That’s all I kept thinking after the show went off the air. Full of memorable and storyline-advancing moments, this was easily the best Raw since the night after WrestleMania. I’ve broken down this week’s recap by bullet points of all the important events, of which there were many.

The return of Christian
Christian made his long anticipated return from injury, defeating Wade Barrett in a short match during the first hour. It’s great to have Christian back and I would expect him to be in one of the Money in the Bank matches.

Alberto Del Rio completes his heel turn
Del Rio cut a solidly heel promo to open the show, solidifying his turn coming off his match with Dolph Ziggler at Payback. Del Rio is so much better and more natural as a “bad guy.” Dolph Ziggler attacked Del Rio after his match with CM Punk, so it looks like we also saw the completion of Ziggler’s face turn. The one question I have is what happens with the Ziggler-AJ relationship now?

Antonio Cesaro is now aligned with Zeb Colter
With Jack Swagger still on the shelf and Antonio Cesaro floundering, it makes perfect sense to put him with Zeb Colter. Hopefully this means Cesaro will soon be back in the title picture and perhaps even the main event scene. I would expect, at least, that Cesaro will be in one of the Money in the Bank matches at the upcoming pay-per-view.

Mark Henry fakes his retirement then attacks John Cena
This segment was, as I said on Twitter last night, SO PERFECT. Even the smarmiest of marks had to believe that Mark Henry was really retiring. It was easily the best performance of his career as he had the crowd showing their love and he was even shedding tears. Talk about the ultimate of heel moves. This monster version of Mark Henry has been one of my favorite characters in quite some time and I’m looking forward to his match against Cena at Money in the Bank, even though there’s little chance Henry wins the title. It also likely means that the rumored Daniel Bryan v. Cena title match gets pushed back to SummerSlam.

Brock Lesnar returns and attacks CM Punk
This was pretty predictable, but the IWC doesn’t care about predictability when it’s what we want and seems like the right thing to do. A Paul Heyman v. CM Punk feud with Brock Lesnar as his heavy should really be great. Based on his last few opponents, we sometimes forget how truly good Lesnar is (or was, at least) in the ring and CM Punk will probably bring a great match out of him.

Everything else on Raw was either good or not bad enough to get upset about. WWE delivered a solid three hours of television coming off a solid three hours of pay-per-view programming, which is really an accomplishment.

At Sunday’s Payback pay-per-view, we got the early tease of dissension between CM Punk and Paul Heyman, which was furthered during the early parts of last night’s Raw. CM Punk told Heyman that he wasn’t Heyman’s client, he was just his friend. As his friend, he didn’t want Heyman at ringside for his match against Alberto Del Rio in the main event.

Heyman gave Punk the “kiss of death” right before the match, telling CM Punk that he loved him and giving him a hug. The match was decent, with CM Punk winning by countout when Del Rio walked out. Then Brock Lesnar showed up, at around the 2:40 mark of the video above.

The triumvirate of Vickie Guerrero, Brad Maddox and Vince McMahon agreed that Henry deserved a shot at Cena, and the match was made official.

The Cena – Ryback main event suffered from many factors. The match type itself already featured three of maybe the least exciting stipulations all bundled into one – Lumberjack match, tables match, and ambulance match. It also didn’t help that two guys WWE audiences certainly don’t believe have great in-ring talent had to follow the likes of CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Daniel Bryan and The Shield. In hindsight, WWE would probably book the CM Punk v. Jericho match to close the show.

Below are the results and my thoughts on each match on the main card:

Curtis Axel defeated The Miz and Wade Barrett to win the Intercontinental Championship

It felt like Axel was a shoe-in to win as soon as he was announced as Fandango’s replacement but the match was pretty solid, the ending was smart, and the crowd popped huge for Axel winning the Intercontinental Title that his father helped make famous on Father’s Day. The way Axel won – pinning Barrett while Miz had the figure four applied – probably sets up a Miz – Axel feud for the title, which could be good.

AJ Lee defeated Kaitlyn via submission to win the Divas Championship

I couldn’t help but thinking during this match – and I had to restrain myself a bit because it might be a little hyperbolic – that we were watching this generation’s Trish Stratus and Lita. AJ and Kaitlyn have a long way to go before they’re in the same realm as two of the greatest women’s competitors of all time, but these two have obvious chemistry in the ring, a solid backstory, and can put together a hell of a match.

Dean Ambrose defeated Kane via countout to retain the United States Championship

A predictable outcome, which is fine, since Kane doesn’t need a singles title at this point in his career and Dean Ambrose is on the rise to the main event scene.

WWE announces Rob Van Dam will return at Money in the Bank

Rob Van Dam will return to WWE at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, which takes place in Philadelphia on July 14th. RVD will likely be a big crowd favorite in ECW’s old hometown, although WWE is wringing that cloth for all the nostalgia it can get at this point. While he was less than stellar during his TNA run, a motivated Van Dam could be really good for a short span in WWE. The company hasn’t said yet whether this is a one shot deal or a longer plan for RVD.

Alberto Del Rio defeated Dolph Ziggler to win the World Heavyweight Championship

Throughout the match Alberto Del Rio was playing the heel role. The crowd was solidly behind Ziggler and it felt like WWE was trying to do a double turn with Del Rio ended up heel and Ziggler babyface. Del Rio continually targeted the head of Ziggler and the announcers pointed out how that wasn’t very sportsmanlike, but you have to do what you have to do to become champion.

If the plan is to turn both men, it was smart booking to have Del Rio win the title, even though it’s so soon into Ziggler’s reign. It helps to build sympathy for Ziggler from the “non-smart mark” crowd and the good guy is usually better as the one chasing the title.

CM Punk defeated Chris Jericho

This match went down without any shenanigans, which was a bit surprising to me. Punk returned, with the same theme song, and defeated Jericho in an excellent match. A little bit of dissension was teased between Paul Heyman and CM Punk following the match and again backstage. It seems like WWE will eventually split these two up, with Punk turning babyface and hopefully feuding with Brock Lesnar.

Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns defeated Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton to retain the World Tag Team Championship

A predictable outcome – again, which is totally fine – and a solid match. Daniel Bryan continues to be one of the hottest wrestlers on the roster right now and will probably head into the main event title scene. The question is what’s next for Randy Orton?

John Cena defeated Ryback in a Three Stages of Hell match to retain the WWE Championship
Ryback won the Lumberjack stage by pinfall. Cena won the second stage by putting Ryback through a table. Cena won the third stage by AA’ing Ryback through the roof of the ambulance.

Jokes about how flimsy the ambulance was! Now that that’s out of the way, this match itself wasn’t bad, really, but like I mentioned above it suffered from several factors. Hopefully this is the end of the Cena – Ryback feud.

(Image courtesy WWE.com)

It’s questionable to take the title off Ziggler this quickly into his reign and so closely following his return from a concussion, but it makes sense in that it’s one more way to build sympathy for Dolph as a babyface.

Obviously Rob Van Dam is guaranteed to get a huge pop in Philly. The only question is whether or not he’ll be a “Paul Heyman guy.”

Axel – the son of Mr. Perfect, one of the greatest Intercontinental Champions of all time – winning the belt on Father’s Day has some symbolism and the way it was done sets up a heel-face feud with Miz.

You have to sort of feel bad for Fandango, though, since that probably was his title victory Axel got due to Fandango’s concussion.

Up next as far as anthologies goes is The Best of War Games, releasing June 25th in the United States. The collection is hosted by Dusty Rhodes and features WCW’s best War Games matches. Blu ray exclusives include matches in ECW and Smoky Mountain inspired by the War Games concept.

ECW Unreleased Volume 2 will hit stores July 30th and digs deeper into the ECW archives as a follow-up to the great Unreleased Volume 1 set. Joey Styles returns to host the collection and it includes over seven hours of previously unreleased matches and footage.

WWE: Best of MSG releases August 27th and features 20 of the greatest matches from Madison Square Garden, spanning every era. WWE also has plans to release a Best of Mid-South Wrestling compilation and a Triple H biography in September, a Goldberg match compilation and Money in the Bank anthology in October, the History of WWE in November, and a Raw 20th Anniversary box set in December.