Wait a second here. Punk vs. Bryan? Jericho attacking Punk? The Undertaker's return? Psychotic Eve?

What the hell happened? How did we wind up getting such a spectacular RAW after such a jerkstore of a pay per view? I'll get to the Royal Rumble in a minute here, but I think most of us can agree that last night's RAW was the show we would have rather shelled out hard-earned (or not) money for. It was a very solid two plus hours that did a good, though not completely thorough, job of washing away the taste of sun-dried penis from our mouths after a heavily-hyped, hotly-anticipated PPV that delivered neither thrills nor chills. It was "full of fail" as the nifty nerdlings like to say.

Yes, everyone loves to watch the RAWs after big PPV shows because, for the most part, something cool happens. New storylines kick in. New faces debut. Old faces returns. But the trend has now become to have hardly anything of note happen on the show that people pay money to see; instead saving the big chess moves and fun surprises for the free show that gets the most eyes on it. And while I might understand that line of thinking, I also will loudly scream out, from peaks of snowy, picturesque mountains, the fact that it sucks more than most sucky things suck. Because people who might skip most of the WWE PPVs throughout the course of a year will buy the Rumble because they expect big things to go down.

But there will be plenty of time and room later on for buttsploding all over the Rumble. Right now let's just focus on Taker and the fact that he came back and got all up in Triple H's sizable grill. They've brought Taker back a little earlier than last year and it looks like they're found a way to drag out this upcoming match between Hunter and Taker – which is by Hunter not wanting to try and beat Taker again. He's basically being the opposite of HBK, who became obsessed with beating Taker. So this could effectively go on for a while. Let's figure two more weeks of lengthy flashback recaps before another appearance. Triple H will eventually come out and explain himself. Or not. Taker could just keep stalking him. Like Milford Academy Kane…

Remember, this match won't even happen for two more PPVs. But I do admit that I want this match to happen. Many people wanted to see Taker face Jericho. Or someone else. But I loved HHH/Taker II and want to see them tell another story. One thing I don't want is for Taker's streak to be broken. Because there's no one on the roster past or present that deserves to get put over like that. It wouldn't help established guys and no young lion could possibly handle that kind of booked accomplishment. It would just get wasted on them.

Vince deciding that Taker's streak should end would be the ultimate in dick-ish, eff you "I DO WHAT I WANT" moves. Because then…the streak would be gone. I'm not talking about Taker retiring or anything. The streak would vanish. It would no longer be a thing. And it wouldn't even be a thing to talk about when talking about Undertaker. It would be like any other record that, over time, got broken by someone else. But since this isn't an actual competition, the WWE has the chance to not only create a legacy, but preserve it forever.

And as strange as it seems that Triple H would lose to Taker for a third time at WrestleMania, it has to happen like that. Because anything else would make the WWE fanbase absolutely implode. The sheer weight of it would drag the world from the walls of the universe and send it crashing and burning down through whatever night it might be capable of engendering until it was not even ash. Yes, I believe in the Sunset Limited.

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More about Undertaker, plus Royal Rumble rantings on page 2…