"Wrestling."

Tonight, on the WWE Raw open discussion thread:

The WWE Universe has itself a new WWE Championship, but the big question now is: Who will challenge for the fresh-faced prize at WrestleMania 29? On the one hand, you have John Cena, the current No. 1 contender following his Royal Rumble Match victory in January. On the other is CM Punk, who goaded Cena into putting his WrestleMania WWE Title opportunity up for grabs in a one-on-one renewal of their long-running rivalry. While Cena and Punk settle their score, however, trouble is brewing in Team Hell No’s shaky friendship, and Paul Heyman gets ready for the fight of his life against an injured — but eager — Mr. McMahon. Here are five things to look forward to on Monday’s Raw.

Also, the WWE Universe eagerly awaits Glenn Beck’s reply to the formal invitation from WWE officials to address his criticisms of Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter. Will the famous politico show? (via WWE.com)

Five-point preview:

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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)

Tonight on the WWE Raw open discussion thread:

The Elimination Chamber event has passed, and the next stop is WrestleMania. With the dust having settled in “Satan’s Prison,” the World Title pictures for The Show of Shows are finally in place and we will know who will contend for WWE’s top two prizes when WrestleMania comes home on April 7. Alberto Del Rio will defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Chamber Match conqueror Jack Swagger, and The Rock will defend the WWE Title against his old foil, John Cena, in a rematch of their epic clash at last year’s WrestleMania. So with the final preparations for WrestleMania beginning Monday, what does this mean for champions, challengers and everyone in between? Well, here are five potential developments to watch out for. (text and photo via WWE.com)

Five-point preview:

1. As a scheduling note, the Best and Worst of Elimination Chamber will be going up tomorrow morning. It’d have been up today, but I attended the WrestleMania announcement press conference, shook hands with Alberto Del Rio and hugged the Big Show. So yeah, report tomorrow. Because YOLO. The Raw report will follow on Wednesday.

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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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