Pre-show notes:

- Drop a comment on the report! We want to hear what you have to say and appreciate having you around. Also, seriously, click that like button. If you don’t I’m gonna stretch the next 5-page report into a Bleacher Report thing that reloads the entire page whenever you move.

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

- Continued thanks to Casey/THESTINGER for helping me out with gifs and pictures. Be sure to visit his gifs Tumblr for the stuff I didn’t use.

- For another perspective on Raw, make sure you check out John Canton’s Raw Deal at the new TJRWrestling. He’s a nice guy with a great crew and deserves your support.

- For a Best And Worst Of Raw-approved Tumblr account, visit Feminist Pro Wrestling. It’s totally right, and a more straightforward approach to addressing the serious, f**ked-up problems of pro wrestling without my weird anime tangents. Support reasonable people who like pro graps!

Please to enjoy the Best and Worst Of WWE Raw 4/30, with special guest star … oh, let’s say “Moe”.

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What a great match! And now Daniel Bryan is once again the Heavyweight Champion Of The World! YES! YES! YES!

- Before you participate in tonight’s discussion, make sure you’ve read The Best And Worst Of WWE Extreme Rules ’12.

Tonight on Raw:

- Everyone is hurt and John Cena died on the way back to his home planet.
- New WWE Divas Champion Layla could show up for between 2-3 minutes. Michelle McCool could show up for even less than that!
- Triple H returns, and I try not to be a total dick about it.

At Extreme Rules, Raw and SmackDown GM John Laurinaitis had a mysterious phone conversation with Triple H. The GM promised to reveal the nature of their conversation when The Game comes to Raw SuperShow tonight. What will the two have to say?

“My name is John Laurinaitis.”
“This business.”
etc.

Poll time:

- The top 10 comments from tonight’s WWE Raw open discussion thread will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw report. To nominate a comment for top 10 status, please reply to it with a +1. The easiest ways to a top 10 comment are 1) using contextual references to things I love, like Watchmen or the first season of Pokémon, 2) signs or pictures of signs at WWE events featuring me or something I’ve said, 3) saying hateful sh*t about Sheamus. Still, even though he lost!

Up for grabs tonight: the second in our series of Daniel Bryan YES! badges. Yep, we’re gonna do three of them in total, and if you get all three you’ll have a big YES! YES! YES! section on your UPROXX achievements page.

To earn the second YES! badge, you do the same thing you did to earn the first: During the show, tweet this open discussion thread to everyone you’ve ever met, share the post on Facebook and click that “like” button just below the title of the post. That’s it! And hey, if you missed out on last night’s badge, don’t worry — this blue vegan bad boy will look great by itself. Even if you lose it in 18 seconds.

Let’s enjoy pro wrestling! WWE Raw discussion starts right now.

Pre-show notes:

- Drop a comment on the report and let me know what you thought of the show! Or what you thought about what I thought about the show, or whatever. We appreciate having you around, and your patronage is appreciated in non-badge situations. Also, seriously, click that like button. If you don’t I’m gonna stretch the next 5-page report into a 50 page slideshow.

- And hey, don’t forget to check out our Extreme Rules Open Discussion Thread for like 1,800 additional jokes.

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

- Continued thanks to Casey/THESTINGER for helping me out with gifs and pictures. Be sure to visit his gifs Tumblr for the stuff I didn’t use. He is the best.

Please to enjoy the Best and Worst Of WWE Extreme Rules. Viewer EXTREMENESS~ is advised.

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Pre-show notes:

- Please excuse my lateness this week. I spent Monday night performing at The ND in Austin, breaking in our brand new Monday Night Watch Party, informally known as the Best and Worst of Raw Live. Highlights included me doing the ACH ring entrance and the wonderful comedians we had helping us out with improv commercials. Lowlights included watching this wrestling show. Our next show is on May 21, so come check it out. It’s free, and we’re gonna have a better idea of what works and an hour less to fill.

- If you haven’t listened to it yet, be sure to check out episode 2 of my pro wrestling podcast With Spandex. I talk to Deadspin and Grantland’s David “The Masked Man” Shoemaker about everything from WrestleMania to “Don’t Step To Ron”. It’s a good time. With Spandex will be taking a one week hiatus this week so I can cover the Moontower Comedy and Oddity festival for UPROXX, but it’ll be right back.

- Don’t be afraid to leave a comment on this report. We’ve build a great community of intelligent, funny wrestling fans and you should be a part of it, because seriously, you aren’t gonna find it anywhere else. Not even on that Fark page where they linked us but nobody clicked it and just talked about Raw on the Fark page.

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

- Biggest thanks again to Casey/THESTINGER for helping me out with gifs and pictures. Be sure to visit his gifs Tumblr for the stuff I didn’t use.

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Am I a nerd? YES! YES! YES!

If you live in Austin and read this site on the reg, chances are you were one of the tens of thousands of people in attendance at last night’s Monday Night Raw Watch Party, informally known as the Best And Worst Of Raw Live. On ice. And don’t quote me on the attendance, there were lights in my eyes the entire time and I’m just assuming that’s how many people were on the other side.

Anyway! If you watched Raw you know it was:

1. Three hours long
2. Suicidally dreadful
3. 85% commercial break

That being said, the combination of an arduous three hour Raw and the performance anxiety/high/cooldown combined has forced me to post this announcement: This week’s Best And Worst Of Raw column will be posted first thing in the morning on Wednesday, unless you want me to write up the version I saw with everything muted.

Maybe that would be better.

Until then, head over to The New Movement and find out where and how you can support the talented men and women who helped make the Raw party possible. For a live perspective on Raw that DIDN’T involve anybody calling Hornswoggle a “dick in a fruit roll-up”, check out John Canton’s Raw Deal at TJR Wrestling.

Let’s hope Brock remembers how to write!

On tonight’s show:

- No, really, that’s the only thing they’ve announced. Brock Lesnar and John Cena will be having a contract signing for a match they’ve already agreed to with stipulations that’ve already been announced. This show is gonna be three hours long.

- Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez won’t be in attendance, as they’ve been traded to Smackdown. You know, unless they appear on Raw as members of Smackdown, which is a thing that always happens.

- Heels making jokes about Detroit, like Michigan doesn’t feel badly enough already.

Poll time:

A few things to remember:

- The top 10 comments of the night will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw report. To nominate a comment for the top 10, respond to it with a +1. You can respond to it with a +anything, really (or even a well placed but less committal “haha”) but the formal +1 makes it easier to find later.

- Be sure to listen to episode 2 of our pro wrestling podcast With Spandex. This week we talk to David “Masked Man” Shoemaker of Deadspin and Grantland fame.

- If you’re in the Austin area tonight and don’t feel like +1′ing anybody, come out to The ND and watch me try to handle a three-hour Raw for my first ever live Best and Worst-style comedy venture. If you show up to this, you are automatically my friend for life, pending you not heckling me the entire time.

Anyway, enjoy the show.