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WWE Raw will air its 800th episode tonight and that leaves one wondering what the Fed will dream up to celebrate. Right now, the only announced match is between JBL and Batista.

That’s a promo on diet pills if you ask me; for an 800th episode, they ought to have a lot more than that in store.

And by the time Raw hits the air tonight, I’m sure they will.

For the second PPV in a row, WWE is ending things with a SmackDown World Heavyweight title match involving Batista and Undertaker. I enjoy ‘Taker, but the only way anyone could ever get me to admit that Batista’s a good champion is if the ONLY alternative was to make Finlay champ. Yes, that would be worse, so no thanks, my friend.

I guess what salvages the choice to put it at the end is that it IS a Hell In A Cell match; too bad Mick Foley isn’t involved. But I guess he’s better off hawking diet pills than trying to maintain an in-ring career at this point.

Taker dominated early and I’m kind of pleased to say that it wasn’t a “lazy big-man” match like last month. Something about the Hell In a Cell match seems to bring out the best in whoever is involved, and this one gets pretty brutal and pretty amazing at the same time. The action seems faster and more brutal.

Taker seemed on his way to the win when the all-too-publicized return of Edge screw-jobbed him out of it. Edge was hiding under the ring and gets up inside and breaks up the count. He then hits Taker with a variety of objects, including a chairshot of the sort that I thought he vowed would be banned in WWE, in the wake of both the Chris Benoit Family Tragedy and the drug-steroid scandals that followed. But then, Edge is one of those rumored to have suffered a ‘roid-related suspension, so maybe he wasn’t exactly setting at home watching when the word came down from VKM.

Anyway, Edge knocks Taker senseless, drapes Batista over Taker and allows The Beast to get a cheap win. So I guess he figures Batista is more of a clear-cut good guy for him to feud against in his quest to regain the World Title. Maybe that’ll help business on Smackdown pick up. Time will tell.

WINNER: Batista (with some help from Edge)
RATING: 8.6

The feud between John Cena and Bobby Lashley is just getting started. The two men put in an impressive effort at the Great American Bash main event, which made the PPV memorable, even though the match was kept to an all-too-brief 15 minutes.

Choosing this route is definitely a wise choice by WWE. Cena could not have kept staving off the Great Khali indefinitely between now and next spring’s WrestleMania if they had stayed on Raw together. Khali is too over as a monster big man to waste him as a jobber the way WWE did with The Big Show.

Using the WWE Draft to move Khali over to Smackdown gives Khali time to win a lot and build his fearsome rep before an ultimate showdown with Cena … who I believe MUST be his ultimate showdown partner.

Meanwhile, Cena could use a legitimate threat to his dominance who’s not an indefatigable monster, and Lashley is just the guy to pull it off, no matter how many commercials for diet pills drive away viewers in the wake of the Benoit tragedy.

Here’s how I would play things out between now and WrestleMania.

The rubber match between Lashley and Cena is almost assured for SummerSlam, but it’s time to freshen up a Cena feud by allowing a legit contender to win and hold the title for a while. Aside from WrestleMania, there’s no better place and time than at SummerSlam for the title to change hands. Give Lashley his first WWE Title run with an upset victory over Cena at SummerSlam.

Of course, that would trigger another rematch for September, and I see that one as a No-DQ Last Man Standing match, something long and harsh that would take a toll off both men. Have Cena come close to recapturing the title, but then introduce an interference angle by having World Title champion (from SmackDown) the Great Khali interfere in the match (without penalty, since it’s a No-DQ match) by putting Cena down and Lashley on top of him.

If not the Great Khali, then perhaps Triple H could fill this roll; he’s returning and the man’s always been at his best as a full-on heel. Sorry, but the De-Generation X revival was a pure dud.

This could lead to a “Lashley retains, and Cena’s out for a while” result that would accomplish three important things:

1) It would provide Cena some much-needed time off to shed the “we’re getting tired of him winning all the time” boos he’s been receiving for at least the last six months at Live Event matches. Cena could use the time to perhaps do another movie, relax and spend time with family. It would give fans something fresh so that when Cena returns, he feels fresh to the audience and welcomed back by Cena-weary fans.

2) It would give Lashley a chance to build his rep, perhaps by feuding with Triple H through Survivor Series.

3) Bring Cena back in time to win the title shot of his choice at the Royal Rumble. Shut out of a title shot under storyline, Cena could win the Rumble to get a shot at either Khali or Lashley. Have him choose Khali. Then have Cena somehow stumble into a Fatal Four-Way at the final PPV prior to WrestleMania, winning back the title from Lashley, perhaps by beating one of the other men involved in the match… let’s say, Triple-H or Mr. Kennedy. That would make Cena the WWE champ again, with a WrestleMania match against Khali that, through storyline, could be made into a WWE Title/World Title reunification match. One could even toss the ECW title into the mix, just for kicks, and whoever wins would become the first WWE World Champion, the first undisputed title holder since Chris Jericho.

That undisputed champion, for my money, would have to be John Cena.