The unlikely pair of Orton and Nakamura gave Ownes and Zayn a taste of their own medicine. Photo by WWE.com
This is a weekly look at the action in the WWE:
Raw
Jason Jordan tried to convince his father, Kurt Angle, to give him a shot at Roman Reigns’ Intercontinental Championship. Reigns came to the ring to explain why he would not be giving him a shot, but Jordan persuaded him after surprising him with a suplex as Reigns was distracted with Samoa Joe, who stood outside the ring. Jordan put on a valiant effort, but it was not enough to defeat the champion. After the match, Joe tried to attack Reigns, but Jordan hit him with a suplex causing him to cower away. Reigns thanked Jordan for his help by hitting him with a Superman Punch.
Paige won her first match in over a year defeating Sasha Banks, thanks to a distraction from Absolution. They didn’t stop there, though, as they continued to attack Banks after the match. Backstage, Elias warned Kurt Angle about his bias towards his “bastard son,” Jason Jordan. Enzo Amore hyped up Tony Neese and Drew Gulak before they participated in the second Fatal Fairway against Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali. Just like last week, the Cruiserweight’s delivered an awesome match that Gulak stole out of the hands of Cedric Alexander.
Elias rocked the Los Angeles crowd with his now notorious concerts. Unfortunately for him, there was a bigger reaction from the crowd when his opponent for the night, Braun Strowman, came to the ring. Elias tried to pump fake Strowman and pretended to run away, but he ended up attacking him from behind. This, of course, was a mistake as Strowman ended up destroying Elias. Kane appeared over the jumbotron and issued a challenge to Strowman on next week’s edition of Raw. Asuka defeated Alicia Fox via her Asuka Lock. Much like they did last week, Absolution surrounded Asuka in the ring, but they ended up letting her walk away from the ring. They didn't do the same for Fox, though, as Rose and Deville attacked Paige’s former best friend. Finn Balor got back to his winning ways defeating Bo Dallas via the Coup De Grace. Matt Hardy explained how he has been “woken,” alluding to the debut of the Broken Matt Hardy character in the WWE. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins challenged The Bar for the Tag Team Championships in the main event. Just when it looked like The Shield was going to get the upper hand, Sheamus got himself disqualified so that they could retain their championships. Kurt Angle came out and explained he was not going to allow the match to end that way, and he restarted the match as a No Disqualification match. Out of nowhere, Samoa Joe attacked Rollins and Ambrose prompting Reigns to come to the aide of his brothers. Sheamus used the distractions to hit Ambrose with a Brogue Kick allowing Cesaro to pin him for the win.
Highlight of the Night
He has AWOKEN! Matt Hardy had a career renascence in 2016. The “Broken” character he developed in his time in the independent circuit was, without a doubt, one of the biggest stories in wrestling last year. Since his return to the WWE, there was never any certainty we would be seeing this character. But an injury to Jeff and a feud with Bray Wyatt later, and here we are.
SmackDown Live
SmackDown Live opened with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn celebrating how they out smarted Shane McMahon and Randy Orton the week before. Randy Orton crashed their party by hitting Kevin Owens with an RKO out of nowhere. McMahon joined in crashing the party explaining that the pair will take on Randy Orton and a partner of his choosing at Clash of Champions. Plus, Zayn will be taking on Randy Orton in this week’s main event. The New Day took on Rusev and Aiden English in the first match of the night. Rusev Day this week was a happy one as Rusev and English went on to defeat the former Tag Team Champions. Backstage, Mojo Rawley explained that he attacked Zack Ryder last week because he is “dead weight” and reminded fans that he won The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal without him. Because of their win over New Day, Rusev and Aiden English were added to the tag team match for the Tag Team Championships at Clash of Champions. It will now be a Fatal 4-Way featuring New Day, Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable, Rusev and Aiden English, and the champs themselves, The Usos. Daniel Bryan announced that Natalya will be challenging Charlotte at Clash of Champions in a Lumberjack Match. The Bludgeon Brothers continued to display their dominance defeating an enhancement talent tag team in quick fashion.
Bobby Roode took on The United States Champion, Baron Corbin. The match wouldn’t get too far, though, as their opponent at Clash of Champions, Dolph Ziggler left the commentary table and hit both men with Zig Zags. The Woman’s Champion, Charlotte, defeated Tamina via her Figure Eight submission. After the match, The Riott Squad came out and instigated a brawl between the entire women’s division. Kevin Owens was handcuffed to the ring, so he wouldn’t get involved in the main event between Sami Zayn and Randy Orton. Of course, Owens and Zayn found a way to free him, but it was not enough to prevent Orton from winning the match. Before he could celebrate his victory, Owens and Zayn began attacking him. Shinsuke Nakamura raced down to save Orton, alluding to a possible team up between the two at Clash of Champions. Backstage, Shane McMahon revealed to Daniel Bryan that he will be the guest referee in Owens and Zayn’s match at Clash of Champions, and, if they lose to Orton and Nakamura, they will be fired from the WWE.
Highlight of the Night
The 12 days of Rusev song was pure gold. Aiden English and Rusev have made the absolute best with their time together. The Rusev Day gimmick has, quickly, become a fan favorite, and English made it just that much better this week.
How do they compare?
It was a big week for both shows. Per usual, Los Angeles got a good episode of Raw. The three hours flew by, and the main event delivered. SmackDown is quickly putting together a card for Clash of Champions on December 17th. This week’s episode was a vacuum. Many matches for the event just felt like they were quickly put together. Raw gets the edge this week, but I have faith the blue team will put together two good episodes before Clash of Champions.
Astros close series with a performance worth the wait
Jun 5, 2025, 11:59 pm
All-Star balloting opened up this week for what used to be known as the Midsummer Classic in Major League Baseball. I guess some still refer to it as such but the All-Star Game has been largely a bore for many years, though the honor of being selected on merit remains a big one. As always, fans can vote at all positions except pitcher. The fan balloting has resulted in mostly good selections for years now, though pretty much all teams still do silly marketing stuff trying to drum up support for their players. The Astros’ part in that silliness is their campaign to make it the “All-’Stros” game on the American League squad in Atlanta next month. It’s one thing to be supportive of your team, it’s another to be flat out ridiculous if voting right now for Yainer Diaz, Christian Walker, Yordan Alvarez, Mauricio Dubon, or Cam Smith. The Astros tried to game the system in submitting Jose Altuve as a second baseman where the competition is weaker than it is in the outfield, but given Altuve has played only about 25 percent of the games at second base this season he should not be an All-Star second baseman selectee for what would be the tenth time in his career.
Isaac Paredes’s recent freefall notwithstanding, he has a legitimate case as a backup third baseman, especially with Alex Bregman likely missing more than a month of games due to his quad injury. Jake Meyers is having a fine season but is obviously not an All-Star-worthy outfielder unless he is sensational for the rest of June. That leaves Jeremy Peña, who is simply the best shortstop in the big leagues so far this season. To be clear, no team in baseball (including the Astros) would rather have Peña going forward than the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., but we’re talking about the here and now. There are another 100 games to be played, but Peña not only is about a lock to deserve his first All-Star nod, but he is in contention to put in the books the greatest season ever by an Astro shortstop.
Over his first three seasons, Peña was a consistently mediocre offensive player. His highest batting average was .266, best on-base percentage .324, top slugging percentage .426. He is blowing away all those numbers thus far in 2025. While unlikely to come close to reaching his preseason goal of 50 stolen bases, Peña is swiping bags at the best success rate of his career. Add in Peña’s stellar defense and that he has played in every Astros’ game so far this season, and Peña has been irrefutably one of the 10 best and most valuable players in the American League. You could certainly argue as high as top three.
If Peña's productivity holds up for the rest of the season there are only three other seasons posted by Astro shortstops that are in the same league as what would be Peña’s 2025. Carlos Correa has two of them. Lack of durability may be the biggest reason Correa is not tracking to be a Hall of Famer. In only two seasons as an Astro did Correa play in more than 136 games. He was fabulous in each of them. 2021 was his peak campaign, playing in 148 games while compiling an .850 OPS, winning a Gold Glove, and finishing fifth in AL MVP voting. Correa’s Baseball-Reference wins above replacement number for 2021 was 7.3. Peña is at 3.6 with nearly 20 games still left before the midway point of the schedule.
For the other great Astro shortstop season you have to go back to 1983. Dickie Thon turned 25 years old in June of ‘83. He put up a .798 OPS, which gains in stature given Thon played his home games in the Astrodome when the Dome was at its most pitching-friendly. Thon won the Silver Slugger Award as the best offensive shortstop in the National League, and played superior defense. His Baseball-Reference WAR number was 7.4. He finished seventh for NL MVP playing for an 85-77 Astros’ squad that finished third in the NL West. Dickie Thon looked like an emerging superstar. Then, in the fifth game of the 1984 season, a fastball from Mets’ pitcher Mike Torrez hit Thon in the left eye, fracturing his orbital bone. Thon missed the rest of the ‘84 season. While Thon played in nine more big league seasons, his vision never fully recovered and he was never the same player. It’s one of the biggest “What if...” questions in Astros’ history.
Arms race
Players and the Commissioner’s Office pick the All-Star pitching staffs. Unless he suddenly starts getting lit up regularly, Hunter Brown can pack a bag for Georgia. Framber Valdez wouldn’t make it now but has surged into contention. Josh Hader’s first half is going vastly better than last year’s, so he is in line for a reliever spot.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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