Hey there, friends!

- As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, Brandon took the week off in order to celebrate his girlfriend Destiny’s birthday. I know some of you might not think it’s a valid reason to skip out on writing jokes about pro wrestling, but it’s something I totally understand. I know when I celebrate the birth of a DT, writing is almost a logistical impossibility. Y’know, on account of the violent, involuntary shaking and the formication paranoia. Keep a vigilant eye out for those silverfish, Brandon!

- Anyway, my name is Justin O’Connor. I’m not Brandon, but I’m a lot like him. Well, in the same way Mega Bloks are a lot like LEGO. I might not be what you wanted, but I’m “close enough,” and since your parents are inattentive monsters you’ll have to just suck it up and find some use for those awful brown and green pieces. Like, say, attempting to swallow them until you get the toys you asked for in the first place. Or until the school places you under precautionary care and you’re not allowed to open a carton of chocolate milk without adult supervision.

- What I’m getting at is if you guys squint really hard and skim through the pop culture references fast enough, you might be able to delude yourselves into not being able to tell the difference. If that doesn’t work, you’re probably best off treating this week’s column like a regular Brandon column; except you just found out he’s underwent severe head trauma and now everyone’s just being polite by telling him how great he’s doing “in spite of his condition,” between giving one another “holy sh*t” eyes. Trust me, it’ll be easier for everyone involved.

- I don’t have any personal stuff to plug, so you’re off the hook this week. Not really though. Leave a comment.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s tell some jokes about pro graps!

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Pre-show notes:

- As a prerequisite for this column, make sure you’ve read The Best And Worst Of WWE Survivor Series ’11. It’ll explain a lot of the obvious stuff from last night (CM Punk is champion? Big Show came off the top rope?) without me having to cobble together a video editor and post a bunch of JVC Kaboom Box Kabooms Of The Night.

- Don’t forget, we’re trying to get a regular Smackdown live-blog going, too, so smark that on your calendar for Friday and go back and read the first one.

- Also, be sure to check out my appearance on The Masked Man’s first wrestling podcast for Grantland. I’m pretty honored to show up on the first ever episode, even if I spent most of it talking about D’Lo Brown buying feminine hygiene products.

- If you like pro wrestling, you’ll LOVE Twitter: Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook. It’s the best and easiest way to know when these columns go up, and it helps me sell you on the rest of the site (hopefully).

- If you read the column or watched the show and have some thoughts to share, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’m especially interested in hearing what you thought of every segment of the show in the order they occured, relating in no way to anything I’ve typed. But no, if you’re a regular reader I want you to be a part of this every week. Don’t make me start a mailbag.

- For further Raw reading, be sure to check out UGO’s WWE Raw: The Good The Bad And The Ugly and John Canton’s Raw Deal (when it goes up).

- Neither A.J. nor Kaitlyn appeared on this week’s show (Kelly Kelly barely even showed up), so I’m including the picture to the right to guarantee my first 18 comments are “oh my god that picture of a.j. are you serious”.

The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for November 11 is after the jump. There are some pretty good wrestling matches in here, so pay attention.

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