I'll admit it... at first I thought it was Batista. I then thought when Punk talked about what Cena did to Batista in his promo a couple weeks ago, it was a set up for Batista return, and I thought it was a good answer to Barrets group having Ezekiel Jackson. Then i saw there were no tatoos and realized it wasn't him, but it looked a lot like him.

I was convinced it was Batista for a short while, but realized he didn't look exactly like him.. More like a brother, as you say.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the news that the Royal Rumble match is going to have 40 entrants this year. It annoys me a bit that they would change the number (it has been 30 since the 2nd Rumble, with 20 in the first), especially since it will be "easier" to break the records for eliminations and time, and somewhat diminish the value of the earlier records.

RESPONSE FROM KE: To me, whether it's 20, 30 or 40, there are still only a handful of guys who have a shot at winning. The nice thing is that the additional 10 guys this year are probably guys who otherwise wouldn't have been on the show.

You forgot to mention Alberto Del Rio, but you already knew that. I wouldn't mind seeing him win the Rumble, or Morrison, or even Ziggler losing to Edge and then winning the Rumble match. It would be nice to see some new talent in the title picture

hay kev dont you think this cena vs nexus thing been going far to long now,what your opinion on this storyline kev

RESPONSE FROM KE: I want to see where they go with it from here. Having Punk involved definitely adds a bew wrinkle.

Kev, good idea with Mason Ryan being Batista's brother, especially when Punk said to Cena, "You ended the career of my friend Dave Batista" a few weeks ago. WWE needs creative thinking like that............

I said it a couple of months back on here, I was sad to see Mason Ryan not listed as a participant in Season 4 of NXT, but it appears they had bigger and better plans for "Baby Batista". As a fellow Welshman, it's great to see the final piece of the British puzzle (after Wade, Drew and although not technically British, Sheamus) in Barri Griffiths arrive on the scene. Very excited for what the future holds for him!

Although he is still a little green, working under CM Punk will be huge in terms of developing his career and technical skills. Now that Punk and Barrett both have a powerhouse in their faction, the future does not bode well for a certain Skip Sheffield...

I personally understand the whole undertaker-Kane brother thing. I mean, at this point, isn't is just grandfathered in? They have "been brothers' for a decade now -if they were all of a sudden not to be brothers, isn't that a slap in the face to the fans? (well, I suppose they could so some sort of DNA driven storyline if they wanted).

Having the majors brothers no longer be brothers is one thing - no one cares about them, but two of the biggest stars? I think at this point you don't gain anything by not having them be brothers anymore.

RESPONSE FROM KE: What about Edge and Christian?

Hey Kev, maybe its just me but I haven't seen much pizazz from Miz (besides his match with Morrison) or Punk lately. Im really disappointed with Punk since he came back,he was so sharp on commentary then he comes back and takes over Nexus at a dull pace - he seems rather dreary and Id like to see more intensity in the action with him.

Knowing the WWE, the angle with the Bellas and Daniel Bryan will reveal Mae Young as being his "first".

How is it that certain "rookies" have to go through NXT and others can just show up?

Sheamus is heading towards career suicide with his current trajectory. He needs to get out of that stupid outfit and start being a destroyer again.

For some reason they are making him as weak as possible before HHH returns.

Miz isn't coming off as a credible champion at all. I'm so tired of them "pushing" young guys like Miz, Morrison, Sheamus, Barrett, Ziggler etc. while simultaneously cutting the legs out from underneath them.

David Otunga needs to go lead nexus FCW. He is horrible at all facets of wrestling.

The Miz did not come off as a serious, vicious heel. Randy Orton looked like he got beat up by a couple of guys who worked at The Gap. It's hard to take The Miz seriously as a vicious heel when he looks barely old enough to shave.

However, Mason Ryan looks downright menacing. I, too, thought it was Batista. The resemblance is so striking. However, it might be difficult to pull off Ryan as Batista's younger brother with that Welsh accent.

Alberto Del Rio might as well be a member of the RAW roster since has been on RAW three weeks in a row. Not that I mind. I'll take Del Rio over The Miz any day of the week.

RESPONSE FROM KE: I thought about Ryan's accent, as well, but I think there are ways around it. I would keep him as the strong, silent type and limit his speaking. Hopefully he could pull off an American accent -- I mean, for years in wresting we've had Americans doing foreign accents. Or if all else fails, WWE could always say that he's Batista's half-brother and was raised in the U.K.

the only thing i'm kinda disappointed in w/ the Royal Rumble is that they didn't put down a fatal 4-way match for the WWE title between Miz, Randy Orton, John Morrison, and Jerry "The King" Lawler. wen Morrison only got his shot on RAW, i was like "well there goes seein Morrison in a PPV main-event match. oh well! w/ the Royal Rumble being a 40-man match, that definitely makes up for it. we should probably expect to see a good number of returns throughout the night.

I was blown away by the crazy submission hold Punk put John Cena in. Whatever the idiotic, woefully ignorant announcers might have claimed-- fire them both-- that was NOT the anaconda vice. That was something I have not seen before, and it looked unbelieveably brutal and cool.

While I am firing people, fire the ring announcer for totally muddying the meaning & outcome of the main event by not bothering to announce Punk's victory via disqualification after Brotista's interference. I am in a bad mood. CM Punk is too good for WWE.

For me as a a fan from the uk i knew i recognised ryan when he appeared but wasnt sure what for. Then after researching i realised he was Goliath on the UK version of Gladiators, the same show in which Magnus on TNA was from. For me both him and Magnus are great characters and you wouldnt of known ryan was welsh on that show after watching it. Hope he does big things in the wwe and its nice to see more british wrestlers making it in america.

I don't know if the 40-man RR match is such a good idea - - i mean do we really need to see: Primo, DiBiase, Masters, Ryder, Yoshi, Kidd, JTG, Young, Regal, Chavo, Hawkins, Barretta, and Reks - all get eliminated in 5 seconds after someone like Kane/Big Show/Henry/Sheamus comes in to clean house

Is it confirmed that WWE will push Mason as Batista's brother? or just arm-chair booking by the IWC?

Bryan Danielson or Daniel Bryan . . . He reminds me a lot of the Von Erichs.

It would be nice if they used one of those old story lines with him.

Exspically if the WWE is all about be for the little kids . . . Let's get an Old Fashion World Class Championship Wrestling story line going . . . Daniel Bryan vs Alberto Del Rio for the WWE World Title.

Alberto can cheat, throw some insults around, and just be an overall mean guy.
Totally trip Daniel Bryan and interupt him.

And Daniel Bryan can say please and thank you during interviews. Get the USA chant going. Open doors for people, help old ladys across the street.

They can even do one of those Alberto Del Rio injurying Daniel Bryan things.

Before against all odds Daniel Bryan wins the championship.

Dang I didn't think of Batista at all haha I thought Skip Sheffield came back and grew hair haha. Batista never even crossed my mind til I read about how they look alike then was like whoa they do look alike!

I am kinda ready for this Daniel Bryan storyline to be over. Just have him be a serious wrestler. What's wrong with that?

And CM Punk leading Nexus has been awesome!! Punk is the best :)

Hey Kev, who do you think are the surprise entries in the RR?

RESPONSE FROM KE: I'll post give my thoughts on that when I post my Royal Rumble preview before the show.

If you go back to that WWE House Show report I sent in last year I think you can see that Batista resemblance now - at least if you haven't seen Mason Ryan before.

Also, here's what I'd written from that house show. I didn't realize he was as green as he may still be but on second thought after having read some other comments from people who went to the house shows, I can see it.

----

Zack Ryder vs. Mason Ryan: I had no idea who Mason Ryan was and it was tough to hear his name at first, but I was able to figure it out online after getting back home. He's currently the FCW champion and had been in the UK version of Gladiators in 2009. He's a fairly big guy, cut a bit like Batista, and in this match he used the basic big man moves. Kind of tough to tell how far along he is but he seemed decent enough in defeating Ryder with what looked like something very close to the Black Hole Slam used by Abyss. Perhaps we'll see him on NXT soon? We all know how Vince likes his men big (ahem). WINNER: Ryan in about 7 minutes.

"hay kev dont you think this cena vs nexus thing been going far to long now,what your opinion on this storyline kev
RESPONSE FROM KE: I want to see where they go with it from here. Having Punk involved definitely adds a new wrinkle."
I'm thinking that Punk might be a mole, destroying Nexus from within. He's put them all through a grueling initiation, overthrew the original leader, and basically split the original group in half. Also, don't forget the speech he made after winning the Slammy last year- about getting revenge on somebody- because the Nexus beat him down the night they debuted, too.

My guess for the Danielson storyline is that the Bella twins are dumb and think he's a virgin, but it's really that he's a vegan. I suppose that is considered edgy in the PG WWE.

And to the commenter above, Punk's move was the Koji Clutch if I'm not mistaken.

Hey Kev, what are the odds in the 40 man Royal Rumble match there will be a moment between CM PUNK's nexus and Wade Barret's nexus or just Barret and Punk?

I like the transition Santino i making, he's still a comedy wrestler his his hip toss and cobra finisher but he puts a few moves together nicely, if he carried on losing everything i was worried he would be in line for 'good luck in your future endeavors.'

Have to disagree with something Eck, you said Punk opened in his arms out as if to embrace this stranger, but for me he put his arms out in that sacrificial way he does when he thought Gabriel and Slater were going to hit him with the kendo sticks.

RESPONSE FROM KE: OK. In interpreted it as an invitation to an embrace, but you're probably right.

I thought the Derrick Bateman bit was kind of racist...

"a 30-year-old virgin just isn’t cool".

Thanks a lot, Eck. And for your information, it is cool. It's very, very, very cool.

Thanks, Aaron Goldstein, for calling Jerry Lawler "The King", as he has been know for so many years.

Kev, why are the announcers and even Cena on this latest RAW, so adverse to calling Jerry Lawler "The King"?

The first thing I did after seeing MNR was wiki Mason Ryan/Barri Griffiths, and it said he's Batista's half-brother. I just went back to look, and of course - no reference to Batista.

I think it's a good bet that they play up the Batista relative angle.

When Sheamus was going on and on about being the King of the Ring, I felt as if sometime during his promo, HHH's entrance music would come on. Now that I think about it would be more obvious to have Sheamus cut the promo during the rumble, him being the only one in the ring before the countdown, then HHH comes out. What do you think?

I'm really disappointed with the Nexus. Hopefully Mason Ryan will give some life to this. I like CM Punk a lot and think he is definitely going to be a major star and should definitely stay a heel. As much as I can't stand John Cena, the match with CM Punk and Cena was the only match on Raw that I didn't fast forward through. My opinion is that CM Punk made Cena look good.

Cm Punk needs to drop the whole creepy cult leader role. It is just not entertaining and to me it diminishes his role as a bonafide heel. To me, the new Nexus is equivalent to WCW in late 2000 and early 2001.

I think Orton got the win to at least keep him relevant. They built him up as "The Viper" to Stone Cold's Rattlesnake, but his mega-push just died. I don't know if he's mistaken another Diva's gym bag for a toilet again or what, but I've seen spheres more edgy than him. I'm all for riding the Miz while he's trending high, but abandoning Orton was a huge mistake. It seems no one writing Raw has any testicular fortitude. They get to the brink of a compelling angle (i.e. Cena actually turning in Nexus) and they don't even risk teasing anything intriguing. Ezekial Jackson flips a coin before he goes through the curtain every night to see if he's face or heel (heads for face), but John Cena has to play boy scout to the point of looking like a purple clown.

Anyway, back to my point, there was money in Orton as the persona they spent years working on. What the hell did he do? It wasn't that long ago that if you dropped Orton wrong, you got a one way ticket to Orlando. Funny who has a belt, I mean strap, I mean Championship out of the two now. It's just a shame.

I feel kind of bad for Melina. I don't know if she just forgot her line or was caught off guard by the question of why she didn't get along with Natalya, but her botched response is probably why she wasn't allowed to say another word. I guess saying "they haven't told me why yet" would be more of a TNA response.

It says a lot about the 40 man Rumble match being thought out when all the commercials talk about the 30 man event. Way to Katie Vick another classic PPV format.

I LOVE WATCHING WWE RAW

Wow. Mason Ryan is from Porthmadog then?
That's a place I visit nearly every year. Nice place. They have a pottery there. They let visitors make them.
Excellent stuff.

Been waiting a long time know to make my comments.The new RAW and SMACK DOWN are no longer worth the monies to go to events of see pay per views and not worth the time anymore to watch on TV. It's not the old times, back then you knew it was fake but the wrestlers made it look so real and that to me and others enjoying.

Now there are few that make it look so real but the majority, they all make it look so obvious. The women, WOW what a joke. You come up with so many new wrestlers with no kind of experience and it shows. I have been watching wrestling for over forty-five years, all the way back to JOHNNY WEAVER and PAUL JONES days, now there was real wrestling. I use to go to the Starland Arena in Roanoke, Va. and watch in person also went to Victory Stadium to watch the big ones.

Its just sad and sickning. what happen to the old times. I could also remember back when Vince Mac started, back then that was worth every bit the moneys you paid. Now its over priced, you are not getting what you pay for anymore. The excitement is just not there.

These wrestlers need to step it up to that next level. They sure are getting paid alot of money to to show up in the ring just to look good. I own a bread distributing business and I gross $90,000 a year. I work really hard for that. I'm 52 years old and my day starts at around 1:00am and i go until 12:00pm and I do that six days a week. Now thats working hard for your money and earning it honestly.

People out here in this working class really work hard for their money so they deserve to get their monies worth. Please give them that, help the economy and your fans. I really appreciate everything that the wrestlers do for our troops, the sick kids and adults out there. The wrestlers have some BIG and I mean BIG hearts and that we appreciate. Things need to change or you will start to see attendances get smaller and smaller.

I will keep commenting and commenting until hell freezes over, i want to be reconized.

Thanks for listening.

Tim Haupt

I thought Ryan looked a bit more like a bulky Steve Blackman...

And for the love of all that is holy, how did the announcers mistake that hold (Koji Clutch, I believe) for the Anaconda Vice? Punk is oriented completely differently while doing the Anaconda, and he doesn't even use his legs!

booo!!why is nexus getting more powerful than ever now there are also two nexus groups!!

Hey Kev,

I noticed that TNA and ROH both self promote as having the best tag divisions in the world. With the sad state that WWE tag teams are in that can't be disputed. I feel like WWE having santino and kozlov hold the belts almost pokes fun at other promos that have legit tag divisions. Do you have any insight as to why WWE has such disregard for tag team wrestling?

RESPONSE FROM KE: Everything that happens in WWE is the result of what Vince McMahon likes (or dislikes).

triple h will hit sheamus very badly and sheamus will be uncontious

miz is fool he dresses like the rock and disgrace of the name and i think that cena and rock should beat the living yhell out of miz and rily . rily catch phase suck as much as the miz mason ryan is not bstia brother cena is the name and face of the wwe and the miz is naot that is all.