By Lee Stevens, PWTorch specialist

Thank you for joining me as put Raw "Under The Microscope." This is not a complete recap of the show, instead it's a closer look at what happened, what was said, or anything else that crossed my mind during the broadcast.

Busier job: Announcer desk repairman or Flair family tailor?

The segment with Chris Jericho and Ric Flair obviously started the show in dramatic fashion. I am a true believer in that the good guy should be left lying just before a major event to give the fans a reason to buy the pay-per-view. We should be desperate to see Jericho get his final punishment at WrestleMania and not before.

Although I’m pleased that Jerry Lawler is finally getting involved, I hope he doesn’t extract too much revenge next week. It makes sense to have him confront Jericho; I’m just not sure what took him so long. Lawler was within reach through most of Jericho’s assault on the legends, never more so than Monday night as Flair was opened up to start the broadcast. I enjoyed The King’s emotional challenge later in the evening, but if you truly wanted to help Flair, how about standing between him and the guy who was busy beating him to a bloody mess?

Jericho stomping on Flair’s gold watch was a nice finishing touch. In case you don’t remember from last year, the watch was a gift from Shawn Michaels to Flair. The Nature Boy proudly wore it during the retirement ceremony on Raw last spring, which featured numerous wrestlers standing in the ring with Flair as they saluted the former champ. Which begs the question, did all of them forget how to get to the ring during the five minutes Flair was bleeding on national TV?

This was not a good night overall for Ric Flair's platelets as he was shown bleeding to start the show and during the look back over The Undertaker's WrestleMania winning streak. This seems to be an appropriate time to mention that March is Red Cross month.

Also, you can beat a man and leave him bleeding, you can rip his clothes and even destroy his watch, but throwing his shoes to the crowd?

Staying up late

Thanks to John Cena for providing a potential glimpse into the future with possible baby pictures of an Edge and Vickie Guerrero child plus the offspring of The Big Show and Guerrero. Any fans of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" will recognize the joke from the popular "If They Mated" segments when they would morph two pictures of celebrities with dramatically repulsive results.

Ironically, Cena was getting ready to appear on "The Tonight Show" when he commented on the possible pairings. Although Cena met with Jay Leno, O'Brien will be talking over that show later this year. As for "Late Night," that is now hosted by Jimmy Fallon and Cena appeared on his show later in the week. Fallon is famous for hosting "Weekend Update" on "Saturday Night Live," the same show where O'Brien got his start as a writer.

At the movies

The line of the night just may go to Michael Cole for his promotion of Cena's latest movie. Cole promised that "you can get your first look at '12 Rounds' exclusively on USA following Raw tonight." That is if you don't count the other first, second, third, and seventeenth looks that we've received the past few weeks on WWE TV. He corrected himself later and clarified that it would be footage never seen before after Raw. That's fair enough.

As for the actual movie, it also features Aidan Gillen as Miles Jackson. Gillen is probably best known for his work on HBO's "The Wire." Steve Harris also appears in "12 Rounds" and he appeared in several episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Street." Both shows were written by David Simon, a former police officer from Baltimore. Simon is currently working on a project called "Terme" about a section of New Orleans, which brings us back to "12 Rounds," which is set in "The Crescent City."

Yes, that's a show and it is big

Our look back at past WrestleManias brought us to WrestleMania 21. Although most of the segment was dedicated to the introduction of the "Money in the Bank" match, my eyes were reminded of another showcase as we got a view of The Big Show in his sumo match with Akebono. Sadly, our view of the match was from the rear. If you wonder about Show's loyalty to the company and his willingness to do what he is told, it obviously didn't start with just having to make out with Vickie Guerrero. Wear this, kiss that. The Big Show is my nominee for WWE Employee of the Month.

Job security

Since we're on the topic of our interim General Manager, why did she still have that title with the return of a healthy Stephanie McMahon? Granted, Randy Orton's treatment of McMahon later in the show ensured that Guerrero would retain the title for another week, but going into this week, we had an apparently healthy Stephanie returning in the passenger seat of Triple H's vehicle. I would think McMahon would want the job back as quickly as possible to use that power to help her husband. For on-air purposes only, Orton attacked Stephanie McMahon, wife of Triple H. If she would have taken back her position, it would have been an attack on his wife who is also the General Manager, which could have brought other penalties for Orton.

History lesson

Thanks for JBL for looking back into the archives for a list of wrestlers who would have wanted to perform at WrestleMania. He quickly rattled off the names of Gorgeous George, Lou Thesz, Don Leo Jonathan, and Pat O'Connor.

Although Gorgeous George didn't actually wrestle at the pay-per-view, his legacy has made several appearances. Muhammad Ali listed him as an influence, Randy Savage used the same entrance music, and Rick Martel borrowed the practice of spraying perfume before a match. All three took part in WrestleManias, not to mention the countless other wrestlers who took something from George, from the platinum blond hair to flamboyant mannerisms.

Lou Thesz didn't compete in the ring at WrestleMania, but his name has been used countless times associated with his Lou Thesz press. Stone Cold Steve Austin proudly used the move several times during the WrestleMania era.

Don Leo Jonathan didn't necessarily have the lasting influence of George and Thesz, but his final match had WrestleMania ties as he teamed with Andre the Giant and Roddy Piper to face The Sheepherders and Buddy Rose in March 1980. Andre, Piper, and The Sheepherders - then known as The Bushwhackers - all competed on "the grandest stage of them all." Rose also made it to WrestleMania, but you wouldn't necessarily know from his face. He faced Tito Santana in the first WrestleMania as the masked Executioner.

O'Connor's association with WrestleMania is based on his title loss to Buddy Rogers. In June 1961, O'Connor dropped the NWA Heavyweight belt to Rogers in front of 38,622 fans at Comiskey Park, which was the attendance record for wrestling until it was broken by WrestleMania 3 more than 25 years later.

Incidentally, Don Leo Jonathan is the only one to still have a chance at wrestling at WM as the other three legends have passed away.

Bawitdaba...yeah, what he said

One person who will get the chance to participate at WrestleMania is Bob Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock. This isn't his first brush with wrestling as his song "American Bad Ass" provided entrance music and inspiration for a biker-version of The Undertaker in 2000, in between stints as The Dead Man.

Kid Rock performed on Monday Night Raw in May of 2000 and during the show, his sidekick Joe C helped Too Cool win the Tag Team Championship from Edge and Christian. E & C got a measure of revenge by stuffing the smaller Joe C in a trash can and slamming it into a wall. Sadly, Joe C would die by the end of the year after complications from celiac disease and other ailments caused by his medical condition.

Another member of Kid Rock's crew was Uncle Kracker, who had songs with "Follow Me" and his cover of "Drift Away." Uncle Kracker also provided the entrance song for X-Factor, the team of X-Pac, Justin Credible, and Albert.

Finally

Do you think that Stephanie and Triple H ever sit around the table with their kids and one of them speaks up and says "Mommy, how was work?" More to the point, how does Stephanie answer? "Rough day at the office, Aurora. Rough day."

Lee Stevens goes "Under The Microscope" for Raw and Smackdown. You can leave comments below or e-mail him at GLStevens.Torch@gmail.com

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