Pre-show notes:

- As some of you may know, yesterday was my birthday, and at some point I got caught up doing whatever the hell it is you do on birthdays and couldn’t get up a Raw Open Discussion thread. Don’t worry, we’re going to pick that back up next week and chances are I’ll pop one up for Smackdown this week to compensate. Also, happy birthday to me! For anyone wondering, I spent Sunday night watching Matthew Palmer get stabbed in the mouth with kabob skewers and thrown off a scaffold at ACW’s Guilty By Association 6 and spent Monday eating veggie burgers.

- Also for anyone wondering, I am now 85 years old.

- Comments are appreciated. Clicking “like” is appreciated, tweets and retweets are appreciated, showing and sharing this to and with the people you know are appreciated. Google + shares aren’t really appreciated, because stop trying to make fetch happen.

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- Gifs contained within are, as always, courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

- Additional reading: UGO’s Raw Report.

Click through to enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for January 16, 2012.

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Editor’s Note: As some of you may’ve noticed, we didn’t do the predictions contest namedropped in last week’s column. Instead, we’ve decided to set up a contest you can’t lose! All you have to do is drop a comment on the column below (a real one, preferably, not “I’m leaving a comment!”), tweet the URL of The Best And Worst Of WWE TLC ’11 out to your followers and make sure to include an @WithLeather at the end so we can see it. Do that, and you’ll be one of two people randomly selected by me and probably Bill to win 50 bucks. That’s it. You’ll get it on one of my Cleveland Indians checks and everything. So do that!

Okay, first things first:

- I’m not Brandon. Brandon isn’t here. He’s off in search of the world’s only vegan Chocolate Wonderfall into which he can dunk a mess of candied tofu, so until he’s done with his walkabout, I’m filling in for the Best and Worst of TLC. I’m Bill Hanstock from Progressive Boink, SB Nation, and/or Baseball Feelings. Tomorrow, you guys get the esteemed Justin, also from Progressive Boink, for Best and Worst of Raw. It’s a regular Progressive Boink week here! By the time Brandon gets back, we’ll be rating lesbians or talking about waterslides or whatever.

- It’s customary to plead for comments in these things, so if you’re reading this, please do take ten seconds of your time to leave a comment, even/especially if it’s just to let Brandon know how much better he is at these.

- You can always follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow Brandon personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.

- If you’re so inclined, you can also follow me on Twitter @sundownmotel or find me on SB Nation.

- All internal gifs are courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

- Just as an advance warning, this recap contains zero (0) pictures of anyone named A.J. (Or does it?? SWERVE)

This show was way better than I expected it to be, so let’s get right down to business!

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The Rock: The Nation's Top Fun Haver

Pre-show notes:

- Comments on these reports have been down lately, due in part to our new comments section requiring registration and due in another part to me writing 600,000,000 words about wrestling and not getting it up until four in the afternoon, but go ahead and leave us a comment if you aren’t a total jerk. Leave us one even if you are. I’d appreciate it. I like talking to you about the wrestling.

- AJ picture in the intro is not necessary because she’s actually on the show this week, and oh man you guys is she ever on the show.

- All animated gifs are via the Punchsport Pagoda at Something Awful.

- WARNING: I like the Muppets a lot, so if you’re one of those “meh, the Muppets” types, I don’t understand you and we should make that clear now. For more information on me and Muppets, please consult the 50 Greatest Muppets list I helped write at Progressive Boink a few years ago. This happened on an Internet before slideshows, so you should be able to enjoy it without trauma. When you’re done with that, read the second half of it.

And now, the Best and Worst of Muppet Raw.

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It’s like somebody photoshopped out Brock Lesnar. Pre-report notes:

- We’ve got a fresh new commenting system, so if you read and/or flip through the report to read the boldface, make sure to leave us a comment to let us know what you liked or didn’t like about Vengeance, and which shoehorned-in Dragonball Z references in the report you thought were the least unfunny.

- Speaking of comments, With Leather offered a $250 Amazon gift card to the person who could accurately predict Vengeance. Thanks in part to that image up top, nobody could. We still want to give away money, though, so I’m opening it up to you, the participants. Do we award the prize to a random commenter, organize a Raw contest or push the giveaway to Survivor Series and see if anybody takes it home?

- Full disclosure: I didn’t watch this show live. I spent my Sunday night at Mohawk on Red River in downtown Austin watching Anarchy Championship Wrestling’s Beyond Good & Evil, a show that included Rachel Summerlyn dressed as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, ACH and Matt Palmer almost chickenfighting on the ledge of a building, Davey Vega taking one of the sickest German suplexes I’ve ever seen to the bottom turnbuckle and Robert Evans (who looks a heck of a lot like CHIKARA’s Archibald Peck) sitting quietly in the crowd in a Halloween costume for five hours to do a run-in at the end. I’m watching Vengeance this morning and writing about it as I go, so if the Cena/Alberto Del Rio match write-up turns into “heh, so here’s ten paragraphs about ChrisTrew.biz” I apologize.

- This is the third pay-per-view in six weeks. Just wanted to remind you.

Please click through to enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Vengeance.

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On Sunday night, WWE presents their third pay-per-view event in 35 days, Vengeance. The show is headlined by a Last Man Standing Match between WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio and John Cena, as well as a match between World Heavyweight Champion wig-splitter Mark Henry and the returning Big Show. It will also feature the last drop of milk being drawn from the damaged, quivering teet of wrestling fans, so we thought we’d make it fun.

In celebration of the UPROXX™ Network’s brand new commenting system, With Leather is introducing the first (and possibly only) WWE Pay-Per-View Predictions Challenge. All you have to do is register with the site and post your predictions for who will win each match and how (pinfall, submission, disqualification, count-out, that sort of thing) in the comments section of This Very Post. If you get them all correct, you’ll win a $250 gift card from Amazon.com that you can use to buy … whatever you want, really. Wrestling DVDs. 10 copies of That’s What I Am. Anything. Just remember to get them in before the show on Sunday night or it won’t count.

Here’s the announced card.

1. World Heavyweight Championship Match: Mark Henry © vs. The Big Show

2. Last Man Standing Match for the WWE Championship: Alberto Del Rio © vs. John Cena

3. Tag Team Match: Triple H and CM Punk vs. R-Truth and The Miz

4. Randy Orton vs. Cody Rhodes

5. Divas Championship Match: Beth Phoenix © vs. Eve Torres

6. Sheamus vs. Christian

7. United States Championship Match: Dolph Ziggler © vs. Zack Ryder *or* WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Air Boom © vs. Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger

That’s going by some announcements that’re supposed to go down on Smackdown tonight, although they announced Air Boom vs. Ziggler and Jack Swagger on Monday, so we’re just gonna have to play that one by ear. If you want to make your predictions early, just go ahead and include predics for them both. If more than one person correctly picks the results and finishes, we’ll pool the winners and use Raw as a tie-breaker. Just remember, the pay-per-view happens THIS SUNDAY NIGHT, so anything posted after 7 PM EST tomorrow will be disqualified.

So yeah, sign up for an account with UPROXX and make your choices. This is open to anybody who signs up, so tell your friends and neighbors to come on over and participate. Share it on whatever dirt sheet forums you frequent, pitch it to the Wrestlecrap guy, tweet it to Bill Simmons, whatever. Let’s make it an event! And then have two more events immediately afterwards!

Pre-report notes include:

- I almost called this “The Worst And Worst Of WWE Raw”. Just a heads up.

- We’ve got a new social set-up on the UPROXX Network, so now is a better time to leave a comment than ever. We’re going to start giving away prizes to commenters, so get on that train early. And hey, if you disagree with my assessment of the show, let me know. I’m not “right”, I’m just a fan. At the same time, if you disagree with me, make sure you read the paragraphs that go along with the point you’re pissed about, because at least I’m trying to explain it.

- You are going to need a picture of A.J. so bad by the time you finish this report, so I’m just going to go ahead and put a picture of her (and Kaitlyn, and Derrick Bateman) from the pre-show “Solidarity Rally” in the header. You’ll thank me later.

- If you have a surgical mask of any kind, please place that over your nose and mouth before reading the next page.

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