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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Pre-show notes:

TWO MAJOR THINGS

Major Thing #1: I finally have a wrestling podcast! I promised it for months, but now it’s finally here, and if you didn’t listen to episode 1 of With Spandex featuring special bloody guest Rachel Summerlyn, please do that now. We’ll be up on iTunes as soon as we have a second episode.

Major Thing #2: Unbelievably, next Monday night I will be making my live comedy debut as comedian Chris Trew and I tackle the Monday Night Raw Watch Party, which is more or less THE BEST AND WORST OF WWE RAW LIVE. We’re gonna play the show on the big screen, mute it, make a few jokes and have some local improv groups handle the commercials. It’s going to be a blast and it’s free, so if you live anywhere near Austin or have a disposable income that lets you fly around on a whim, come hang out with us and support our braver efforts. I’ll give you a hug upon request. I’m also gonna be appearing at The New Movement’s show on the following Wednesday night, so be there too.

- 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.

- 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.

Please to enjoy the Best and Worst Of WWE Raw for April 16, 2012. We’re gonna have fun with it this week.

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The only important thing to talk about is whether or not she feels better.

Welcome to the latest With Leather WWE Open Discussion Thread, where everything you think and want to say about Raw is okay, as long as it is Cody Rhodes-positive.

On tonight’s show!

- Raw comes to you live (on tape) from London, England, which means half of you will be spoiled by the time you get to the thread. Let’s try to keep things relatively spoiler free, if that’s at all possible.

- Don’t read the spoilers; you’ll want to be surprised when Big Show interrupts Cody Rhodes’ match again.

- The Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena match at Extreme Rules gets an EXTREME~ stipulation, in case Brock is like Rocky and wants to spend 30 minutes on the ground in a bear hug.

- William Regal might make an appearance, because England!

Joining in on the conversation tonight and letting people know about it will help you earn the latest With Leather badge, the mighty Funkasaurus!. So make sure you’re registered (you can do that to the right of this column, somewhere up near the top), try not to get winded by the frantic pace of pre-taping and earn that funky, racially non-specific dinosaur man for your UPROXX profile.

Things about commenting to remember: the best 10 comments from tonight’s open discussion thread will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw report. To nominate a comment as one of the best, reply to it with a +1.

- Our polls don’t work in Europe, so they’ll return next week.

Anyway, comment, throw us some “likes”, plus your Google as hard as possible and hop onto Twitter to tell your friends about the fastest growing community of cool wrestling fans you can find on the Internet. Well, as cool as we get.

Pre-show notes:

- I’m back, having missed last week’s show due to WrestleMania and a night doing the sad music Peanuts walk in an airport.

- 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.

- If you’re in the Austin, Texas area, be sure to mark April 23 on your calendar because I will be making my PROFESSIONAL COMEDY DEBUT at a the Monday Night Raw Watch Party, a thing where he play Raw on the big screen, mute it and talk about it/dub it over ourselves. It’s basically the Best and Worst of WWE Raw live. If you miss that, you’re dead to me. DEAD TO ME.

- Big 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. I gave him a page at the end, so be sure to read that when you’re done.

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

Please to enjoy the Best and Worst Of WWE Raw for April 9, 2012. Spoiler alert: it is not as good as last week’s.

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Here is a quick list of things that happened on Raw that I would’ve loved to have seen, had I not been trapped in an airport trying to get home from WrestleMania 28:

- Brock Lesnar making his return to WWE to trounce Giant Starbucks Logo John Cena
- The debut of Lord Tensai, who incapacitated Alex Riley with his Mighty Spit-hand
- The return of Abraham Washington, a low-level guy from FCW/WWECW of whom I may be the Internet’s biggest and most vocal fan.
- Mark Henry being awesome again.
- YES~ chants overtaking WWE.

What’s in store for this week’s show:

- The Three Stooges host.

Heaven help me.

- Remember, the top 10 comments from tonight’s discussion will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column, and no, Watchmen references are not automatically included (just kidding, they totally are).

- To nominate a comment you’ve found particularly funny for inclusion as one of the top 10 comments of the week, please reply to it with a +1. Using +1 instead of +something else (like the ever-popular +Rhodes) makes it easier to find them later, but if you gotta +Rhodes something, who am I to stop you?

So, what’s going down on Raw tonight?

[photo credit WWE.com]