Tonight in the WWE Raw Open Discussion Thread:

Last week’s Raw ended in a brutal showdown between Mr. McMahon and WWE Champion CM Punk. The WWE Universe is still buzzing about the epic encounter! Now that The Chairman has demanded Punk choose his Hell in a Cell opponent on tonight’s Raw, what will unfold? Here are five reasons Raw is must-see tonight at 8/7 CT on USA Network. (via WWE.com)

1. “The Band” (Heath Slater, Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre) need to add a drummer, so I’m hoping it doesn’t turn out to be Mason Ryan and ruin my whole space opera fan fiction thing. Keeping my fingers crossed for Brodus Clay, so The Band can also add back-up dancers.

2. Rhodes Scholars vs. Sinsterio will face off in the finals of the WWE Tag Team Championship number one contenders tournament. This should take up the entire second hour of the show, assuming real life works exactly like my dreams.

3. CM Punk must choose his opponent for Hell In A Cell. His choice will be “that guy I punched in the crowd last week,” because according to the Internet, that was a work.

4. Kofi Kingston notices Daniel Bryan wearing a pink sweatband and finally becomes aware of Breast Cancer, then spends three hours wandering around backstage telling people about it.

5. John Cena tell us what he thinks about young stars such as Justin Gabriel (“gay”), Seth Rollins (“smells like a llama’s dingleberries”), Kaitlyn (“fell out of the Hee Haw tree and hit every branch on the way down!”) and Tyson Kidd (“extended fart sounds”).

Remember, my 10 favorite comments from tonight’s WWE Raw open discussion thread will be featured in tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column. To nominate a comment for top 10 status, please reply to it with a +1.

Enjoy the show, friends.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo credit: WWE.com

Oh hi mark.

- For those of you who only show up to read Best and Worst (shame on you), I’m back from my nearly week-long vacation in sunny southern California for a mix of Dodgers baseball, Brady Bunch house visits and mark photos with SoCal Jack Skellington and have returned to my post as the Raw reviewer who is extremely positive about everything but only likes Alberto Del Rio. Before I start, I want to give another thank you to Andrew Johnson for filling in on The Best And Worst Of WWE Night Of Champions and to Diego “the only Dr. Cube that matters” McCafferty for The Guest And Worst Of Raw 9/19. They did a fantastic job filling in, and if you haven’t read those recaps yet, please do so.

- Like I said, this is my first column back in two weeks, so I am going to absolutely badger you to f’ing death for comments, Facebook shares, Twitter retweets, Google Plus plus-ones, Friendster wall posts (does Friendster have a wall? I can’t remember), Xanga rants and Diaryland entries in the support of Best and Worst of Raw. They are appreciated, and if I don’t get enough of them I’m turning With Leather into an indecipherable mass of misdirecting Stephanie McMahon Nude Click Here links and Free iPod announcements.

- In case you need to be bribed, and because last week nobody here liked her enough to include a gratuitous picture, here is Smackdown’s A.J. doing a split.

Read the rest of this entry »