That’s WWE’s Derrick Bateman on yesterday’s episode of NXT, talking to Chickbuster Kaitlyn and wearing a With Leather t-shirt.

And I’m done. I’m hanging up blogging forever, because unless the Phillie Phanatic and I end up as a tag team at Wrestlemania I don’t think my job snarking about sports news and/or Dolph Ziggler’s Jiffy Pop ass can get any cooler. This comes less than a month after one of our readers brought an @MrBrandonStroud sign to an episode of Raw, and I can’t tell you how surreal it feels to watch something I’ve been watching for decades and go “oh hey, there’s me”.

In case you’re wondering, that’s the shirt you would’ve won by participating in one of our trivia challenges. Check out the segment for yourself after the jump, and imagine me doing the dancing emoticon in real life. This one:

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Photo credit: WWE.com

Pre-show notes:

- Oh, hey, I’m back.

Before I start with the last Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column of the calendar year, I want to let Bill Hanstock and Justin O’Connor know how much I appreciate them filling in on the Best And Worst Of WWE TLC ’11 and Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 12/19 reports respectively. You guys are hilarious and I’m lucky to call you my friends. I could outsource this column every week and nobody would notice or care.

- P.S. please care. Leave us a comment if you watched the show and/or read this report. When you’ve done that (or possibly before), click that “like” button over the banner image and/or share it along. I’d really appreciate it, and if you do it enough times I can give you a sappy blurb about FRIENDSHIP~ in the pre-show notes.

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

- I’d also like to formally congratulate Twitter users @Methusael86 and @ImGoingCrazy. You’re the two randomly selected winners of our WWE Vengeance “retweet this and win 50 bucks” contest. You retweeted and won 50 bucks. Shoot me a message on Twitter and I’ll get you a check in the mail, because I’m old school and want you to see my racist-ass Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo checks. If we can get this back up to 150 comments I’ll give you guys another shot at cash. Yes, I’m bribing you.

Well hell, let’s get to it. The last Best and Worst of the year starts after the jump.

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Pre-show notes:

- Hey, you, person reading this column. Register and leave us a comment. When you’ve done that (or possibly before), click that “like” button over the banner image and/or share this with everyone you have ever met, including your half-siblings and that one weird guy at work who found out you like wrestling and won’t stop trying to ask you about it. He’d love this column.

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

- SITE NEWS #1: We’re going to be running a TLC predictions contest on Friday where you can drop a comment and win $250 bucks. It didn’t work out so well for us with Vengeance (thanks a lot, Mark Henry breaking the ring) but I’ve got to give that purse to somebody. Be sure to check back throughout the week for that.

- SITE NEWS #2: Next weekend is my girlfriend Destiny’s birthday, so I’m not going to be around for TLC or Raw reports. Thankfully I’ve got a lot of funny ass friends, so SB Nation and Baseball Feelings writer Bill Hanstock will be filling in with a Best and Worst of WWE TLC 2011 report and Progressive Boink and The Best and Worst of Smackdown Live-Blog’s own Justin O’Connor will be filling in on Best and Worst of Raw. They’re awesome, so read those and support them.

- All internal gifs are courtesy of Jerusalem at Punchsport Pagoda.

- For further Raw reading, please consult UGO’s The Good The Bad And The Ugly and John Canton’s The WWE Raw Deal. They have slightly more positive outlooks on the show than me, but my report has pictures of A.J. (read mine first)

This show was three hours and killed me four minutes in, so I apologize in advance. Click through to enjoy The Best And Worst Of The Slammy Awards.

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Photo credit: WWE.com

Believe it or not, A.J. wrestles professionally in addition to standing still for photos!

The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown live-blog adventure experiment returns to Friday nights this week, and aside from a few choice moments of people going OH MAN YOU AREN’T GONNA LIKE THIS to me on Twitter I’ve managed to avoid spoilers. Be sure to click through and set up a reminder through CoverItLive so you can be here for the jokes, the mild-recapping, the heartbreaking inevitability of tag team stories in World Wrestling Entertainment and more. Destiny returns as my co-host this week, and if all goes well we’ll also have Progressive Boink and SB Nation’s Bill Hanstock hanging around. Be here at 7:45 EST tonight!

Also, probably a sh*tload of Chocolate Wonderfall commercials.

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Wait, already?

It seems like just yesterday we were wasting two hours making jokes about the Golden Corral Chocolate Wonderfall and here we are again. WWE is switching up their normal “tape Tuesday, let everybody read what happened Wednesday and Thursday, air the show Friday” schedule and airing Smackdown live on Tuesday night. Man, we haven’t even gotten to Raw yet.

Anyway, Destiny will be at school while this is on so my good friend Justin O’Connor of Progressive Boink fame will be sitting in as my co-host. That guarantees 100% less Chocolate Wonderfall discussion and 100% more of me letting him type whatever he wants because he’s hilarious. If you’re watching the show, have to miss it and want to keep tabs on what’s going on or just want to shoot the sh*t with some folks that love pro graps, be sure to give yourself the little CoverItLive e-mail reminder and be back here Tuesday night at 8 PM EST for the festivities.

And in case you were wondering, yes, you can stick anything into the Chocolate Wonderfall.

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In case you missed it last week, we’re solving the “how can I do a Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown report when With Leather doesn’t update on Saturdays” problem with a weekly live-blog of the show hosted by yours truly and Destiny, and probably LastTexansFan if he keeps beating me over the head with how funny he is in the comments every five seconds.

Our first attempt went pretty well, and we’re hoping to build on that this week. If you’ve read the spoilers (or been forced to skim over them as lightly as possible like I was) you’ll know what an emotional roller coaster we’re on tonight, so I’ll need you and as many people as you know to keep me from having a nervous breakdown. The live-blog starts tonight at 8 PM EST and will feature a 15-minute-or-so pre-show where I try to figure out how to use Cover It Live. The only thing I ever used it for at FanHouse was live-blogging Indians games, and even I didn’t read those.

After the jump you can set up a reminder for the event.

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