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.
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Through 20 games, the Houston Astros have managed just six wins and are in last place in the AL West.
Their pitching staff trails only Colorado with a 5.24 ERA and big-money new closer Josh Hader has given up the same number of earned runs in 10 games as he did in 61 last year.
Despite this, these veteran Astros, who have reached the AL Championship Series seven consecutive times, have no doubt they’ll turn things around.
“If there’s a team that can do it, it’s this team,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said.
First-year manager Joe Espada, who was hired in January to replace the retired Dusty Baker, discussed his team’s early struggles.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s not what we expected, to come out of the shoot playing this type of baseball. But you know what, this is where we’re at and we’ve got to pick it up and play better. That’s just the bottom line.”
Many of Houston’s problems have stemmed from a poor performance by a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. Ace Justin Verlander and fellow starter José Urquidy haven’t pitched this season because of injuries and lefty Framber Valdez made just two starts before landing on the injured list with a sore elbow.
Ronel Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut April 1, has pitched well and is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts this season. Cristian Javier is also off to a good start, going 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in four starts, but the team has won just two games not started by those two pitchers.
However, Espada wouldn’t blame the rotation for Houston’s current position.
“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster how we've played overall,” he said. “One day we get good starting pitching, some days we don’t. The middle relief has been better and sometimes it hasn’t been. So, we’ve just got to put it all together and then play more as a team. And once we start doing that, we’ll be in good shape.”
The good news for the Astros is that Verlander will make his season debut Friday night when they open a series at Washington and Valdez should return soon after him.
“Framber and Justin have been a great part of our success in the last few years,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “So, it’s always good to have those two guys back helping the team. We trust them and I think it’s going to be good.”
Hader signed a five-year, $95 million contract this offseason to give the Astros a shutdown 7-8-9 combination at the back end of their bullpen with Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. But the five-time All-Star is off to a bumpy start.
He allowed four runs in the ninth inning of a 6-1 loss to the Braves on Monday night and has yielded eight earned runs this season after giving up the same number in 56 1/3 innings for San Diego last year.
He was much better Wednesday when he struck out the side in the ninth before the Astros fell to Atlanta in 10 innings for their third straight loss.
Houston’s offense, led by Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, ranks third in the majors with a .268 batting average and is tied for third with 24 homers this season. But the Astros have struggled with runners in scoring position and often failed to get a big hit in close games.
While many of Houston’s hitters have thrived this season, one notable exception is first baseman José Abreu. The 37-year-old, who is in the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million contract, is hitting 0.78 with just one extra-base hit in 16 games, raising questions about why he remains in the lineup every day.
To make matters worse, his error on a routine ground ball in the eighth inning Wednesday helped the Braves tie the game before they won in extra innings.
Espada brushed off criticism of Abreu and said he knows the 2020 AL MVP can break out of his early slump.
“Because (of) history,” Espada said. “The back of his baseball card. He can do it.”
Though things haven’t gone well for the Astros so far, everyone insists there’s no panic in this team which won its second World Series in 2022.
Altuve added that he doesn’t have to say anything to his teammates during this tough time.
“I think they’ve played enough baseball to know how to control themselves and how to come back to the plan we have, which is winning games,” he said.
The clubhouse was quiet and somber Wednesday after the Astros suffered their third series sweep of the season and second at home. While not panicking about the slow start, this team, which has won at least 90 games in each of the last three seasons, is certainly not happy with its record.
“We need to do everything better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “I feel like we’re in a lot of games, but we just haven’t found a way to win them. And good teams find a way to win games. So we need to find a way to win games.”