Well hello again, precious internet darlings! Just a few words before we dive into the column this week.

• I’m going to warn everyone here and now that there is a tl;dr soapbox diatribe buried in the report. I don’t plan on doing something this lengthy on the subject again, but I feel that With Leather has a wonderful community of intelligent readers, and if anyone can have an open and honest dialogue about things we should and should not accept when it comes to professional wrestling, it’s you.

• Last week’s column got an overwhelmingly positive response, and I can’t thank you guys enough for the comments and support. It means more than I can say, and I hope we can keep this going. I’m having a heck of a lot of fun writing about the most un-fun wrestling show on television, and you guys are a big part of that.

• Be sure to like us on Facebook, comment at will, share with all of your friends, and send all of your appreciative telegraphs to UPROXX so we can continue in the new year. You can follow me on the twitters here, and follow With Leather for all of your comedy sports and mascot-related needs here.

This week on Impact, Kazarian and Christopher Daniels give us the best Christmas present we could ask for, Jeff Hardy makes some memories, and I give Taz the worst I promised myself I would never take the time to write. Round 2, FIGHT! Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doo doo doo!

"Who outbid me? THIS IS IMPORTANT."

Ed. note - Welcome to the test-run, or “pilot episode” of the much requested Best And Worst Of TNA Impact Wrestling, a subsidiary of The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw LLC. Handling the writing duties is writer/comedian/Canadian Danielle Matheson, who could not come with a higher recommendation from me. I know part of the reason people wanted a Best And Worst Of Impact was to get my take on it, but … no, you’re better off with Danielle. My Best And Worst Of Impact would a complimentary sentence about Taryn Terrell’s diet and 75 paragraphs of complaining. You’re better off with Danielle. As an added bonus, I’m leaving in all the Canadian spellings. Your feedback here is very important, so make sure to click like, share it on Twitter, and drop a comment about the report or the show if you want us to keep doing it. Enjoy!

Well hello! I’m Danielle. I like Brian Wood comics, Tom Waits, and I’m super into TNA. No, I’m not joking.

I suppose I should preface this article with a few things, just to get it out of the way:

• While it’s hard not to take a completely sardonic approach to reviewing TNA, this will not be multiple pages of worsts.
• That said, TNA has been really, really bad lately. I am a consummate TNA apologist, but even I have to admit that the show is hitting lows I didn’t think possible. And I am saying this as someone who owns Victory Road ’09.
• Know that everything I say is because I want IMPACT to be the best it can be, and not … that it usually chooses to be.
• My current biggest non-WrestleMania fantasy booking is Kenny King vs. ACH, half out of curiosity to see how their styles would match up, and half because ACH should be a thing you all love. If you’re really into making stuff happen for Canadian girls you only know from the internet and it is within your power to do so, that would be fantastic. Just throwing that out there while I have the chance.
• As always, comment, share, like us on Facebook, or send UPROXX carrier pigeons telling them that you like IMPACT too and want this to happen more often. You can also follow me on Twitter here.

This week on IMPACT: Kurt Angle has a secret pastime you won’t believe, Brooke Hogan is allowed back on television, and Hulk Hogan tries to use a smart phone. Hold onto your butts, coconuts. This is a thing that is happening!

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Funny Or Die has done a lot of things to warm my heart — pissing off Tom Brady, making Kris Humphries call himself a douchebag and threatening to kill Blake Griffin with a miniature puppet version of himself — but none have made me quite as happy as watching 1996 Olympic gold medalist and pro wrestler Kurt Angle trying to get back into the 2012 games.

The best part is that it’s based on real events … the 43-year old Angle tried his best to make the 2012 team, but came up short due to hamstring and knee injuries. Actually, I take that back. The BEST part is watching him Angle Slam a badminton player through a totally unexplained freestanding table and/or bashing a fencer in the face with a steel chair. God knows I would’ve been one of those random wrestling fans who showed up with signs to watch Kurt Angle play table tennis if I could’ve been.

Video is below. It’s more Funny than Die, but there’s a lot of dying going on anyway.

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When you find out why the banana split is there, you’ll wish it was something else.

Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 17, and to celebrate, I’ve devoted an entire episode of With Spandex to Adventures In Bitchsitting, a nearly-lost pro wrestling fan fiction masterpiece about Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit being single fathers. Trust me, that’s the least bizarre thing that happens. Preserved from an attachment on a post in a long-forgotten Yahoo! fan fic group, the story features a frank discussion of French sexuality, two complete viewings of Lilo & Stitch and Teddy Long as the proprietor of a sex club. It’s amazing, and if I only accomplish one thing in my writing career I want sharing Adventures In Bitchsitting with you to be it.

This week’s special guest (and reader) is Ari from Tumblr’s Feminist Pro Wrestling, the person magnanimous enough to share the story with me in the first place. Also joining With Spandex are Lex Lybrand and Kelli Kelli from Wear The Cheese, because sh*t, somebody had to hear this for the first time.

Happy Father’s Day week, everybody. You can listen to and download the podcast below. Be sure to comment on this one in the comments section below, because … well, you’ll hear. LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Subscribe to With Spandex on iTunes (finally) here: With Spandex on iTunes

RSS Feed: feed://withleather.uproxx.com/tag/with-spandex/feed

Direct download of the episode here: With Spandex Episode 5 – Father’s Day Fan Fiction Special

Pre-show notes:

- Welcome to my first ever Best And Worst Of WWE [Insert Older Pay-per-view Show Title Here] report. I asked the column’s regular readers to decide which time-appropriate pay-per-view event I’d cover first, and this show, one of the highlights of WWF’s epic 2000, won with over 42% of the vote. So here we are, getting you ready for the 2012 Royal Rumble with a look back at the year 2000′s.

- Comments are appreciated. Clicking “like” is appreciated, tweets and retweets are appreciated, showing and sharing this to and with the people you know are appreciated. One of the reasons I haven’t done older show reports so far is that nobody’s googling for them, so our traffic goes way down and they take like 80 hours to write, so why bother? But I WANT to write them, so if you support them and make them a success, I’ll keep cranking them out. At least get me to Wrestlemania 23, so I can write about Ashley Massaro.

To make things even better, we’ve added some features to our comments section, like badges for unlockable achievements and image/gif posting privileges for top commenters. Our first With Leather badge debuts tomorrow night with the Royal Rumble Open thread. Here’s a hint: >=(

- Don’t forget to come back on Sunday and participate in our open discussion thread for Royal Rumble, happening live. I’ll make sure to update with results and everything. It’ll be fun. YOU’LL ENJOY IT.

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

- If you read the column earlier and were missing a few pages, be sure to go back and give it a re-read. Everything is up now.

- A.J. was not born when this show originally aired, so she will not be featured in the report.

But for now, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWF Royal Rumble 2000.

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Thank goodness Kurt Angle is so intense, because he’s thrown integrity and intelligence out the window.

The four-time WWE Champion and 1996 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling was arrested in Virginia early Sunday morning on charges of driving under the influence. Again. From TMZ:

Law enforcement tells TMZ … Angle’s car was spotted by another driver … swerving between lanes on I-66. Angle was busted by Virginia State Troopers, who responded to the call, and taken to Warren County Jail.

He posted $2,000 bond and was released at 3:31 AM.

There are a lot of ellipses in the TMZ recap, so I don’t know how the arrest actually happened, but I am sad enough of a wrestling fan to know that this is Angle’s third arrest for driving when he shouldn’t since 2007; He was arrested at his Pennsylvania home in 2007 for DUI after almost running a lady over at a restaurant, and again in March of this year for “being in control of a motor vehicle while intoxicated” and failing a field sobriety test in North Dakota. It’s his second arrest as TNA/Impact Wrestling World Champion, a company that just released one of their biggest stars for doing the same thing. Impact Wrestling’s response to Angle’s arrest will be very telling, but keep in mind that the major advertising point for this week’s episode is the return of Jeff Hardy, the brother of the first guy they released for drunk driving, who asks the fans for “one last shot” despite awaiting trial for drug trafficking. So, uh.

You’d think a guy with an Olympic gold medal could avoid taking so many mugshots. We’ll have more information as the story gets sadder and sadder.