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The main staged rivalry heading into WrestleMania 23 was between WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Donald Trump. On the January 8 edition of Raw, Trump faced off against his real-life rival, Rosie O'Donnell. Trump won the contest, although local wrestlers portrayed Trump and O'Donnell. During McMahon's "Fan Appreciation Night" on the January 29 edition of Raw, Trump interrupted and dropped large sums of money into the arena.The following month, the two came up with a match for WrestleMania, where the stipulations for the match were that they each had to choose a representative to wrestle for them and the loser would have his head shaved bald. This match was then billed as the "Battle of the Billionaires".McMahon picked Umaga as his representative,while Trump picked Bobby Lashley. After successfully defending his ECW World Championship against Hardcore Holly in a Steel Cage match, a match in which the ring is surrounded by a steel cage on an edition ofECW on Sci Fi, Lashley charged at the cage, slammed through it, and landed atop of Umaga, who was at ringside. On the March 5 edition of Raw,Steve Austin was appointed as special guest referee for the "Battle of the Billionaires" match at WrestleMania. On the March 26 edition of Raw, McMahon faced off against Lashley in a No Disqualification match. In the match, several people interfered on McMahon's behalf, including Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, Chris Masters, Johnny Nitro, and Umaga. This interference allowed McMahon to win the bout.
The main rivalry on the Raw brand was between John Cena and Shawn Michaels over the WWE Championship. After The Undertaker, the winner of the2007 Royal Rumble match, made his decision to face Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania, a match to determine the next challenger to the WWE Championship was announced. Michaels defeated Randy Orton and Edge in a match invoving three wrestlers to win a chance to face Cena at WrestleMania. On an edition of Raw, Orton and Edge, who were tag team partners as Rated-RKO, attempted to attack Cena, but Michaelsran-in and attacked them with steel chairs. Before a scheduled tag team match between Rated-RKO and Cena and Michaels, Orton played a video that highlighted the past friendships that Michaels was involved in, before turning on the friend. In the match, Michaels nearly superkicked Cena after Orton moved. Due to a later disagreement, Edge left Orton and walked off backstage, which allowed Cena and Michaels to win the match. The following week, Michaels responded to the video set-up by Orton, and made comments regarding Cena.
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