WWE Wrap-Up
This week in WWE: Strowman gets even as the odds get even more stacked for Styles
Feb 14, 2018, 4:23 pm
Braun Strowman gets even with Elias in a big way. Photo by WWE.com
This is a weekly look at the action in the WWE:
Raw
John Cena opened Raw explaining to fans how he has to win the Elimination Chamber Match, because, if he does not, he’s not sure he has anything for WrestleMania. The Miz was not thrilled with what Cena had to say, and explained why he will be the one to face Brock Lesnar in New Orleans. This caused Cena to challenge Miz to a match; the loser enters the chamber first. Miz put up a valiant effort, but an Attitude Adjustment from the middle rope put Miz away. The Revival fabricated an advantage for themselves when they attacked Gallows and Anderson before their match. Their effort proved to be fruitful as they were able to pin Anderson to win the match. Kurt Angle revealed that his son, Jason Jordan, suffered a serious neck injury; thus, he will be missing WrestleMania. Seth Rollins came out to wish his former partner a healthy recovery, and to request an opportunity in the Fatal Fourway to determine who will be the last entrant at the Elimination Chamber. Angle, eventually, obliged and granted Rollins the chance to enter the match.
Bayley and Sasha Banks got to air out their differences in the ring, and, boy did they. The match was as hard hitting and aggressive as the last few weeks’ matches have been. Bayley won the match after hitting Banks with a Bayley to Belly from the middle rope to win the match. Nia Jax surprised both women and attacked them from behind. Alexa Bliss persuaded Mickie James to tag with her against Absolution. The mind games of Absolution proved to be too much, though, as Mandy was able to pin James after a distraction from Sonya.
Elias’ concert this week was interrupted in the most creative way possible, Braun Strowman’s concert, with a giant bass. Unfortunately for Elias, Strowman got some sweet revenge by breaking that bass on Elias’ back. Sheamus’ gamble to the top rope in his match against Roman Reigns burned him as Reigns caught him with a giant Spear to win the match. Michael Cole revealed that Ivory will be joining this year’s class of the WWE Hall of Fame. The “Second Chance” Fatal Fiveway between Wyatt, Hardy, Crews, Rollins and Balor closed the show. Crews and Wyatt were going at it on the top rope when Balor and Rollins worked together to power bomb both of them. Both men went for the pin, leaving the referee confused on who the winner of the match was. After Raw, Kurt Angle took to Twitter to announce both men will enter The Elimination Chamber Match.
Highlight of the Night: C’mon, really? It’s Braun with the bass. No question or debate to be had. How do you get even with a man who broke a guitar on your back? You freaking break a giant bass on his back. It’s only fair.
SmackDown Live
Dolph Ziggler came to the ring for his match against Baron Corbin, only Corbin never makes it to the ring thanks to an attack from Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. The two raced to the ring and attacked Ziggler as well. Charlotte continued on her quest to defeat every member of the Riott Squad by defeating Sarah Logan with a nasty Natural Selection. Two down, one to go. Shane McMahon explained to Daniel Bryan that Corbin and Ziggler will still get their chances to challenge for the WWE Championship via singles matches against Zayn and Owens. The first of these matches saw Baron Corbin defeat Kevin Owens after hitting him with an End of Days.
Bobby Roode announced he will be keeping the Open Challenge tradition going for his United States Championship. He admitted that he was hoping Randy Orton would challenge him, after he surprised him with an attack last week. Sure enough, Orton answered but so did Jinder Mahal. The former WWE Champion came out to stir the pot between Orton and Roode, and it worked as he caused them to begin to brawl before eventually hitting both of them with Khallas. Benjamin and Gable interrupted Big E’s attempt to break the world record for most pancakes eaten in one sitting. They insulted the New Day’s seriousness before tossing their pancakes. This, of course, lead into a match. The New Day would pick up the win with the Midnight Hour. Sami Zayn did what he could to prevent Dolph Ziggler from joining the match at Fastlane, but one Super Kick spoiled his plan, and Ziggler pinned him for the win.
Highlight of the Night: The New Day keep finding creative ways to feud with their opponents. Add to that their awesome BHM gear, and you have a recipe for a fun segment involving the most creative tag team of this generation.
Boy, were this weeks’ shows about stacking the odds. Raw’s main event became a Fatal Fiveway, and the ridiculous finish made the Chamber match the first ever to feature seven wrestlers. That being said, we finally know who will be in the match and how it will work. It will be fun to see how Miz weasels his way through the match, despite being the first entrant to the match.
On the blue brand, the odds just got stacked that much more against WWE Champion, AJ Styles. The addition of Corbin and Ziggler will make for a ridiculous main event. This, hopefully, changes nothing. If they were to steer away from Styles vs Nakamura at ‘Mania it would be a crime.
Sprinkle in some ridiculousness like Braun’s bass and Big E’s pancake binge and you’ve got another solid week. Next week will be Raw’s go home show before Elimination Chamber, so we should expect less funny business as Raw closes the door on their PPV’s before WrestleMania. SmackDown Live definitely has an intriguing main event for Fastlane, these next couple of weeks should be a build for the remainder of the card.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.