WWE’s Royal Rumble 2013 goes down on January 27, and I think I speak for everyone when I say the best part of a Royal Rumble match is when they herd a wrestler in front of a green screen and tell him to explain off the top of his head why he’s gonna win. Very few things make a wrestling fan feel like a kid again like Hulk Hogan pointing with an open palm and yelling about vitamins in front of a horrible yellow background reading HULK HOGAN.

To prepare for the Rumble, I’ll be putting up a retro Best And Worst report (or two), but step one is the celebration of these promo montages. When the mid-90s hit they went the way of the dodo, but I’ve put together a gallery of some of the best from 89-96. If you only watch one thing, watch the video where swank 1995 Pamela Anderson gets weird voicemail messages from Doink the Clown about how he’s gonna nail her when he wins the Royal Rumble. Hell, even if you don’t like wrestling, watch that one.

Enjoy. If I missed one of your favorites, be sure to post it in our comments section below.

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Photo via Vivid.com, by way of my nightmares

It was only a matter of time before Chyna parlayed her “please forget I wrestled” acting career into porn, and an even smaller matter of time before that porn career became all about how she used to wrestle.

From TMZ, who I’m gonna pretend are using ellipses because you need to pause and take a breather in the middle to get out these sentences:

Former WWE superstar Chyna is finally getting back in the ring … taking on 9 dudes at the same time … except it’s for a porno movie.

TMZ has learned … Chyna was totally serious about pursuing a XXX career … and just wrapped up on a Royal Rumble-inspired flick in which she locks up with a bunch of dudes who all look like famous wrestlers … including a wannabe Hulk Hogan, wannabe Triple H, wannabe Ric Flair and more.

Cue the “this is fake! Look, he stomps when he f**ks!” comments. I think what upsets me the most is that someone’s making a Royal Rumble porno and giving it 10 entrants instead of 30. Maybe the next one can feature a Money In The Stank ladder match.

Anyway, the two major points of interest here (besides a broader point about sadness) are that Chyna competed in multiple Royal Rumbles during her WWF career and that in the long long ago (before the darkness came) she dated the actual Triple H, in contrast to simply letting the gay-for-pay one put it in her butt. As you may know, Triple H made the biggest upgrade in pro dating history in the early 2000s when he went from a drugged-out bodybuilding monster to the daughter of the billionaire who ran his company.

TMZ has photos of the 9 unlucky gents who got to wear Halloween costumes and go knees-deep in Chyna, including an Iron Sheik who is probably in a worse mental state than the real one and a living version of the “john cena gay” meme from the Best And Worst Of Raw:

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*distance above hate risen may vary

Pre-show notes:

- Tonight’s Raw carries two major narratives: 1) What will happen when Chief Operating Officer Triple H returns to Raw to give Executive Vice President Of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager Of Raw John Laurinaitis a job evaluation even though Laurinaitis was the one who got Triple H fired from HIS position as Raw GM because sometimes the GM has more power than the COO and sometimes he doesn’t, and then there’s a board of directors and ah f**k it, I’m going to mark this part out and 2) which championship will Royal Rumble winner Sheamus choose to challenge for at Wrestlemania?

Also, we may get appearances by a returning Kharma, a possibly returning Road Dogg and/or something awful where Mae Young shows up to make out with Hacksaw Jim Duggan. The Royal Rumble was weird.

- Poll:

- It will not.

- Programming Note: Due to some technical and personal issues I don’t really want to get into, there won’t be a Best And Worst of Royal Rumble 2012 up today. The Raw report is still going up tomorrow as always, and I’ll make sure the Rumble review is up as soon as possible.

Pre-show notes:

- Welcome to our first ever WWE pay-per-view open discussion thread! The concept has worked really well for Raw, so we’re trying it out for the Rumble. And hey, worst case scenario we get like four wrestling posts in a row up on the weekends when nobody’s reading. We’ve got a special bonus set up for anyone participating in tonight’s discussion, so be sure to actually read this part!

- Poll time. Who’s taking the 2012 Rumble?

- We’ve got a new commenting system set up that’ll allow video/image posting privileges for top commenters and works YouTube style, with the newest comments first. That leads us to:

ANNOUNCEMENT: As mentioned earlier, we have a special award for all you hardcore WithLeatherheads who join in tonights discussion — following on the heels of the Archer Sploosh Badge, we’re introducing our first badge for the best and most active commenters of the night. You’ll know when you’ve unlocked it. You’ll be making this face: >=(

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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Pre-show notes:

- The poll inserted into last night’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw Open Discussion Thread asked Best And Worst readers to decide which random old time-sorta-sensitive pay-per-view event I would go back and review for my first ever Best And Worst Of An Old Show report later this week, and with a whopping 41.27% of the vote, Royal Rumble 2000 is your winner.

So be sure to check back later this week for that report, and support it/leave comments/share it around if you want me to do more. I’m going to spend between now and Thursday-ish trying to figure out how to get a screengrab of Mae Young’s tits on the front page of a mainstream sports blog.

- 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. Saying hi to me at Wrestlemania this year is appreciated. Punching me when you see me at Wrestlemania because I mention being vegan or having a girlfriend too much is not appreciated.

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

- A.J. picture old, unrelated.

- Gifs contained within are, as always, courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda, except the one at the very end. Try to guess what it’ll be!

- Additional reading: UGO’s Raw Report.

Click through to enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for January 23, 2012.

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