Hey guys, my name’s Nathan and for some godforsaken reason, I like my fake underwear fighting to make sense.

My desire for lucid pro-wrestling goes beyond “no gaping plot holes, thanks” — I also like recognizable human motivations and characterization! Failing all that (and wrestling usually fails all that) I at least like when matches have some sort of compelling, logical hook. Assuming you’re not just rage-reading Brandon’s Best And Worst columns every week, I bet you feel the same way.

Well, I’m happy to say the build-up to WrestleMania 29 has made a shocking amount of sense! Nearly every match feels like it exists for a reason, and yet I can’t remember a year when I’ve been less excited for the show. Let’s take a stroll through this solidly assembled, yet totally sleep-inducing card, shall we?

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This week on Amor Prohibito...

Pre-show notes:

- If you’re unaware, I’m helping Best and Worst of Impact columnist Danielle with her new wrestling site, The Mandible Claw. There’s a new post up every weekday, and so far we’ve done a pretty rad podcast (which I’ll help host every week) and an incredible piece on Vickie Guerrero by Ari Amaru. This is seriously worth your time. Go read it, and keep reading it.

- Comments, shares, likes, and what-have-you are appreciated. Showing this column to wrestling types you know is the only way to keep it moving forward. Otherwise I’m stuck writing WrestleCrap entries in 2013 like some kind of weirdo.

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

- GIFS courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

And now, Raw goes OLD SCHOOL! I bet you aren’t tired of hearing that yet. The Best and Worst of Old School Raw is after the jump.

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Pre-show notes:

- Comments, shares, likes, and especially Reddit submissions/up votes are appreciated.

- Deepest apologies for the delay on this report. The short version of the story is this: I spent the beginning of the week in New Orleans. The intention was to go to Elimination Chamber on Sunday, a Hornets game on Tuesday and come back in a rental car on Wednesday night. What that turned into was “go to Elimination Chamber on Sunday, go to the impromptu WrestleMania XXX press conference on Monday, go to class on Monday night, watch Raw in the middle of the night, go to a Hornets game on Tuesday, then ride the MegaBus back at the butt crack of dawn.” Their advertised WiFi works for 30 seconds, goes out for 2 hours, comes back on for 30 seconds. It made updating impossible, and I’m sorry this wasn’t more timely. I’ll make it up to you with retro Mania posts in March. Deal?

- If you’re interested in hearing my thoughts on the Chamber, you can check out my podcast about it here. Be nice. If you want to hear part 2 about the WrestleMania XXX presser, you can listen to that here.

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

So, enough delay. Please click through to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for February 18, 2013.

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On Tuesday, I took a few hours out of my business vacation to New Orleans to share with you the podcast version of the Best and Worst of WWE Elimination Chamber 2013. A lot of people liked it. A lot didn’t. Several of you called me lazy for providing free content because it wasn’t the exact free content I’d imagined when I left for NOLA.

Regardless, I loved it (as anyone who gets what Trew To The Game is actually going for would), and the end of the episode promised a part 2 about our experience in the front row of the WrestleMania XXX press conference. If you didn’t like the first one (because it wasn’t a straight-forward, analytical podcast and was me having fun with my friends) (because you hate that I have friends) (and further accusations), give this one a shot. It’s basically just me and Trew going OH MAN HOW GREAT WAS THIS THING WE GOT TO DO, with a healthy sprinkling of “WWE brought in a bunch of black people to dance for us in-between the white people talking.”

Please click on this photo of me and John Cena not giving a rip about the announced Best and Worst posting schedule to listen.

(I was doing his old “Untouchable” taunt)
(it is hard to do with one hand)

If you’d like a more direct link, please follow this to your podcasting destination.

Here is the full press conference video, for reference:

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WWE Elimination Chamber has come and gone. I rode from Austin, TX, to New Orleans on Sunday for the show, stayed Monday for the epic WrestleMania XXX announcement press conference, got my picture taken with Mark Henry and … well, I’m still here. I don’t get back into Austin until Wednesday night.

That said, I don’t want to leave you without a Best and Worst of Elimination Chamber report, so I’ve organized something special. BEHOLD, for the first time in Best and Worst history, a report comes to you in the form of a podcast!

The lovely folks at Trew To The Game were nice enough to have me on, and if you wanted to know what I thought of the show, holy shit this is everything I thought about the show. We cover the matches, the booking, the botched bucket spots, the crazy people in the audience around us and more. I’m really proud of it, and I hope you’ll take some time to download it, subscribe, listen, whatever.

Please click on this moving image of Mark Henry splitting Randy Orton’s wig to listen.

(Or, I don’t know, click here if you don’t trust a GIFlink)

WWE Elimination Chamber 2013 happens live on pay-per-view this Sunday, February 17, and as always With Leather is here to live-blog and openly comment on it as it happens. This year’s show features only one Chamber match and is main-evented by the WWE Championship rematch between Actual Champion CM Punk and “guy who showed up and was so famous he won the belt by osmosis” The Rock.

Complete card is below.

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