A few things before we place our votes.

- Be sure to read The Best And Worst Of WWE Hell In A Cell before reading this week’s report. Yes, there was a pay-per-view on Sunday. Another one!

- For those of you who want to follow the column more closely, be sure to – like us on Facebook!, Follow us on Twitter so you never miss an update, or follow me personally (I’ll talk to you about wrestling, I swear). We had a few technical difficulties earlier today, so I apologize for the lateness of this.

- Okay, you got me, I was busy screen-capping Kaitlyn.

- The last few columns have seen a decrease in comments, so don’t let that happen. Drop us a comment when you’re done reading and let me know what you thought of the show or the report.

Enjoy the column, or at least the first 90 minutes.

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Welcome to the second pay-per-view in two weeks! I actually got to see this one, so before we begin:

- If you give his a read, please share it with everyone you have ever met. I’m not kidding. Show it to your ex-girlfriends, your high school teachers, people you see wandering around out front of the community college, homeless people. I’m looking to spread the word about these reports and can use every Facebook share and Retweet and Spotify Spotification you can muster. And no, I don’t have any idea what Spotify is or how it works.

- Also, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a comment after you’re done to let us know what you thought of the show or the report. If I can become enough of a voice for the voiceless, Jim Rome will start thinking I’m real and let me on his show.

- If you aren’t familiar with the Hell In A Cell concept, be sure to check out The Masked Man’s excellent Hell In A Cell preview over at Grantland. Also, bug him on the Internet so he’ll fill in for me on one of these reports one day. I can return the favor to him by filling in for Chuck Klosterman and remembering Ninja Turtles.

The Best and Worst of WWE Hell In A Cell is after the jump. Enjoy.

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Photo credit: WWE.com

Oh hi mark.

- For those of you who only show up to read Best and Worst (shame on you), I’m back from my nearly week-long vacation in sunny southern California for a mix of Dodgers baseball, Brady Bunch house visits and mark photos with SoCal Jack Skellington and have returned to my post as the Raw reviewer who is extremely positive about everything but only likes Alberto Del Rio. Before I start, I want to give another thank you to Andrew Johnson for filling in on The Best And Worst Of WWE Night Of Champions and to Diego “the only Dr. Cube that matters” McCafferty for The Guest And Worst Of Raw 9/19. They did a fantastic job filling in, and if you haven’t read those recaps yet, please do so.

- Like I said, this is my first column back in two weeks, so I am going to absolutely badger you to f’ing death for comments, Facebook shares, Twitter retweets, Google Plus plus-ones, Friendster wall posts (does Friendster have a wall? I can’t remember), Xanga rants and Diaryland entries in the support of Best and Worst of Raw. They are appreciated, and if I don’t get enough of them I’m turning With Leather into an indecipherable mass of misdirecting Stephanie McMahon Nude Click Here links and Free iPod announcements.

- In case you need to be bribed, and because last week nobody here liked her enough to include a gratuitous picture, here is Smackdown’s A.J. doing a split.

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Before we get started with this week’s edition of the Guest and Worst of Raw, a couple notes to cover:

• To reiterate, the delightful Brandon is on vacation and has passed on the responsibility for this week’s recap to myself. Despite being a lifelong wrestling enthusiast, writer and most importantly, vegan, I’m fairly sure I was given this gig due to my ties to Kaiju Big Battel. Kaiju was a touring Vaudvillian show which combined the story structure and live performances of pro wrestling with the showy elements and characters of a Godzilla/Super Sentai movie. Sorta like Extremely Strange Wrestling if it was “watchable,” or Lucha VaVOOM with fewer whores.
• Although it doesn’t justify it’s own bullet point, my time with Kaiju was both as a writer and performer, most notably as the character of Dr. Cube through the majority of the Oughts. Yes, I’m a bit smaller than you think in person; Yes, I was also SuperWrong; and No, that was Chuck Taylor at that one Chikara show. MOVING ON!
• As always, comments are greatly appreciated as they’re a great metric for understanding what works and what doesn’t. That having been said, I should just be honest upfront and let you know that I’m terrified of criticism and will probably avoid the comments section for the next week like Mayweather avoids Pacquiao.
• (Full disclosure, that last sentence read “…like Julie Taymore avoids Gawker Media” until my girlfriend told be to change it to something “more accessible.” Brandon will be back next week, everybody!)
• I’d like to take a moment here to thank Casey Boyd and Andrew Johnson for their help with screen shots and art. Casey even Photoshop’d an image of Andrew “Test” Martin in a Polar Bear suit that I wish I’d gotten to use, but didn’t make the edit. Also, it should go without saying that I want to thank Brandon for the really great work he’s put into these columns. They’re hilarious, and I hope minimally to do right by this column while he’s away. Thanks for the opportunity, Brandon.
• Lastly, I’d like to apologize for the late post, but I’m West Coastin’ it, and was waiting for that Andrew “Test” Martin in a Polar Bear suit art to get back to me.

On to the show…

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Welcome to the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for September 13, 2011. Before we begin:

- Be sure to leave a comment if you read the report. If Vince McMahon is ever on his word processor and accidentally stumbles upon the site, it’ll make me look cooler to have 200 comments than it would to have 8. Also, these things take about three and a half hours to build from start to finish, not counting the two hours of wrestling I have to sit through, so your feedback and thoughts are my payment. Money is my payment, too, but I get these four times a month.

- That being said, allow me to pull a Zack Ryder and invite you to like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, buy the t-shirt and the headband and the sunglasses (I don’t have those things).

- As previously mentioned, I’m headed to Los Angeles on Thursday, so both The Best And Worst Of Night Of Champions and the next night’s Best and Worst Of Raw will feature guest writers. Handling the Night of Champions report will be Andrew Johnson of the popular The John Report, which I think is a blog about bathrooms. Covering next week’s Raw will be writer Diego McCafferty, a man shockingly important to my pro wrestling fandom. Be kind to them and give them the same kind of response you’d give me, only with more curse words. Burnsy will be in charge of With Leather while I’m off taking mark photos with Maleficent (or Andre Ethier, or whoever), so if they do a terrible job, blame him.

- A.J. image unrelated, but important.

Enjoy the report. See you in two weeks.

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Before we begin:

- Be sure you read last week’s Best and Worst of Raw and Best and Worst of Super Smackdown before reading this week’s, because this week is completely different and doesn’t regurgitate any of those old talking points I have to come up with a clever way to say every week for the rest of my life.

- Yesterday was Labor Day, and with Hurricane Irene taking over the east coast of the United States (for one reason or another) things have been a little light here, so I’m going to do my prerequisite begging: If you check out this column, show it to everybody you know who has ever heard of pro wrestling and please, LEAVE US A COMMENT. That’s in capital letters so you’ll see it if you’re skimming. We want to hear your thoughts on the show, we want to know what you thought was funny, we want to know about any bests and worsts we might’ve missed. With Leather sort of lives or dies by your interaction, and I really appreciate it.

- Be sure to follow @WithLeather or @MrBrandonStroud for report and site updates, and because it’s just a good idea.

Enjoy this week’s Best and Worst of Raw, after the jump.

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