Sorry for the delay on today’s WWE Raw open discussion thread, I just got back from a magical weekend at Chikara’s King Of Trios tournament in Easton, PA, and when I say “I just got back” I mean “I just walked into my home, put down my luggage and turned on the computer”. A few pre-show notes:

1. Tomorrow’s Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column will arrive like always. Remember, the 10 best comments from tonight’s open discussion thread get a featured spot alongside Jack Swagger Of Mars in the report.

2. I did not watch Night Of Champions, because I was live at (with no hyperbole) one of if not THE best North American independent professional wrestling shows of all-time. Screw that, best WRESTLING shows of all-time. Not using that lightly.

3. A Best And Worst Of King Of Trios will arrive on Wednesday. If between now and then I get a copy of Night Of Champions from somewhere, I’ll try to do something with it, even if it’s just me taking screencaps and writing NOT MANAMI TOYOTA across them in meme font.

Tonight’s Raw preview:

Night of Champions has come and gone, and the ramifications will surely be severe. WWE has a pair of Tag Team Champions that may or may not still hate each other; a World Heavyweight Champion whose dominance is reaching a fever pitch; and to top it all off, a controversial outcome to the WWE Champion CM Punk–John Cena rivalry that’s sure to keep WWE’s top two competitors at each other’s throats for some time.

Also, the “road to Hell In A Cell” has begun, whatever that is.

Let’s enjoy pro wrestling!

Tonight’s card for WWE Night Of Champions 2012, the annual event celebrating the one night a year WWE remembers it has more than two champions:

- Pre-show Battle Royal to determine the #1 contender to the United States Championship (participants unannounced)

- Triple Threat Match for the Intercontinental Championship: The Miz (c) vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio

- Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler

- United States Championship Match: Antonio Cesaro (c) vs. pre-show battle royal winner

- Tag Team Championship Match: R-Truth and Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Daniel Bryan and Kane

- Divas Championship Match: Layla (c) vs. Kaitlyn

- WWE Championship Match: CM Punk (c) vs. John Cena

- World Heavyweight Championship Match: Sheamus (c) vs. Alberto Del Rio

The best part of our discussion tonight is special guest Peter Rosenberg. If you’re wondering why the hell he’d want to sit and talk to a bunch of wrestling nerds about Night Of Champions, 1) we’re lucky, and 2) his Hot 97 bio is brave enough to actually feature the words “pro wrestling”.

In the nearly 2 years that he has been on New York’s Hot 97, Peter Rosenberg has made an indelible mark on New York radio and the global hip hop landscape. His voice can be heard every weekday morning on Cipha Sounds and Rosenberg, a morning show that is revolutionizing urban radio, and every Sunday night on Real Late with Peter Rosenberg. His persona on both of these shows, characterized by his quirky and unique spin on hip hop culture and New York life has made him a fixture on the hip hop scene. But what has endeared him to people most has been his undying passion for everything he covers, whether it’s hip hop, sports, professional wrestling, comedy, politics or entertainment.

Peter’s going to be stopping by for a pre-show pre-show Q+A at 6 PM tonight, so if you’ve got any questions about him, his career, what he thinks about Night Of Champions or how terrible Nicki Minaj is, make sure to drop a comment below and preface it with @Peter so he’ll have an easier time answer it. This is an awesome opportunity for us, so let’s make him feel welcome.

How To Unlock:

Log into UPROXX (or create an account), then share your participation in today’s live discussion on Facebook or Twitter to unlock the ‘Heath Slater ONE MAN BADGE.’

You want this. So let’s have fun hanging out with Peter Rosenberg, then slightly less fun watching Alberto Del Rio lose again.

Pre-show notes:

- Comments, clicking the like button, Twitter shares and whatever else you can do to share this with people on the computer are appreciated. You’re probably tired of me shilling this idea to you, and if you are, you probably aren’t reading this anyway. I get paid based on how often you do that, so help a brother out.

- Thanks to Casey, whose excellent GIFs make their return to the column. They’re pretty epic this week, so make sure your comments below include a brief “thanks for taking time out of your day to help Brandon with this, THESTINGER”.

- If you’re the type who only reads this column and doesn’t keep up with With Leather, be sure to check out our Golden Treasury Of Cheesy Late-80s Early-90s WWF Promo Photos. It’s even better than it sounds.

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

- Also, don’t forget, the With Leather Pro Wrestling Community is having its first get-together at Chikara’s King Of Trios 2012 in Easton, Pennsylvania, so if you’re anywhere in the area or are coming in for the show, let us know so we can high-five you. It’s going to be a grand time. I bought my plane tickets yesterday. It’s on.

Please enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for August 28, 2012. Stick around for a live report at the end.

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Pre-show notes:

- Before you read the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column, make sure you check out the Best And Worst Of WWE SummerSlam 2012, my live event recap including exclusive photos, encounters with Sheamus and open, gratuitous mouth-loving for THQ and WWE ’13. It was a great weekend, and I’m pretty happy with how anecdotal the whole thing turned out. Give it a read, a comment, a like and a fourth thing of your choosing.

- When you’re done Social Media Ambassadoring that post, make sure to click the like button and leave a comment on this column. Those things mean a lot to the life of the report, so if you want to keep them going and not devolve into a crummy “ziggler went for a cover, jericho kicked out at 2″ thing, show some love.

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

- Also, don’t forget, the With Leather Pro Wrestling Community is having its first get-together at Chikara’s King Of Trios 2012 in Easton, Pennsylvania, so if you’re anywhere in the area or are coming in for the show, let us know so we can high-five you. It’s going to be a grand time.

Anyway, please to enjoy the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw for August 20, 2012.

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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.

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The UFC has a lot of steps to take before they can become a mainstream national success (like running major events in New York City or not letting them employees call journalists c*nts), and who better to explain how and why than a 42-year old pro wrestler currently embroiled in an onscreen dispute about who did and didn’t lie to him about sending a text?

In an interview with AOL Moviefone, multiple-time WWE Champion and current on-screen C.O.O. Triple H responded to a question asking him if WWE should evolve as Ultimate Fighting and mixed-martial arts grow in popularity in a way … well, in a way you’d probably expect:

I don’t think we have to evolve. It’s two totally different things. I think now especially there’s this thing like, “oh it’s very similar.” I don’t see us needing to evolve to what UFC does because quite frankly sometimes the fights are long and boring, guys lying around and sometimes the fights are fast and over in five seconds. I’ve always thought one of the things about us, if you look at us solely from a sports standpoint, is that we always give you a good show. We’re never going to give you a crap game.

I love pro wrestling more than most members of my family and have been watching it for thirty years and even I know that’s not true.

I think if anybody needs to evolve, it’s them.

Give more of an entertainment standpoint. Give more form; they just have fighters who walk in in T-shirts and shorts and just stand there and then they fight and then they win and then they go “thanks, I’d like to thank my sponsors” and then they leave. The whole world was up in arms when Brock was flipping people off and was cussing at the beer company because they didn’t give him any money and everyone thought, “oh my god, he’s disrespectful,” — the whole world was talking about it. They couldn’t wait to see him get beat up. And then he did well, and he beat some guys and then people jump on his bandwagon going “Brock’s the greatest.” I’m good friends with Floyd Mayweather and Floyd would be the first to tell ya, “I make the most money in boxing and I have the biggest buyers because I have the biggest mouth.” He’d be the first guy to tell you that. That’s what it’s about. Sports is entertainment.

Some of those points are true — like UFC fights having the capacity to be long and boring or too-quick and unfulfilling, two facts that made people decide to predetermine organized fights in the first place — but man, is there a worse place or way to say this? A Moviefone interview about your Michael Rappaport more-or-less-direct-to-DVD action movie isn’t a great place to explain how nobody else knows what they’re doing. A lot of WWE right now is just what H described: people who walk in in T-shirts and shorts and just stand there and then they wrestle somebody and they win and then go “thanks, I’d like to thank the WWE Universe” or the opposite and then they leave. And hell, Brock was even there.

If you think I’m the only wrestling fan that doesn’t dig UFC who won’t back Triple H up, you don’t have to look very hard — CM Punk, the man Triple H is facing in a match at this Sunday’s WWE Night of Champions pay-per-view, shared his thoughts on the discussion via Twitter:

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