Pre-show notes:

- Make sure you read the Best And Worst Of WWE Hell In A Cell 2012 before reading about Raw, or you won’t know who everyone is or what’s happened so far! (I wish wrestling worked like actual stories.)

- Comments, shares, likes, what-have-you are greatly appreciated. Be a wrestling bro!

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

- Halloween costumes are at the very end, make sure you don’t miss them.

And now, please click through and enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for October 29, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

I hope they got their name from an old flash drive.

Pre-show notes:

- Comments, shares, likes, what-have-you are greatly appreciated. I’m like [ ] this close to expanding the Best And Worst brand™ into a regular second column (be it Smackdown, Impact or The Best And Worst Of Dragon Gate Infinity, which only I would read), so if you can help me take a few more steps forward in popularity, I’ll pay you back in jokes. Or Akira Tozawa matches. One or the other.

- Thanks as always to Casey/THESTINGER of Hammerlock Dialectic for GIFs.

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

- We’ve got an exclusive interview with EVE TORRES going up tomorrow on With Leather (no joke), so if you read this column, make sure you check back for it on Wednesday. It’s going to be real.

- My trip to WrestleMania XXIX is officially being planned, so if you’re anywhere near the New York/New Jersey area and want to be Wrestling Bros In The Snow with me next April, start scheduling it now.

Anyway, please click through to enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for October 15, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight in the WWE Raw Open Discussion Thread:

Last week’s Raw ended in a brutal showdown between Mr. McMahon and WWE Champion CM Punk. The WWE Universe is still buzzing about the epic encounter! Now that The Chairman has demanded Punk choose his Hell in a Cell opponent on tonight’s Raw, what will unfold? Here are five reasons Raw is must-see tonight at 8/7 CT on USA Network. (via WWE.com)

1. “The Band” (Heath Slater, Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre) need to add a drummer, so I’m hoping it doesn’t turn out to be Mason Ryan and ruin my whole space opera fan fiction thing. Keeping my fingers crossed for Brodus Clay, so The Band can also add back-up dancers.

2. Rhodes Scholars vs. Sinsterio will face off in the finals of the WWE Tag Team Championship number one contenders tournament. This should take up the entire second hour of the show, assuming real life works exactly like my dreams.

3. CM Punk must choose his opponent for Hell In A Cell. His choice will be “that guy I punched in the crowd last week,” because according to the Internet, that was a work.

4. Kofi Kingston notices Daniel Bryan wearing a pink sweatband and finally becomes aware of Breast Cancer, then spends three hours wandering around backstage telling people about it.

5. John Cena tell us what he thinks about young stars such as Justin Gabriel (“gay”), Seth Rollins (“smells like a llama’s dingleberries”), Kaitlyn (“fell out of the Hee Haw tree and hit every branch on the way down!”) and Tyson Kidd (“extended fart sounds”).

Remember, my 10 favorite comments from tonight’s WWE Raw open discussion thread will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column. To nominate a comment for top 10 status, please reply to it with a +1.

Enjoy the show, friends.

Pre-show notes:

- Comments, shares, likes, what-have-you are really appreciated. We want to keep building the community, and not just get comfortable talking about wrestling in this weird oasis we’ve built where Damian Sandow is the coolest guy in the room and CM Punk has a bunch of problems. Share this with your family, friends, people you’ve never met, and (as a last resort), those people you know from the forum. You know the one I’m talking about.

- Thanks as always to Casey/THESTINGER of Hammerlock Dialectic for GIFs, which make their triumphant return to this week’s column.

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

- There’s a thing about CM Punk punching a dude near the end of the column, but don’t get excited, I didn’t write much about it. If you’re here for the first time, welcome, and try to like wrestling when it isn’t mainstream-awful!

Regardless, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for October 8, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-show notes:

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

- Comments, shares, likes and Facebook pokes or whatever are appreciated. Sharing the column with new eyes every week to ensure I never go a week without someone reading one line of one column in two years of columns telling me I’m a smark-mark who doesn’t know anything about wrestling is the most important thing in the world to me.

- Re: The Best And Worst Of King Of Trios, it might not be happening. I know, I know. I’ve done this thing since becoming a full-time blogger where I turn everything fun I do into work. I can’t watch wrestling without it being work, I can’t watch TV without it being work, I can’t travel, etc. Every time I sit down to write about Trios I remember how great it was, and how much fun I had, and how little I want someone on a forum somewhere linking it and calling me gay slurs because Mr. Touchdown isn’t 6-foot-5. I may end up keeping that for myself.

- If you’ve only bookmarked the Best And Worst tag, consider looking at the rest of the site from time to time, would you? Sure, the sports are real (why would anybody like REAL sports), but I’m still writing about them, and if you put up with my Kofi Kingston opinions here, maybe you can put up with my thoughts on Rampage Jackson or whoever somewhere else.

Anyway, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for October 1, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-show notes:

- This is the worst episode of Raw in history.

Please enjoy The Best and Worst Of WWE Raw for July 9, 2012.

Read the rest of this entry »