OK, so I missed two weeks of wrestling due to Cinequest, but now I’m back and I’m watching RAW. I didn’t really miss much, but it wasn’t a great show.

In the weirdest and most dangerous segment in a while, Vince and Shane brought out Shawn Michaels and the thing they said was that Shawn had been drugged last week, and oddly they had Shawn bring out a urine test. Well, it ended up in Vince’s face.

That was weird and the reference to the drug testing policy isn’t going to help things. It actually makes a mockery of it and that’ll only draw criticism. Still, I was entertained by the segment. They also made the match for Shawn against The Spirit Squad in the Cage.

Trish and Victoria had a little match. Better than those that Candice and folks have been having, but not by much. Oddly, the women are changing in body-style much like the guys. It ended with a Chick Kick. Victoria had the mic, but it wasn’t working so they just went to break. Rare technical foul-up there.

Pardon my gold dust...

Well, they had an Anti-Mick Foley promo that was a lot like the ones they did with Foley and Orton. That led into Edge’s match with Goldust. Dustin’s not going to be a player again and probably wouldn’t have a job if Dusty wasn’t working for the WWE right now. It’s actually nice to hear that the Dusts have reconciled. The match was short and ended with Goldust setting up Edge for the Shattered Dream and Lita distracted him allowing Edge to get the Spear and the win. Goldust used the Rump Bump aka the Sila, which is one of my old-timer’s moves.

They announced that Verne Gagne would be inducted to the Hall of Fame with Greg Gagne as the inductor. Greg was in the WWF for a while, but I don’t remember Verne ever being in.

HHH and John Cena had their contract signing. That was actually pretty hot. HHH kinda goofed on Cena, but Cena came back with great intensity. Basically, H said that the World Title was coming home with him, which it basically is.

The Big Show and Kane came down, chased by the team of Chris Masters and Carlito. The crowd really liked it and I’m a little shocked. At times they’ve treated H as a major star, but John Cena hasn’t garnered this much heat in a while without massive booing. It ended up with my man Vince coming out and saying that they’d have a six man main event.

They had a cage match with the guys from the Spirit Squad taking on Shawn Michaels. The structure of the match was very simple and I enjoyed the entire thing as a work. So, Shawn started off selling the attacks of The Spirit Squad, including the big four man Parachute toss spot that I love. Shawn made his comeback and hit a bunch of Inverted Atomic Drops on the various members of the SS. Shawn could have escaped a couple of times, but once he decided to give one of the Spirit Squad a Flying Elbow and then the one on the outside tried to close the door on him, but ended up eating a face full of cage door when Shawn blocked the attack.

Shane gets in and ends up costing Shawn the match. Shawn then gets beat on, especially tossing him into the cage and then setting him up for and hitting the Coast-To-Coast Trash Can Kick. Shawn bled and bled and bled. I liked this a whole lot.

No real reason. We just liked the picture.

Shelton Benjamin took on Rob Van Dam in a match where Mama was nowhere to be seen. They said that she had to get surgery because of her heart, and I’m fairly certain that she’ll be back, much to my unhappiness. He did a promo about Flair being to blame for Mama’s condition. The match was OK, about ten minutes, including a break, and featuring a lot of good stuff, especially crisp from Shelton and spectacular from RVD. The two are very different, and with Flair out for commentary, he interfered which allowed Shelton to get the win.

HHH/Carlito and Chris Masters took on The Big Show, Kane and John Cena. This wasn’t one of those near miracles which feature Masters and Kane and Show working above themselves, but it wasn’t offensive, though it was too long. It was a typical match, though I must admit that Masters is getting better and he’ll be good someday, if he keeps working like he is. The match ended with Show giving H a Press Slam followed by Kane and Show setting up for a Double Chokeslam, which was broken up by Masters and Carlito with chairs for the DQ. They had Randy Orton come out and attack Cena, setting up the match for Saturday Night’s Main Event this weekend.

Not a bad show and I hope they put on a really good SNME to revive that long-dormant tradition.