WWE Royal Rumble 2012 Results: Will Triple H Fire John Laurinaitis on Raw?

On tomorrow night's Raw, COO Triple H will decide whether or not to relieve John Laurinaitis of his duties as general manager of WWE's flagship show.

Per the storyline, the WWE board of directors have grown troubled by Laurinaitis' increasingly erratic and unfair behaviour, notably his proclamation on Raw two weeks ago that he intended to "screw" hated enemy CM Punk when he refereed the WWE Champion's match at the RR against Dolph Ziggler.

In response to what they consider to be the GM's unacceptable conduct, they drafted in Triple H to help decide whether Laurinaitis can continue on in the role.

Of course, this story has some gaping logic loopholes.

Like, why is the mysterious, all-powerful board of directors appointing Triple H to decide if Laurinaitis is fit for his role when, only a few months ago, they deemed Hunter too incompetent to run Raw and instructed he be removed from power? It makes no sense, does it?

Regrettably, these types of massive plot inconsistencies have been a regular occurrence on WWE's unpredictable and booked-on-the-fly flagship show over the last year or so.

Regardless, the question remains: will Triple H deem Laurinaitis unfit to rule over the show and give him the sack?

Well, no-one is quite sure—and knowing the way Raw is booked these days, the writers may not know for sure either right now—but there are a few indications of how things may go down.

First, during CM Punk's match with Dolph Ziggler, Laurinaitis did try and be fair to Punk, at least on the surface. He ejected Dolph's villainous manager, Vickie Guerrero, from ringside (per a stip made on Raw several weeks ago, she wasn't allowed to accompany Ziggler to the ring) and later on celebrated with Punk when he pinned Ziggler with the GTS. 

He was even seen applauding at ringside after the win, likely meaning the Raw GM is well aware he is on thin ice and is doing his best to appear fair and unbiased.

Additionally, Laurinaitis' slow-burning angle with CM Punk is only just now heating up, a good indicator than the former All Japan wrestler is sticking around for the foreseeable future.

Certainly, the battle of the stuffy, elitist boss vs. the rebellious, outspoken employee has been built up for several months now to go somewhere. To suddenly drop it and remove Laurinaitis from television would make no sense whatsoever, even by current WWE standards.

Also, there really is no suitable replacement for Laurinaitis available. WWE are struggling to find decent authority figures and with his verbal skills, enjoyable heel characteristics and ability to garner heat from the crowd, Laurinaitis may be the best option from an extremely weak field.

What, is HHH going to strip Laurinaitis of power then put himself in that role? His disastrous stint at running show (which saw most of the roster grew fed up with stubborn and boorish ways and walkout on the company) proves that he is not fit for the role.

SmackDown GM Teddy Long could be called upon, I suppose. But this would likely lead to Raw descending into a never-ending spiral of booked-on-the-fly tag team matches, endless Aksana backstage skits and midcard heels being forced to go one-on-one with Randy Orton.

Despite the strong hints on-screen that HHH will stroll onto Raw tomorrow night and remove Laurinaitis from power, it seems likely that something will happen and HHH will be reluctantly forced to allow the bumbling executive to stay on as Raw GM a little longer.