise return from injury on SmackDown and immediately booked herself in a match at SummerSlam. Having the power to do that is probably one of the perks of being a WWE Hall of Famer. Stock Up #1: Finn Balor Balor pinned Damian Priest in a 4-way main event match on SmackDown to earn a match against Sami Zayn at SummerSlam. All he has to do now is beat Zayn at WWE’s biggest party of the summer, and Balor will become the new number one contender for the WWE championship. I think there’s a pretty good chance that’s exactly what Balor will do, given the way WWE commentators have been hyping him up during his big push this month on the blue brand. There you have it, Cagesiders. Whose stock do you think changed the most this week?