WWE Jan. 2, 2012, mystery return man is not Chris Jericho

As you probably already know by now, WWE is now advertising a mystery return man for the Jan. 2, 2012, episode of Raw.

One video was linked to on Raw last night (Nov. 21), which you can watch here. Then a video aired that was quite obviously Kane, which you can watch here.

In all likelihood, the two promos are related and it will be Kane who shows up on Raw at the beginning of next year. But that doesn't mean we can't speculate otherwise.

One rather obvious name to come up was Chris Jericho. After all, he's been poking and prodding his buddy, CM Punk, on Twitter, and the two would make for an obvious classic if paired together at WrestleMania 28 next year. However, as Keith Harris told us just last night, Jericho's contract negotiations with WWE hit a snag and it's unlikely he'll be returning any time soon.

Taking it one step further, in a Q&A session recently, Jericho was asked by a fan what he's doing on Jan. 2, 2012. His response?

"Working in Hawaii."

It doesn't take much more than a quick Google search to see that WWE is scheduled for the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee, that night. And considering everything we now know about Jericho and what's going on with all his endeavors outside the pro wrestling business, we have no reason not to believe him.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.