Monday Night Raw In Wilkes-Barre **SPOILERS**

Shawn Michaels steals the show again! In a pretty solid Monday Night Raw last night from Wilkes-Barre, Pa. the Michaels-Chris Jericho feud took another step toward being the best of the year. Really, it probably is already at this point, but the whole “eye for an eye” line that Shawn used during his in-ring challenge toward Jericho, who was supposedly at the WWE studios in Stamford, Conn. was classic. This sets things up for an “unsanctioned” match at Unforgiven in just a couple of weeks. Knowing that Michaels is a pretty religious guy makes that line work even better.

I got to thinking that if "Stone Cold" Steve Austin does have one final match at Wrestlemania XXV in his home state of Texas it should be against Chris Jericho. It's not going to be Hulk Hogan and who else is a legit heel right now that would be able to give Austin that great send-off?

Some other highlights from the show:

John Cena is out for a while with a neck injury and so he was replaced in the World Championship Scramble at Unforgiven with Rey Mysterio. Cena’s neck injury is reportedly pretty severe and so he could be gone for a long, long time. I give Cena credit, because he tried to wrestle through it. I saw him in a tag team match in Bridgeport Friday night (more on that show in a later post) and the guy has got plenty of fans, and not just women and children. Cena being out is a big loss for the W.W.E. like him or not.

There will also be an E.C.W. Championship Scramble at Unforgiven. Initially, I thought to myself this one has the chance to be the best of the three (there will also be a W.W.E. Championship Scramble). I thought, ok, you could have Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, Ricky Ortiz, Evan Bourne and John Morrison. But then I read this morning that they taped E.C.W. last night and that the scramble will be Mark Henry vs. The Miz vs. Finlay vs. Chavo Guerrero vs. Matt Hardy. Ugh!

The World Championship Scramble will be CM Punk vs. Batista vs. Kane vs. Rey Mysterio vs. JBL, while the W.W.E. Championship Scramble will be Triple H vs. The Brian Kendrick vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. MVP vs. Jeff Hardy. It was also announced that Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase will defend their World Tag Team Titles vs. Cryme Tyme at the pay-per-view.

Primo Colon made his wrestling debut last night and defeated Charlie Haas, who was dressed up as “Charlito.” Colon seems like he is getting a bit of a push with wins over the weekend against William Regal and Snitsky. Speaking of William Regal, he was nowhere to be found last night on Raw. It’s going to take a while I guess for Regal to get back in the good graces of the W.W.E. after his 60-day suspension. Regal would have been a good addition to the Scramble match, but after seeing him lose to Jamie Noble in Bridgeport, I realized that he’s not going to be in a main event for some time.

Overall, the show moved very well as there weren’t any long-winded speaking segments. The only thing I could do without is Cryme Tyme.

Raw Matches
CM Punk beat JBL - The way Raw should always start, with a WRESTLING MATCH!
Kelly Kelly beat Beth Phoenix - Santino distracted Phoenix, who reportedly suffered a broken nose in the match.
DiBiase and Rhodes defeated Hacksaw Duggan and Jerry Lawler - I still never feel as though I see these guys (Rhodes/DiBias) wrestle a long enough match to get a feel for them, especially DiBiase.
Santino Marella defeated Kofi Kingston - Phoenix pulled Kingston's leg forcing his head to hit Santino's knee and knock him out.
Kane loses via disqualification to Batista.

E.C.W. RESULTS
Scramble Qualifying Matches:
Matt Hardy beat John Morrison.
The Miz beat Evan Bourne.
Chavo Guerrero beat Tommy Dreamer.
Finlay beat Mike Knox.