For the first five months of the year, 2006 was a fairly forgettable, especially coming off the heels of a tremendous 2005. On Raw, John Cena was WWE Champion and struggling to handle being the #1 babyface in front of crowds that were starting to give him mixed-to-negative reactions. On Smackdown, Rey Mysterios plucky babyface World Title reign had ended, and a corny (though well-done) character in King Booker was holding the gold. Heading into the summer, WWE needed something to generate more interest. But rather than look to the future, they looked to the past. In June of 2006, two major entities from the 1990s were resurrected: ECW and D-Generation X. ECW combined the announcement of the second iteration of their One Night Stand Pay Per View (Two Night Stand???) with the announcement that ECW was being revived as a third WWE brand. The highlight of the Pay Per View was Rob Van Dam cashing in his Money in the Bank contract to face John Cena for the WWE Championship, which RVD claimed he would turn into the ECW Championship. With the help of Paul Heyman and Edge, he did just that, and ECW had immediate legitimacy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGUrYOt1u_I Around the same time, Triple H was being dragged into the awful Shawn Michaels/Vince McMahon feud. Both Shawn and Hunter had teased some sort of reunion by doing the DX crotch chops during their matches at Wrestlemania and Backlash. Shawn saved Hunter from a beating by the Spirit Squad on the June 12th edition of Raw, and for the first time in four years, Triple H and Shawn Michaels were on the same side (with Triple H turning babyface in the process). The two would feud with the McMahons and the Spirit Squad throughout the summer, bringing a little electric charge to what at that point had been a pretty dull year.
