Things started out strong for the post-Backlash Monday Night RAW. Coming off of what is understood to have been one of the best PPVs in a long while (surpassing even Wrestlemania 23), the first hour of the show was crammed with stellar matches and some comic relief from ECW's newest champion, Vincent Kennedy McMahon. The second hour took things down a notch with some not-so-stellar matches and what will probably be key revelations as it pertains to the upcoming PPV.

Live from Nashville, TN, the show kicks off with the still-Champ, John Cena backstage, stomping around with his spinner belt to alternating cheers and boos from the crowd.

Mr. McMahon, clad in a smart suit with a black, Hulk Hogan-esque doo-rag rattles off a sea of salutations and t-shirt worthy catch phrases to Cena, such as: "What's up, holmes", "Peace out", and "The Champ. Is. Here". Vince McMahon goes on to tell John Cena that last night, he "served" Bobby Lashley and took his belt, heralding himself as the King of Extreme.

John Cena mentions that now ECW stands for "Extremely Crazy White Guy". McMahon has no clue what he's talking about and becomes instantly more confused when Cena tells him that all he sees is a goofy guy in a doo-rag. Vince does a classic double-take and says, "You're not talkin' 'bout my bruthas, Cryme Tyme. Where they at?!"

Shawn Michaels makes his way from the dressing room and accosts Cena in front of Mr. McMahon. HBK asks Cena if he calls himself the Champ and cites that he's extremely lucky. I think Michaels recites some biblical verse, but I'm not sure what book and chapter "it's better to be lucky than good" comes from. Michaels insists on going one more round and wants another chance since last night he had almost beaten Cena for the belt.

McMahon, feeling spunky and gracious with his shiny, shiny belt in tow, grants one more match tonight. The stipulation is that if HBK wins tonight, he earns a shot at the title next week. He exits, stage right, yelling "Peace out, my bruthas!" On a side note, Vince's immaculately trimmed sideburns are back! Not sure about the rest of his hair under the doo-rag, but hey, he's got the sideburns kickin'.

Both men find common ground in viewing Vince as the whacked-out nut job that he is, glancing at one another and saying "He's lost it."

Aaaaaannnnnd…. On to the first match of the night! This one is a reschedule of what was supposed to go down last week before Randy Orton was sent home from England….errr…. I mean, John Cena and Shawn Michaels went at it for a solid hour, sucking up the second half of last week's RAW.

Edge comes out with his super-spiffy coat and brand new purple camo tights. Orton makes his entrance and he means business… Even though he takes a moment to pose.

The match gets underway when Edge pimp slaps Orton and the two men trade right fists to the head. Edge slides out of the ring and Orton takes chase after him. Young Orton dodges a punch and then thumbs Edge in the eye. He knocks Edge backwards and has his head and shoulder lodged in the turnbuckle. Orton keeps the momentum rolling with right hands to Edge's head before taking him over with a Snapmare and doing the Orton Stomp. Orton executes a leaping knee-drop to Edge's chest before mounting Edge and hammering him with fists.

He yanks back on Edge's hair as the Rated R Superstar attempts to struggle to his feet and eventually makes it to the rope. The ref breaks the hold. Orton slams Edge's head on the turnbuckle and then sends him flying off of the ring apron and into the barricade on the outside.

Finding himself back in the ring, Edge backs into the corner and baits Orton, throwing him shoulder-first into the steel ring post. Orton sells the injury and Edge dashes at him, sending Orton flying over the announce table, hitting it, and bouncing off behind Lawler and Ross's chairs. Lawler looks on with concern. But hey, the table is still in one piece! Sweet! I'm sure the WWE's budget director has to be smiling at that.

Edge drags Orton back to the ring and attempts a pinfall. Orton miraculously kicks out at two. Edge kicks at him and delivers the same patented Orton knee lift on his former tag team partner.

Edge flies at Orton with a reverse heel kick, sending RKO to the mat. Edge climbs to the top rope and Orton reaches up and punches him. RKO continues to sell his injuries from the crash to the announcer's table floor area from earlier. Both men headbutt one another from the top rope and Orton is the first to fall backwards. Edge attempts to leap onto Orton, but Orton takes Edge out in midair with a beautiful missile dropkick.

On their knees in the middle of the ring, both men slug away at one another before getting to their feet. Edge steals a page from the book that Orton wrote earlier for not the first time this evening.

Orton counters with a reverse backbreaker on Edge, delivering an inverted RKO to Edge across his back. Orton plants Edge to the mat with a powerslam and the two men go for tons of two counts, reversing one another's pinfall attempts. Edge gets another nearfall with an interesting maneuver and rolls Orton backwards, holding him by his leg. Orton breaks out. Both men take one another out in mid-air. The ref begins to count to ten.

Edge occupies himself by removing the turnbuckle before he's busted by the ref. Orton rolls Edge back but Edge reverses it. Orton again reverses it before being busted open by Edge. Edge tries to pin him with his feet on the ropes, but the ref is on the ball. Orton tries to pin Edge in the same exact way, but the ref breaks it when he sees his feet on the ropes. Orton tries the RKO and Edge reverses it into the Impaler DDT. Orton kicks out.

Edge goes for the spear, but Orton (and Edge) still marvelously selling the injuries and exhaustion, counters with an RKO.

His RKO is averted by Edge with another huge spear and an eventual pin. Edge wins. Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense. Both men have glassy-eyed stares wrought by exhaustion and one hell of a match.

First of all, this was an AMAZING match to begin the post-Backlash episode of RAW. This was truly a PPV caliber match. Given that both men had participated in what was viewed as a standout match on a PPV full of standouts the night before, they put on an incredible show. Edge and Orton, with considerable wrestling skill between the two of them, have successfully found a way to keep their on-again, off-again feud from becoming stale. The linking of maneuvers and tricky reversals looked great and really added to the tension of the match.

Up next is an interview with the new Intercontinental Champion, Santino Marella conducted by Todd Grisham. Learning a bit more about the new I.C. champion, he's 29-years-old and was a wrestler-in-training in the United States. He got his shot by buying a ticket to Monday Night RAW in Italy while visiting his family. Grisham dusts off clips from two weeks ago of Marella winning the Intercontinental Championship belt thanks to "Roberto Lashley." Going for the "goofy foreigner" schtick, WWE's creative team scripts it for Marella to say that he has eight brothers and sisters and to celebrate his win, "We stay-a up all-a night and a-drink-a lots of wine." And suddenly, I find I have quite a bit in common with the new Intercontinental Champion. Not the eight brothers and sisters part, but definitely about drinking wine all night. All in all, he seems like an affable champeen, I'm just wondering how they're going to play his gimmick off.

Keeping with the backstage comments theme, clips of RVD's "shoot" interview at Backlash on Vince McMahon winning the belt are shown, setting up the reason for Rob Van Dam's scheduled match against Umaga. RVD gives viewers crib notes on ECW and what it was before it was resurrected by WWE, with Vince McMahon reviving ECW in his own image and replacing it with his vision. Now, he added the final insult to the ECW legacy by holding the ECW championship belt itself. (Like "The Zombie" wasn't the first clue that the ECW legacy would be tarnished?) It's all oh-so-very Star Wars with RVD channeling Han Solo and Vince McMahon out to be Emperor Palpatine. But, effectively, RVD says in a very nice way that Vince McMahon dug up the corpse of ECW, peed on it, and buried it face down, making the golden shower all the more golden now by holding the ECW Championship belt.

Backstage in Vince's traveling makeshift office, Vince McMahon and Shane. Shane asks to hold the belt. Much like so many a MySpace profile, Vince denies his request but asks him if he's gotten Umaga to beat the crap out of RVD. Shane replies in an uber-professional way that "He's on board." Vince thanks his son for last night, tagging him in to cover the weakened Lashley and win the belt. Shane goes to hug his padre and says "I love you, Dad." Vince does the "back pat" on Shane that I usually reserve for people to signal the "Okay, we've hugged it out enough! Get off me, now" as he mugs the camera.

Continuing the backstage hijinx, Maria interviews Edge who doesn't look very happy. Maria's bra is hanging out of her top, which I think is supposed to be a fashion statement, owing to its jeweled detailing. Nevertheless, Edge calls her a bimbo. He's kinda T.O.-ed that Shawn Michaels gets yet another championship shot after getting his ass handed to him the night before. The Rated R Superstar hands Maria back her microphone and all but inserts it in her cleavage. (Hey, I use mine to hold pencils and highlighters sometimes when behind both of my ears is already occupied! Sometimes, it comes in handy!)

Get ready for brilliance because doing ringside commentary with Jerry "The King" Lawler and Jim Ross is Low Rise Lance Cade and Trevor the Cable Guy!

Jeff Hardy comes down to the ring, wearing his tight black top with a ton of holes cut in it., ready for his match against Johnny Nitro. Nitro makes his entrance with fabulously matching tights and a maroon and gold-lined fuzzy full-length jacket. There is just tons of man-candy in the middle of the ring at that moment.

Just as I'm ready to chill some champagne and ogle my 27-inch television screen, Cade goes and kills the mood. He mentions his respect for Jeff Hardy and the tremendous match Murdoch and Cade had against the Hardy Brothers the night before.

In the ring, Hardy takes down Nitro with a Russian leg sweep and a split-legged attempt at a pin on. Nitro rolls it backwards and kicks out before clamping a choke hold on Jeff Hardy. Hardy elbows out of it before Nitro nails him with a forearm. Nitro runs at Hardy with the intent to do some damage and misses. Hardy climbs to the top and lands the Whisper in the Wind on Nitro then delivers a face-first suplex to his opponent and nearly scoring the pinfall.

Meanwhile, Cade and Murdoch continue to talk up the Hardy Boys in a seemingly odd display of goodwill

Jeff and Nitro are at the top rope and Hardy throws Nitro over in a backdrop before nailing him with a Swanton and a three-count.

Cade and Murdoch stand up and clap for Hardy before the duo's designated mouthpiece, Cade, grabs the mike and declares Jeff Hardy the winner. Low Rise Lance and Trevor the Cable Guy are now vying for the title of Poster Boys For Good Sportsmanship and Bad Fashion Sense. Cade contends that he and his partner have all the respect in the world for Jeff Hardy and his brother and want to shake his hand. Both men offer their hands to shake but Jeff Hardy backs away, not entirely trusting them. Possibly with good reason. Still, the two cowboys stand in the ring and continue to applaud Hardy.

Another good match, with some more of my favorite wrestlers (not merely for the eye-candy aspects.) Hardy consistently puts on great matches and reminds me a bit of younger, more acrobatic Shawn Michaels to a degree, minus the mike skills. Johnny Nitro is also really good at throwing in a convincing offense and coming up with some innovative maneuvers. Both men put on a fast-paced match that would leave a lot of competitors out of breath. While still not as good as the Edge/Orton curtain jerker, this was nonetheless a solid match.

I'm interested to see where the angle with Cade and Murdoch as the super-nice redneck boys is headed. I think I'm kind of liking this. As long as Murdoch keeps his shirt on, I'm all for this tag team developing a personality!

After the commercial break, Shane O'Mac comes out and does his little dance following footage from Backlash with Vince McMahon winning the ECW Championship. He announces Umaga as the man who was partially responsible for his father's win at Backlash and the hefty Samoan makes his entrance for his match against the ECW Original -- imported for one night -- Rob Van Dam.

RVD makes his appearance wearing a snappy orange and yellow singlet with his trakemark yin-yang on the front before the show cuts to yet another commercial break.

The match is re-joined in progress with RVD climbing to the top of the ring posts only to be pushed off of the turnbuckle and thrown into the barricade. Umaga drops the leg on him and kicks him hard in the chest. Shane claps on the outside, supporting his favorite Samoan Bulldozer. The announce team makes mention that Armando "You'll always be 'Alejandro' in my eyes" Estrada was taken out by Lashley last night and absent from tonight's festivities.

Umaga slams another hard elbow into RVD's shoulder and again on his neck. RVD attempts to battle back, only to be scooped into a Samoan Drop.

Mr. Monday Night (How often do you get to say THAT anymore!?) hits Umaga with some stiff elbows and attempts to body slam him. RVD capsizes under the weight and Umaga lands on top of him, nearly pinning him before Van Dam kicks out.

He climbs atop Umaga's back and clamps a sleeper hold on the Samoan Bulldozer. Shane looks startled on the outside as the big man's knees begin to buckle.

Umaga stands up with RVD still on his back, trying to shake off Van Dam by ramming him backwards into the corner. He eventually shrugs him off over the top rope with RVD crashing to the outside.

Van Dam is driven into the steel steps by Umaga and lays prone outside the ring, dazed and very confused. RVD comes back into the ring and Umaga manhandles him in the corner before making his way to the opposite corner and running at Van Dam, attempting to Ass Splash him. RVD moves out of the way and Umaga's big booty eats steel in a way that would make Rob Halford shiver with glee.

Van Dam lands a nice high kick to the Samoan's head before Umaga tries to Ass Splash RVD in yet another seated maneuver. Once again, he moves out of the way. RVD climbs to the top rope and lands a flying dropkick to Umaga before running to the opposite corner and hitting him with Rolling Thunder. The pinfall is averted as Umaga kicks out and clobbers the ECW Original with a massive headbutt.

Van Dam comes at the big man with another high kick to Umaga's forehead. Once again, RVD goes to the top rope for the 5-Star Frog Splash. He rolls RVD over with a Samoan Spike and then capitalizes out of nowhere by spiking him into a pin with Umaga as the winner.

A good match, but apparently, Umaga as an ultimate, destructive force is completely over. He's no longer the biggest monster in the yard, but he's growing on me. It's always nice to see RVD wrestle, particularly on a Monday Night, but it would have been better to see him win. He's still got it after all these years.

Speaking of still having it after all these years, Ric Flair is shown backstage drinking water and interrupted by Carlito. Flair addresses Carlito, none too happy with the kid's temper tantrum last week, telling his young charge that he doesn’t mind if he yells at him, as long as he says it in English. Carlito says that on the evening's show, the two of them will face the World's Greatest Tag Team yet again and that he just wants to show him that he can be a winner. Ric Flair says he knows he can be a champion and agrees to team up with Carlito one more time before walking off to prepare for the match.

Torrie, the everpresent-arm-candy to Carlito says something I can barely hear and Carlito snaps at her. You can smell the heel turn coming tonight.

Meanwhile, back in the arena, Shawn Michaels music cues, ready for Cena vs. Michaels, Version 3.0. Lo and behold, the Sexy Boy is nowhere to be found. Instead, he's backstage, unconscious with blood trickling from his forehead, attended to by doctors. Coach asks if anyone has seen anything as to who throttled Michaels. Coach eyes Cena and instantly accuses him of the sneak attack. Cena attempts to choke out Coachman but stops himself. Coach cowers in fear as The Champ walks away.

As Coach explains the situation, Vince looks pretty pissed and asks what the hell happened to Shawn Michaels. Vince wants him in the ring, no matter what condition he is in so long as his show has a main event.

That means that Ric Flair and Carlito are up to face Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. Ric Flair comes out, wearing a very spiffy new robe, gold with white marabou trim and Carlito is bedecked in purple trunks and new Carlito-swag, in addition to sporting his arm-candy Torrie.

Flair and Haas hook it up first with Flair sending Hass over his head in an arcing toss.

He tags in Carlito while Haas tags in Benjamin who hammers away on. Carlito is full of fury, throwing fists and right elbows to Shelton. He attempts the Carlito Springboard which Shelton moves out of the way and stealthily avoids.

Shelton hammers away on Carlito and Flair rushes in and hits Haas, just recently tagged in trying to save his partner. Haas has Carlito on the ropes before the ref breaks it up.

Benjamin is tagged in and almost pins Carlito. Shelton yanks back on Carlito's chin before stomping him and scooping and slamming Carlito to the canvas. Haas is tagged in and continues the job. Flair is on the ring apron, clutching the tag rope and eager to be tagged into action. Meanwhile, Shelton and Haas have been taking turns cracking at Carlito. Carlito counters a Benjamin move and sends Shelton to the canvas. Carlito and chopping him down hard to the canvas with a mighty "Woo!" The veteran takes out Haas, too and then chops Shelton backwards for good measure before engaging in some styling and profiling.

Just when you thought it was safe, Carlito jumps Flair from behind and starts whacking at him with hard fists. Torrie looks on in shock from outside the ring.. Flair rakes Carlito's eyes then jumps him from behind and nailing the youngster with furious punches, almost DDT-ing Carlito on the steel. Carlito turns his back on Flair yet again to head to the back, but Flair comes again and takes Carlito's legs out from under him and sending the younger man hurrying to the back.

Anyone who hadn't seen this one coming had to have been named "Eugene." Or "Cletus." This slow boil towards a Flair/Carlito feud has been building for months. I'm not sure exactly what will be accomplished by it, however, tonight's match with four competitors who are usually really good (particularly Shelton Benjamin) was incredibly lackluster and phoned in. It seemed that a match that had potential to be good, was just thrown in for the sake of igniting the feud. However, if it means Carlito returns to the heel role in which he was much more entertaining, that's a plus. Why is it that whenever a heel turns face, he relinquishes all right to a personality?

Backstage, Sherlock Coach is looking for clues as to who clobbered Shawn Michaels and uses Edge's promo as a motive. Scratch off that suspect because Edge has the snot beat out of him and is unconscious when Coach comes to find him to question him in the ass-beating of HBK. The Executive Assistant cum Amateur Detective deduces that it may be Randy Orton behind this.

Back in the arena, seated front row is of Jerry Lawler's all time favorite band, Egypt Central. I never knew King was so cutting edge. Turns out that the Tennessee band had graciously handed over one of their songs to be the theme for a WWE PPV.

Continuing the theme of bringing over guys from other shows, Mr. Kennedy from Smackdown comes to RAW, toting his Money In The Bank briefcase. He motions for the microphone which descends from the ceiling. (Apparently, this works on RAW, too!) He "Huh-huh"'s into the microphone like Beavis and Butthead before making several O.J. Simpson references.

Mr. Kennedy then asks the crowd the "burning question" that who here would like to see Mr. Kennedy cash in his briefcase to challenge someone for the title tonight. He says that it's not gonna happen and will clarify his statement for the audience. As a lone member of the crowd screams out "you suck!", Kennedy calmly addresses them in an offhand manner, saying "No, I don't suck because I've got this", holding up the briefcase. Edge's win with his MITB card was cowardly and wrong. Mr. Kennedy (speaking in the third person) would never do anything like that. He says that the time and place for his title match to go down will be in 335 days at Wrestlemania 24. In a smart move to insert himself into the Main Event at 'Mania, Kennedy is going to cash in his briefcase.

After that sucked up 5 to 10 minutes, the action switches to backstage where now Orton has his ass beat… In the bathroom, quite possibly his favorite room. In a startling Soprano's crossover, little Vito Jr.swings by and cops a squat on the shower floor and asks Randy Orton what he thinks of it. Several Divas clutch their purses and snicker. Actually, that's not what happens. Orton lays passed out on the concrete while Coach asks Kenny Dykstra to stay with him.

Coach apologizes to Vince McMahon for not figuring out who was responsible for all of the ass whoopings. Vince gives the order for Coach to tell John Cena to go to the ring where he will come face to face with the man who did this. Vince straightens his doo-rag as the show goes to one of its last commercial breaks.

In a Ladies' Tag Team match, Women's Champion Melina and Victoria got matching straightening irons and take a minute to do Tha Bump, mashing fannies before getting into the ring for their bout against Mickie James and Candice Michelle, who both come skipping out. For some reason, the dual-skipping thing is really, really annoying to me.

King makes a brilliant comment about how everybody and his brother married to his sister tonight.digs Mickie James and Candice Michelle. As usual, sometimes King comes out with total gold.

The match starts up with Victoria and Candice. Victoria does not look impressed by her competitor. Candice does a backslide before climbing on top of Victoria. Victoria flings her to the corner and tags in Melina. Candice rushes Melina to the corner and Mickie is tagged in and does the same. Mickie lands atop Melina and takes her over by her hair. Mickie is atop Melina and they roll around on the mat several times before Victoria is tagged in, only to be clobbered by Mickie on the outside.

Victoria pulls Mickie out of the ring and yanks her outside before smashing her back against the apron. Victoria almost scores a pinfall on Mickie who kicks out. Victoria then puts Mikie in the Tree of Woe, holding her arms in place as Melina runs at her and spears James in her midsection.

Melina takes control with a cross-armed yank backwards on Mickie before tagging in Victoria again. This time, Mickie lets Candice in on the action. Candice hits Victoria with a right and reverses a tiltawhirl slam with a headscissors takedown. Both Victoria and Melina lift up Candice for a double backdrop before Mickie comes in and breaks it up.

Candice rolls up Victoria for the pin and the win. You've got to be kidding me.

For a RAW that started out strong with some great matches, this was a helluva way to close out the contests for the night. The entire match reeked of throwaway designed to just throw out some T&A to the crowd. Again, coming off of what was heralded as one of the best Women's championship title matches in a long time, and hands down, the best of the post-Trish era, this was a sad match. While Candice has made quite an effort at learning to wrestle, she's still got miles to go in a Robert Frost kind of way. That's not to say she isn't shaping up to be pretty good, however, it's got to eat at Victoria going from champion to go-to jobber for the division.

After a final commercial break, Cena stands in the middle of the ring with his belt and looks pissed.

If Cena can't lose the belt, can he at least lose his theme music? Please? My vote is for the classic "Basic Thuganomics" ditty instead of the obnoxious horn-blaring of "My Time is Now."

The Champ addresses the crowd and tells them that he does not back down from any challenge, which is why he would have never marauded all three of his competitors from the prior evening.. (Because he knows he can't lose anyway.) In full-business mode, Cena whips off the shirt and you can hear a large chunk of the females in the audience cheering.

Apparently, we discover who was responsible for beating the combined asses of Shawn Michaels, Edge, and Randy Orton. The Great Khali comes out and for a moment, John Cena is all "Come get some." He hits Khali several times, rushing him right out of the ring. Khali comes back with a vengeance and kicks Cena to the canvas before picking him up and dropping him yet again with a big, size 20 boot. He boots Cena yet again and mashes him into the corner. Cena halts Khali's hand mid-air as he goes to choke out the Champ. Cena picks up Khali in an FU and gets the big man partially up. Khali gets out of it and whacks Cena in the jaw and temple with one of his monstrous elbows.

The show closes out with a double-handed chokeslam as he hurls Cena to the mat. Khali picks up the belt and poses with it as the show draws to its end.

Well… The show started off excellently. I'm not so sure what to make of its ending. While a fresh face is needed for the title race, I'm not sure if I'm feeling Khali in this spot. It could have been an opportunity to revive Cena as a heel and breathe new life into his character, possibly having him behind the backstage beatdowns. It just seems like too easy of a solution that could either cement even more hatred against Cena if he does beat Khali, making him not only a submissions expert, but a Slayer of Giants, as well. Or, if Khali wins the belt, that could be disastrous for the Championship, with him being nearly impossible to beat if he takes it from Cena who has been touted as the be-all and end-all of champions.

However, that could be a positive. Instead of a focus on the title race for a nearly unattainable prize, maybe shift the view to a broader scope of wrestlers with the title as something secondary to great matches.