Wrestling Report

WWE: The superstar shakeup

WWE: The superstar shakeup
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Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio, Sports and Wrestling. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio shows www.nerdthugradio.com!

This week is usually one of the more fun weeks in the WWE schedule, the week of the Super Star Shake Up. Some wrestlers from each of three major brands, Raw, Smackdown and NXT shuffle around and make "debuts" on the other shows. This year was a little less exciting.

The changes to Raw weren't really all that major I feel like, moving AJ Styles, The Usos, Andrade, Rey Mysterio and The Miz over to Raw really just feels like they took the top half of Smackdown and slid it over to Raw. The call up of The Viking Experience - yes that's right another terrible gimmick tag team - didn't really make things much better. This does explain why The Usos dropped the titles to The Hardy's on the Smackdown after WrestleMania after having them keep the titles on WrestleMania, but honestly, the Raw Tag Team division is crowded and not exactly exciting. Finally revealing that Lacey Evans, Ricochet and Aleister Black are all officially on a roster is great news but adding all three to Raw is a little odd simply because they've been previewing all three on both shows and now they're just all three on Raw. Perhaps the oddest choice here though is breaking up The Riott Squad.

It was announced that Liv Morgan is now going to be on Smackdown, which means that the Riott Squad, which is the only female faction really and honestly it's a good one, is now dead. I'm a huge Liv Morgan fan. I really like her look and she wrestles well in matches but honestly I don't know how she will do in singles competition and speaking of singles competition, I think one thing the shake up did was add some clarity to the WWE's choice to combine the belts. I think you'll see most of the women's tag matches on Smackdown as now they moved two more tag teams to this show last night with Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville and pairing Asuke with the newly called up Kairi Sane and the Iconics were already a Smackdown team. Which means most of your single's women's competition will be on Raw where Becky Lynch already has a rivalry going with Lacey Evans. The addition of Finn Balor, Roman Reigns and Elias are all great additions to Smackdown; these guys need more room to breathe and letting them get more time on the now way less crowded Smackdown main roster will be for everyone's benefit.

Overall this was a solid shake up but the delivery just wasn't there as a lot of these announcements were made by the announcers due to the fact that a lot of guys had travel issues and couldn't get to Montreal in time to appear on this week's shows.

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The Astros beat the Phillies, 2-1. Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images.

Cam Smith hit an RBI single in the eighth inning to give the Houston Astros a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday.

The rookie's second hit of the game came off Orion Kerkering (5-3) and gave the Astros their fourth straight win.

Brandon Marsh tied the game on a sacrifice fly in the top of the inning to end the Phillies' 26-inning scoreless streak.

The Astros took a 1-0 lead on Yainer Diaz’s RBI single in the second inning. They only managed three more hits off Phillies starter Christopher Sanchez, who struck out 11 with zero walks over six innings. Sanchez has not issued a walk in three straight starts.

Hunter Brown lowered his league best ERA to 1.74 by scattering three singles over seven shutout innings, with nine strikeouts. He did not allow a runner to reach second base.

Bryan Abreu (3-3) struck out Trea Turner to end the eighth, and then struck out Kyle Schwarber, Alec Bohm, and Nick Castellanos in the ninth.

Abreu joined Julia Morales after the game and talked about his impressive performance!

Rafael Marchán had two of the Phillies' four hits. Bryson Stott reached base twice and scored the Phillies' lone run.

Key moment

Smith’s RBI.

Key stat

Brown’s 1.74 ERA is the fourth best in Astros history through 16 starts and the best since Justin Verlander posted a 1.60 ERA through 16 starts in 2018.

Up next

The Astros open a three-game series against the Cubs on Friday with LHP Brandon Walter (0-1 3.80 ERA) on the mound.

The Phillies open a three-game series at the Braves on Friday with RHP Mick Abel (2-1 3.47 ERA) against Atlanta RHP Bryce Elder (2-4 4.77).

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