Not that underpants Sheamus posing with a racist midget would do anything to keep you reading, but stay with me.

Tonight’s Best and Worst Of Smackdown Live-Blog starts up about 15 minutes before the show, so be there beginning at 7:45 EST for the festivities, which involve at least 15 minutes of me recapping the end of something on SyFy and pleading with you not to make Golden Corral Chocolate Wonderfall jokes. This is the last report I’ll be a part of until next week’s Smackdown live-blog, as blog regulars Bill Hanstock and Justin O’Connor will be filling in for me on Best And Worst Of WWE TLC 2011 and Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 12/19 respectively, so be around and hang out and chat with me and convince me I couldn’t easily be replaced by a wrestling joke-making robot. “Triple H is at it again. What a clown.”

You can set a reminder for the event, check out some info about commenting and get a free picture of A.J. after the jump.

UPDATE: Tonight’s special guest will be none-other than John Canton of The John Report. That’s huge. Don’t miss it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: WWE.com

Believe it or not, A.J. wrestles professionally in addition to standing still for photos!

The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown live-blog adventure experiment returns to Friday nights this week, and aside from a few choice moments of people going OH MAN YOU AREN’T GONNA LIKE THIS to me on Twitter I’ve managed to avoid spoilers. Be sure to click through and set up a reminder through CoverItLive so you can be here for the jokes, the mild-recapping, the heartbreaking inevitability of tag team stories in World Wrestling Entertainment and more. Destiny returns as my co-host this week, and if all goes well we’ll also have Progressive Boink and SB Nation’s Bill Hanstock hanging around. Be here at 7:45 EST tonight!

Also, probably a sh*tload of Chocolate Wonderfall commercials.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wait, already?

It seems like just yesterday we were wasting two hours making jokes about the Golden Corral Chocolate Wonderfall and here we are again. WWE is switching up their normal “tape Tuesday, let everybody read what happened Wednesday and Thursday, air the show Friday” schedule and airing Smackdown live on Tuesday night. Man, we haven’t even gotten to Raw yet.

Anyway, Destiny will be at school while this is on so my good friend Justin O’Connor of Progressive Boink fame will be sitting in as my co-host. That guarantees 100% less Chocolate Wonderfall discussion and 100% more of me letting him type whatever he wants because he’s hilarious. If you’re watching the show, have to miss it and want to keep tabs on what’s going on or just want to shoot the sh*t with some folks that love pro graps, be sure to give yourself the little CoverItLive e-mail reminder and be back here Tuesday night at 8 PM EST for the festivities.

And in case you were wondering, yes, you can stick anything into the Chocolate Wonderfall.

Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed it last week, we’re solving the “how can I do a Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown report when With Leather doesn’t update on Saturdays” problem with a weekly live-blog of the show hosted by yours truly and Destiny, and probably LastTexansFan if he keeps beating me over the head with how funny he is in the comments every five seconds.

Our first attempt went pretty well, and we’re hoping to build on that this week. If you’ve read the spoilers (or been forced to skim over them as lightly as possible like I was) you’ll know what an emotional roller coaster we’re on tonight, so I’ll need you and as many people as you know to keep me from having a nervous breakdown. The live-blog starts tonight at 8 PM EST and will feature a 15-minute-or-so pre-show where I try to figure out how to use Cover It Live. The only thing I ever used it for at FanHouse was live-blogging Indians games, and even I didn’t read those.

After the jump you can set up a reminder for the event.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the comments I get for complaining in Best And Worst Of WWE Raw is, “why don’t you do a Best And Worst Of Smackdown instead?” That’s usually followed by “it’s a lot better”, and a list of wrestlers I love who infrequently or never show up on Raw, like Daniel Bryan and The Chickbusters, A.J. and Kaitlyn. I did one when it aired live on a Tuesday — The Best And Worst Of WWE Super Smackdown — but it ended up filled with Raw guys.

The reason I don’t do it regularly (besides an “I’m always busy on Friday nights” thing I’m not going to lie to you about) is simple: With Leather doesn’t update on Saturdays, and nobody’s interested enough to come back Monday for a report about a show that aired Friday and was taped the previous Tuesday. The solution, at least until we figure out the logistics of podcasting, is even simpler: tonight, starting at 8 PM EST (or 7 PM Brandon Time), we’re going to experiment with the Best And Worst of WWE Smackdown Live-Blog.

Thanks to the magic of CoverItLive, you can come back to this entry when Smackdown starts and follow along with me as I make jokes, mark out for the FCW fresh and pretend like I didn’t read the spoilers. I’ll be sharing your comments as we go, and best case scenario I’ll have Popular Internet Girlfriend Destiny as my co-host. Check it out. If this is successful and I don’t find out I’m less funny on the fly, we’ll keep it going.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few questions before we start.

- Do you know the enemy? You know your enemy?

- Are you familiar with the Best And Worst Of Raw? This is going to work just like that, only for the super special live edition of Smackdown. I don’t normally do these recaps for Smackdown because 1) I am a cool guy in real life who is probably busy on Friday nights and 2) With Leather doesn’t update on the weekends, and if I put it up on Saturday afternoon it will get four hits, and three of those will be from Upstate Underdog. If you like this write-up and share it around and leave me a comment, I’ll try to make a point to work it out somehow.

- If you haven’t read yesterday’s column, please do so before clicking through.

Enjoy our inaugural edition of The Best and Worst of Smackdown by clicking through, and stay tuned for our loosely-related slideshow, The 16 Most Outrabulous Teddy Long Jackets.

Read the rest of this entry »