Gearing up for yet another PPV, the latest installment of Monday Night RAW kept with the continuity and set the stage for the Royal Rumble action this Sunday Night. Sick as a dog and clutching my bottle of Nyquil for dear life, the show managed to keep me awake and entertained. The matches could have been longer, but for what it's worth, the show kept a fast pace and refrained from overdoing the filler for two weeks in a row now.

The episode from Lafayette, LA opened up with a video recap of last week's events. All of Shawn Michaels' rowdy friends were decimated at the hands of Team Rated RKO. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan went down. Ric Flair went down. HBK subsequently snaps into insanity like Macho Man with a Slim Jim. Michaels beat Randy Orton in the head with a chair. He then did a number on Edge's ribs with his DX-mate Triple H's beloved sledgehammer while visions of The H danced in his head. (At least according to the video montage which showed Shawn picking up the sledgehammer and in a scene straight out of the film Frailty, sees Triple H in his mind's eye.)

Getting things underway live in the arena, Michaels came out wearing a DX shirt, jeans and a nifty belt that was heavy on the hardware. Green glow-sticks lit the arena as Jim Ross informed viewers that "Triple H is there in spirit." Uh, dude. He's not dead. He's just recovering from surgery for a torn quad.

Giving a snorting and grunting promo, Michaels mentioned that he is no longer suppressing his anger as he had been doing since his return to the ring. Instead, he now wants to be the guy who beats up the bullies in the WWE. Additionally, he expressed his desire to win the WWE Championship belt yet again on the (drum roll please) Road to Wrestlemania.

Michaels' speech was interrupted by Edge, who came out solo. Edge taunted the Heartbreak Kid before Michaels went el snappo again, sliding out of the ring and battering Edge like a Mrs. Paul's fish fillet. Referees and security came out to break the pair up. Once again, the two broke free, fists flying until both men toppled over the ringside barricade. As the show went to its first commercial break, the two were still duking it out.

After the commercial break, Edge and HBK were STILL brawling, this time Michaels hurled Edge into a chain link fenced-off area before being chased away by referees. Jonathan Coachman came out to check on Edge.

The first match of the evening was relatively swift and served its purpose of continuing the feud between MNM and the Hardy Boyz. In a non-title inter-brand match, RAW's Intercontintental Champion, Jeff Hardy squared off against MNM's Joey Mercury. Mercury, whose nose was broken and received severe facial lacerations from a ladder to the face a month ago, came to the ring accompanied by Johnny Nitro and Melina and wearing a mask to protect his face.

The action started instantly with Jeff launching himself off of the ropes to the outside, landing directly on Mercury. Hardy dragged him into the ring, ridding him of the long, fur jacket that J.R. aptly called "roadkill."

Mercury recovered, turning the tide in his favor and flinging Jeff Hardy to the outside. Melina and Nitro ripped back the protective mats outside the ring, exposing the hard concrete. The watchful referee saw what was going on and banished Nitro and Melina to the back, ensuring a clean finish.

Both men started clotheslining one another in the ring before Hardy jumped off the top rope to execute a Whisper in the Wind. He executed the move, but it looked like he missed Mercury altogether. Still, both Mercury and the broadcast team sold it like he struck gold. Mercury hit the canvas face-first with Hardy capitalizing for the pin and the win.

As his theme music blared triumphantly, I noticed that Jeff Hardy's hand signals looked curiously like the infamous "shocker" hand gesture.

Backstage, Coach and Mr. McMahon performed their usual schpiel with Coach attempting to explain how he tried to control the volatile situation between Edge and Shawn Michaels. Instead of banning both men from the building, Mr. McMahon suggested that the two main face one another in the evening's main event, a street fight.

After the commercial break, Mr. McMahon made his entrance in the middle of the ring, instructing Coach to walk several paces behind him. The Chairman reached into his jacket pocket and procured the latest correspondence with his good friend, Donald Trump. The crowd was not into this running gag and admittedly, neither was I.

In the realm of compelling television and boosting the ratings which, according to Vince "could be better," Mr. McMahon suggested that The Donald bring him aboard The Apprentice for a guest spot. The crowd, unamused, broke into the famed Stone Cold Steve Austion chorus of "WHAT"s following every few words that McMahon spoke. To his credit and in a neat move, The Chairman pulled a Wayne's World, telling the crowd that "An idiot says 'what'?" The crowd, not to their credit, followed it with "WHAT." McMahon pointed out that they had proved his point.

He then told the crowd how much he loved the fans and wanted to give them a show of his appreciation. Chants of "asshole" rang through the arena. Vince then said that the crowd was really making it hard for him to love them back before he was interrupted by John Cena.

The Champ did an accurate impersonation of Vince McMahon as well as made a reference to ol' Vinnie Mac sounding like Brother Love. (And here I thought I was the only one!) He lambasted Vince for his seeming obsession with Donald Trump and reminded him of all of the times his obsessions had gone wrong: feuding with DX, the XFL. You get the picture.

Coach jumped to his boss's defense, declaring that there wasn't anything that Trump had more of than McMahon. (For the record, Trump's had more wives and ex-wives than Vince has.) Somehow, Cena managed to trick Coach into a verbal slip-up that made it seem that Coach had insinuated Trump had something more than Vince did. Angered, Vince made a match for the night with Coach versus John Cena.

The next match of the night was another relatively quick match that seems to be setting up a new feud between The Masterpiece Chris Masters and luchador, Super Crazy. As the match started, WWE went old school, showing a pre-recorded Super Crazy promo in the corner of the screen. Oh, how I miss those days! In his promo, the Mexican grappler told the crowd that he was "super." He was "crazy." He is "Super Crazy!" Yeah, it could fit on a t-shirt. Don't be surprised if you see a "I am super. I am crazy. I am Super Crazy!" t-shirt coming to a WWE Shopzone near you.

The in-ring action had Masters kneeing Super Crazy and landing several fists to his head. Super Crazy flew at the ropes, executing a superb crossbody and flattening the Masterpiece. In an interesting combination, Masters attempted to ground the high-flyer by locking on a form of the Master Lock on Super Crazy's legs. Super Crazy deftly maneuvered out of it, showing off some nice work by both men. Masters is definitely improving over time. If this feud with Super Crazy continues in a long-standing rivalry, it could be very interesting for both men. Plus, it'd be nice to see a Super Crazy push.

But I digress! Masters picked up Super Crazy in a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker slam across his knee, dropping him to the mat and clamping on a chin lock to the luchador. Super Crazy elbowed his way out of it, making a break for the ropes in a high-risk attempt with Masters catching him mid-flight, almost ending the match with a pin by Masters.

Reverting to elbows again, Super Crazy battled back, nailing a reverse heel kick and a low dropkick to the knee. He climbed to the top rope, landing a missile drop kick off of the third rope, leaping back into a standing moonsault and nearly pinning Masters.

Masters immediately got up and attempted the Masterlock. Super Crazy got him towards the ropes with some momentum while still in the unbroken hold. Going for broke again, Super Crazy did indeed get the pin this time, jumping backwards off of the ropes and pinning Masters shoulders to the mat as he held his competitor in the Masterlock. Super Crazy won the match!

A series of short, sweet vignettes set up the drama going on behind the matches without doing much of anything else. Shawn Michaels had finished taping his fists in preparation for the evening's match. Kenny Dykstra let the audience in on the joke that 2007 will be the year of Kenny Dykstra. Lastly, Edge was shown backstage before being interrupted by his Team Rated RKO partner, Randy Orton. Orton's entire face was bruised. (Is it live or is it Max Factor?) Orton was just a tad miffed that Edge left him for dead in the ring last week. Any residual tension was left at that before going to the commercial break.

The next match of the night was a relative throwaway with John Cena and Coach sucking up some time with some other RAW roster members thrown in for good measure. Vince supposedly left for the evening, leaving Coach in charge. Funny, considering how I thought he was mad at him. Anyway, logic aside, Coach would have Cena face random WWE superstars in a mini-battle royal before he would face Coach. Cena would have to eliminate the guys over the top rope.

This was about the time that my Nyquil started kicking in, so my continuity may be a little convoluted here. This match seemed to be the requisite clusterfu…nny how they drag these things out before a PPV to involve more people on the roster in the show.

Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch were involved in the match and I noticed that Cade had abandoned the pants that earned him the moniker "Low-Rise Lance." Good for him! Now if we could just get Trevor Murdoch to put a shirt on, then we'd be in business. With both men eliminated. Shelton Benjamin, his partner Charlie Haas and Viscera entered the ring, followed by The Great Khali (who is also picking his pants up).

Before you know it, it's just Khali and Cena in the ring before Khali throws the comparatively smaller man over the top rope, eliminating Cena. With Cena softened up, Coach came in for his scheduled match, attempting a pin. The Champ kicked out, only to have Umaga and Armando (no more "Alejandro") Estrada flood the ring and begin stomping the bejeebus out of Cena. After a Samoan sidewalk slam, Coach and Estrada set up a table in the middle of the ring. Umaga put Cena through the table, spiking him and screaming as doctors rushed to the ring.

John Cena was helped out of the ring by the referees and went to the back as Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler wondered what kind of shape the Champ would be in for Sunday night's Royal Rumble PPV.

After the commercial break came a ho-hum Women's Tag Team match. Candice Michelle (and her new nose) teamed up with the exuberant Women's Champion, Mickey James against Melina and Victoria. Victoria came out rocking a beater that said "Widows Peak Freak" on it. Oh! Shades of Scott "Big Poppa Pump" Steiner! Holla if ya hear me!

The match starts off in the usual way a women's match does with two of the competitors locking up. Melina and Mickey James go at it with Mickey shoving Melina through the ropes, licking her fingers and slapping Melina hard on the ass.

Victoria saved her partner some more humiliation, yanked back on Mickey's hair, putting a halt to the spanking. Victoria and Melina then went for the devastating double-hair-pull on Mickey before yanking her towards the ropes and setting her up for a wishbone.

The Champion got to her feet, only to have Victoria kick her and knock her backwards to the canvas. Mickey was able to make the tag to her partner, Candice Michelle, who threw Victoria halfway across the ring, no doubt payment for busting her nose. Recognizing her sore spot, Victoria went for the nose yet again, kicking Candice in the face. She attempted the Widow's Peak on Candice, only to be thwarted by Mickey James.

Outside the ring, Melina and Mickey went at it. Inside the ring, Candice had recovered enough to leap off of the second rope and onto Victoria for the pin.

Funnily enough, when Mickey and Candice were celebrating their victory in the middle of the ring, Mickey went to give Candice a high-five. Mickey's hand slipped and she accidentally face-palmed Candice's new nose. It didn't look hard, but a funny slip-up to catch, nonetheless.

Not a bad match, but not terrific, either. It looks like the Women's Division is training up Melina and Candice for competition. Candice isn't bad. You gotta admire a girl who can come back after having her nose broken. She puts out a good effort. She's not up to snuff with the more experienced ladies on the roster, but she's not bad.

The next match featured Carlito facing Kenny "Year of The" Dykstra. Carlito came out with Torrie Wilson and her little dog, Chloe. Incidentally, the double-sided tape on the inside of Torrie's low, low-cut dress was working overtime.

It looked like this week, Kenny was feeling a bit adventurous fashion-wise, too. Eschewing the blue trunks in favor of fruit-flavored hot pink ones, Kenny proved that magenta really isn't his color. Even better was the "KD" on the front near his crotch. I was expecting to see "Lang" written on the back of his trunks. Maybe it was just the Nyquil kicking in, but if you dyed his hair dark brown, Kenny Dykstra might be able to pass for singer k.d. lang.

The match began with Kenny whipped to the corner by Carlito who followed up the assault with some kicks, a hard chop and a knee. Once again, Carlito whipped Kenny to the corner, this time young Mr. Dykstra leaped out of the ring.

Kenny scrambled back in, pulling Carlito backwards by his hair before crashing down on Carlito with an impressively high leap in the air. Once again, good ol' J.R. reminded us that Kenny is only 20-years-old. Eyeing up the Nyquil bottle, I contemplated playing the Monday Night RAW drinking game.

Kenny then clamped Carlito in a choke hold. Torrie, on the outside, pounded on the mat repeatedly trying to rally her man -- and the crowd. The crowd eventually caught on and a few feeble "Let's go, Carlito"s or something similar broke out among the first few rows.

Whipping out the stock maneuvers from his arsenal, Carlito backflipped off of the second rope and hammered Kenny right in the forehead before clipping him with a takeover. Kenny reversed the momentum, grabbing a handful of Carlito's tights and pinning him for the win. Kenny Dykstra wins another one and the push continues.

This match was too short to tell if it was any good. The crowd didn't seem to be too much into it. Kenny is getting better as a wrestler, but as I've said before, I'm not totally floored. He's good, but not outstandingly noteworthy. Carlito needs to amp up his movesets. Clouded by a mixture of post nasal drip, Nyquil and Dimetap, even I could predict which of his moves would make an appearance at what time.

Once again, the viewers were treated to the same montage from the top of the broadcast with Shawn Michaels taking it to Rated RKO and setting up the main event for the night.

Backstage, Cryme Tyme is running numbers. The numbers in question happen to be spots in the Royal Rumble. The person who draws number 30 is the last person in the ring, therefore, they absorb the least amount of punishment and stand a greater chance of winning.

Seeing some suckers right for the picking, Shad and JTG approached Super Crazy and Eugene. Super Crazy did his bit that will no doubt appear on official WWE merchandise sometime soon and drew his number before exiting stage right. Cryme Tyme asked the very "special" Eugene to cough up some cash for a very "special" number, too. Pulling some scratch out of his kneepads, Eugene drew number 30. Shad and JTG said that 30 wasn't a very good number and just for a 50 dollar bill more, he could be Number One. Digging a rumpled Grant out of his trunks, Cryme Tyme hesitantly took the stinky five-spot before … BAM! …handing over Number One to Eugene, who pranced off camera ecstatically.

JTG asked Shad if they really were official Royal Rumble numbers, to which he replied "no." They just made a G today! (But ya made it in a sleazy way, son.) They also shared a laugh about selling a bogus copy of Munch's painting, "The Scream" to some guy. The merry pair shuffled off camera singing about money before "some guy" by the name of Ron Simmons walked in front of a camera holding up the counterfeit painting he was duped into buying. Expressing his chagrin in a way that Simmons only can, in what is now a weekly occurrence, Farooq shook his head and exclaimed "DAMN!!!"

Is it too much to hope for that sometime in the future, Cryme Tyme hook up with Ron Simmons as their mentor?

Before the main event took place, the broadcast team mentioned that the Heavyweight Champion, John Cena had been taken to the hospital for his injuries sustained in the evening's competition. Supposedly, his spleen had been ruptured. Mind you, I like Cena, but I had to laugh at the injury the creative team had come up with this time. First of all, "spleen" is a funny word. Secondly, a ruptured spleen could actually kill a person, leaking all sorts of poisons and bacteria into their system, causing them to go into shock and possibly die.

So Cena, who has been seemingly invincible up to this point and has taken a ton of abuse in many matches, gets a ruptured spleen because of taking a hit off of a table. What's worse is that he will undoubtedly appear in a rematch against Umaga with the aforementioned "ruptured spleen." I think the creative team could have come up with a better injury that would still plausibly allow him to wrestle (which I have zero doubt that he will) on the PPV card.

Finally, the main event Street Fight got underway. Both Edge and Shawn Michaels made their entrances short and with little fanfare. Right out of the gate, Michaels went for the good stuff underneath the ring, pulling out ladders, trash cans and various and sundry other items that should belong at a Home Depot.

Edge clobbered him with a trash can lid to the face, knocking HBK backwards before the show went to its last commercial break of the night.

Edge looked very DDP-esque with the excessive bandages around his ribs and blonde hair before sending Michaels flying into the steel steps imported to the middle of the ring with a hard-looking bulldog. HBK hammered on Edge's ribs with his fists to battle back.

Reaching for another prop, Edge grabbed a large chain, winding around his fist. Knocking Michaels to the mat, Edge grabbed a nearby ladder and climbed to the second rope, capsizing backwards and sending the ladder crashing down on HBK's arm. Edge went to capitalize with a pin, but only made it to a count of two.

Michaels struggled under more blows rained down by Edge before beign whacked with the ladder again. Edge then set it up between the two sets of steel stairs in the middle of the ring. He nearly powerbombed HBK on the ladder, however Michaels managed to maneuver his way out of it.

The two men traded fists and backhanded slaps before Edge went for a low blow. Michaels was sent to the ropes and was able to land an inverted atomic drop on Edge before ramming his face to the corner. Edge was busted open. That didn't stop Michaels from slamming Edge with the ladder again.

As Michaels climbed to the second rope, Edge tried to pull him down and punch him. HBK managed to grab the ladder, throwing Edge ribs-first onto it. With Edge prone on the mat and in a tremendous amount of pain, Michaels climbed to the top rope to land his famed flying elbow, driving Edge's chest further into the ladder.

The two men struggled back and forth for a few moments and it looked as if HBK would emerge the victor. However, a heavily bruised Randy Orton made his appearance from behind, nailing Shawn Michaels with the RKO and enabling Edge to pin him. As Edge celebrated the win, his partner Orton threw him from the top rope.

Picking up a steel chair, it looked like Orton would seek retribution on Michaels for the chair shots he took last week. Ric Flair came in to make the save for his friend, HBK. Just then, Kenny Dykstra ran in to attack Flair. Then Carlito ran in to attack Dykstra. And then Mantaur came out dressed as the Easter Bunny and started handing out Cadbury Eggs to everyone! Okay, so that last part didn't happen, but it should have. There were enough people in the ring.

The closing moments of the show had Michaels landing some serious Sweet Chin Music on Dykstra, Randy Orton and Carlito. At least it's nice to know that no matter how mean Michaels may get, loveable Ric Flair will be spared from his wrath.

As Edge stood on the ramp, clutching his ribs in a similar way as he was doing last week at this hour in the program, HBK stood in the middle of the ring, clenched fists at the ready to take on everyone in the Royal Rumble.

Taking this episode for what it was worth, it wasn't bad at all. Basically, it was an infomercial to rent WWE's Sunday night PPV, the Royal Rumble. (Incidentally, it seems like they're doing a PPV every two or three weeks now. I think I make fewer trips to the grocery store in a month than there are WWE PPVs.)

The show seemed a little rushed. You would be hard-pressed to find a match that went over the five-minute mark. It seemed as if, with the exception of Cena, everyone needed to be in pristine condition prior to the Royal Rumble. Some of the feuds that are lingering are past their shelf-date, yet because they haven't been played out on a larger (read: $40 per household) stage, these feuds won't be put to bed just yet.

It's interesting to speculate who will be the next duo to feud. However, a nice, logical progression of a storyline that doesn't have to be renewed or discarded every four weeks would be a refreshing change of pace.

The silly filler bits were kept to a minimum, with the Cryme Tyme segment channeling some In Living Color references and serving as a nice segway and change of pace that was fun to watch.

Vince McMahon turning up at random on the shows is a welcome spot, but I wish he would abandon this Trump angle. I'm not sure where it's going and to cop a phrase from the man himself, "quite frankly," I don't care. The time could be better used and McMahon's Chairman character is a lot more entertaining than this current storyline is allowing for.

Also on my wish list, I wish the creative team could have come up with a better "injury" for Cena than a ruptured spleen. With this factor in mind, lay in some stock for blood capsules since there will probably be plenty of them used in the Cena vs. Umaga Royal Rumble match.

And lastly, on a good note, I love the new direction for Shawn Michaels' character as a ruthless juggernaut who is taking on everyone except those closest to him. It makes perfect sense in light of what has happened and Michaels consistently puts on great matches. While this wasn't the best RAW ever, it was still a good one