YEAHHHH

Pre-show notes:

- Please make sure to leave a comment on the report. Facebook likes and Twitter shares are huge. These take forever to write, so if you want me to keep them up instead of just posting Serbian tennis player cheesecake slideshows like a normal popular sports blog should, do your part.

- Thanks to Casey of the WWE Magazine awareness-winning Hammerlock Dialectic for pics and gifs. Two is greater than one, as they say.

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

- If you’re the type who listens to podcasts, don’t miss my two latest appearances: as the host of the With Spandex podcast with special guest the lovely Veda Scott or as the special, extremely uncool guest on the Wear The Cheese “Crash Down” podcast about Pokémon. No, seriously. They’re both pretty dorky, so pick your poison. Or pick them both!

Anyway, please enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for June 5, 2012. Less about The Troops this week.

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Pre-show notes, with no sign of Zack Ryder:

- As a prerequisite for this column, make sure you’ve read The Best And Worst Of Raw Gets Rocked and our first ever attempt at a Smackdown live-blog. I’m considering starting a Raw open thread just to let you comment as you go and steal all your jokes.

- Your comments are begged-for and appreciated. That goes for everything posted on With Leather, but especially so here. Also, hey, if you like this go read everything else on the site. We write about actual sports, too. Facebook likes, Google +1s and so on are also encouraged and appreciated.

- Horrid Twitter Commercial: Follow us on Twitter @withleather, follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and (perhaps most importantly, because this is still a thing) like us on Facebook. You can keep up with updates directly that way, and not have to wait for some random friend to link you.

- A.J. and Kaitlyn actually showed up on this show, so look for them inside.

And without further adieu, please to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Survivor Series 2011.

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Pre-show notes:

- If you love The Rock and think he’s the best wrestler of all time, be sure to leave us a comment. That should cover my commenting hype-beg for the week and entitle every living human who isn’t me or Billy Jack Haynes to post something.

- An important thing to remember while reading this report is that I had a weekend literally full of awesome wrestling. I spent Friday night and Saturday and Sunday mornings at Wizard World Austin loitering around Darin Childs’ table in the 1600 aisle, commissioning professional art from my favorite wrestler in the world. Saturday night I went to Anarchy Championship Wrestling’s Lone Star Classic, which featured Portia Perez winning their heavyweight title only to lose it an hour later. ACH ended up with it, which was the second happiest thing that could happen. Also, the Nasty Boys were there. Sunday was CHIKARA’s High Noon iPPV. I was too worn out by then to cover it effectively, but it was one of the best shows of the year and Peck/Cabana II was simultaneously the best and worst match in history. So then Monday night comes along, and it’s three hours of Raw getting Rocked. My brain may not be processing this correctly.

- Oh, and before I forget, after the jump you can see four of my five (or six) favorite WWE Superstars appearing in one segment together on Friday’s Smackdown. Why am I not Besting and Worsting this show instead?

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Pre-report notes include:

- I almost called this “The Worst And Worst Of WWE Raw”. Just a heads up.

- We’ve got a new social set-up on the UPROXX Network, so now is a better time to leave a comment than ever. We’re going to start giving away prizes to commenters, so get on that train early. And hey, if you disagree with my assessment of the show, let me know. I’m not “right”, I’m just a fan. At the same time, if you disagree with me, make sure you read the paragraphs that go along with the point you’re pissed about, because at least I’m trying to explain it.

- You are going to need a picture of A.J. so bad by the time you finish this report, so I’m just going to go ahead and put a picture of her (and Kaitlyn, and Derrick Bateman) from the pre-show “Solidarity Rally” in the header. You’ll thank me later.

- If you have a surgical mask of any kind, please place that over your nose and mouth before reading the next page.

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Welcome to the second pay-per-view in two weeks! I actually got to see this one, so before we begin:

- If you give his a read, please share it with everyone you have ever met. I’m not kidding. Show it to your ex-girlfriends, your high school teachers, people you see wandering around out front of the community college, homeless people. I’m looking to spread the word about these reports and can use every Facebook share and Retweet and Spotify Spotification you can muster. And no, I don’t have any idea what Spotify is or how it works.

- Also, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a comment after you’re done to let us know what you thought of the show or the report. If I can become enough of a voice for the voiceless, Jim Rome will start thinking I’m real and let me on his show.

- If you aren’t familiar with the Hell In A Cell concept, be sure to check out The Masked Man’s excellent Hell In A Cell preview over at Grantland. Also, bug him on the Internet so he’ll fill in for me on one of these reports one day. I can return the favor to him by filling in for Chuck Klosterman and remembering Ninja Turtles.

The Best and Worst of WWE Hell In A Cell is after the jump. Enjoy.

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Before we get started with this week’s edition of the Guest and Worst of Raw, a couple notes to cover:

• To reiterate, the delightful Brandon is on vacation and has passed on the responsibility for this week’s recap to myself. Despite being a lifelong wrestling enthusiast, writer and most importantly, vegan, I’m fairly sure I was given this gig due to my ties to Kaiju Big Battel. Kaiju was a touring Vaudvillian show which combined the story structure and live performances of pro wrestling with the showy elements and characters of a Godzilla/Super Sentai movie. Sorta like Extremely Strange Wrestling if it was “watchable,” or Lucha VaVOOM with fewer whores.
• Although it doesn’t justify it’s own bullet point, my time with Kaiju was both as a writer and performer, most notably as the character of Dr. Cube through the majority of the Oughts. Yes, I’m a bit smaller than you think in person; Yes, I was also SuperWrong; and No, that was Chuck Taylor at that one Chikara show. MOVING ON!
• As always, comments are greatly appreciated as they’re a great metric for understanding what works and what doesn’t. That having been said, I should just be honest upfront and let you know that I’m terrified of criticism and will probably avoid the comments section for the next week like Mayweather avoids Pacquiao.
• (Full disclosure, that last sentence read “…like Julie Taymore avoids Gawker Media” until my girlfriend told be to change it to something “more accessible.” Brandon will be back next week, everybody!)
• I’d like to take a moment here to thank Casey Boyd and Andrew Johnson for their help with screen shots and art. Casey even Photoshop’d an image of Andrew “Test” Martin in a Polar Bear suit that I wish I’d gotten to use, but didn’t make the edit. Also, it should go without saying that I want to thank Brandon for the really great work he’s put into these columns. They’re hilarious, and I hope minimally to do right by this column while he’s away. Thanks for the opportunity, Brandon.
• Lastly, I’d like to apologize for the late post, but I’m West Coastin’ it, and was waiting for that Andrew “Test” Martin in a Polar Bear suit art to get back to me.

On to the show…

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