THE WRESTLING REPORT

WWE comes out of Clash of Champions in great shape

WWE comes out of Clash of Champions in great shape
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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. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio shows www.nerdthugradio.com!

Coming out of Clash of Champions, Raw was epic. Seth Rollins holding onto the title and now setting up a rivalry with The Fiend is going to be a great match, I'm a huge Bray Wyatt fan but this does feel early. Also it's disappointing that Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler are the champs if for no other reason than because they came out to Dolph's music and now one of the most Glorious entrance songs just got buried by bad writing. Also, I thought they were going to do King of the Ring during Clash of the Champions, did I miss something? Now Baron Corbin is going to be even more obnoxious that he is King of the Ring. This paternity storyline is silly, the announcers can't even keep a straight face talking about it. It's great to see Rusev back, lean and sporting an amazing moustache, but not as part of this lame baby storyline. Alexa and Nikki are great champions and a fun tag team, and every week Alexa is looking better and better since she recovered from her long-time injury. Raw finished strong with The Fiend taking out Kane and posing over Seth.

Smackdown started off with the Revival and Randy Orton in a tag match against The New Day. It's a little sad to see the New Day drop their titles to The Revival but we'll see where it goes. Ali is probably my least favorite wrestler getting screen time right now. The Kevin Owens lawsuit bit has been done before between him and Shane, this is literally the second lawsuit between them specifically, but they are great to go at each other on the mic. Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair put on an awesome match and the Carmella run in was a nice surprise, I hope Carmella gets back in the ring soon. The build up to a Kofi and Brock match will be great, these are some of the best mic working people in the WWE right now, The New Day and Paul Heyman. Heavy Machinery is great but I feel for Otis running around the ring, he's exhausted by the time he gets to the ring it looks like.

It's a great week out of Clash of Champions and building up towards Hell in the Cell.

Feel free to check out my brand-new comic book Another Day at the Office email me for details or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.

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Durant’s arrival marks a new era for the Rockets. Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images.

Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.

Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.

General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.

Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.

“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”

But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.

“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”

Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.

Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.

“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”

In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.

Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.

“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”

Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.

Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.

“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”

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