Monday's Raw was vintage WWE

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh my.

Vintage WWE.

Sure, a lot of folks have endeavored to make fun of Webutuck High School graduate and Monday Night Raw announcer Michael Cole over time. At times, he can repeat himself, seem cliched and over-produced.

WWE, though, at times, can repeat ITself, is often cliched and officially, has no idea what its audience, "the WWE universe," actually wants.

Last night's Raw was a prime example. Sure, the World Series and Monday Night Football will probably get blamed for whatever average or low rating the show did, but WWE proved without a shadow of a doubt that it refuses to march forward with pushing new talent unless it absolutely has to.

Case in point, the main event from Raw for this year's Survivor Series. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena. There really isn't any issue with the three superstars, all of whom are babyfaces. So let's have them (mostly DX) mention that they have all fought each other a gazillion times, act like it's a big joke, manage to make a masturbation joke, hang out with Hornswoggle, rip Michael Cole to shreds on live TV, bury the other brand's main event match by not acting concerned with it at all, act like they are the big stars and Big Show is just a fat guy with a little friend and overall make a mockery of the business?

Did I forget anything else? Oh yeah, the inside jokes about getting screamed at in your headset. That was probably a shot at Mick Foley and Taz.

DX makes merchandising money, but some day (and that day may be imminent), that cash cow won't make what it used to. WWE should be constantly recycling and reinventing itself with new rivalries and new stars.

• Look at Monday's Randy Orton-Kofi Kingston interaction. Kofi SEEMS to be a guy WWE is leaning towards right now. They got a new rivalry and they went right into their first confrontation. Instead of having Kofi score a shocking win over the former champ, they make it a six-man tag with MVP, Mark Henry and Legacy where Kofi barely touches Orton and Mark Henry ends up pinning Cody Rhodes. This did pretty much nothing to build up Kofi and burid DiBiase and Rhodes by having them lost to that young, upstart Mark Henry (I'm being sarcastic) for a second straight week. I have a strong feeling that whenever Kofi faces Orton, he not only will not win, but will not come out looking better.

• The Miz had a good week, getting to interact with guest host Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne and all. (When he, Big Show and Legacy weren't getting called ratings-killers by DX). But he beat Evan Bourne (or Evan Brawn, as Ozzy called him) and Bourne isn't exactly a guy who gets a push.

• The best they could do with Jack Swagger and his guaranteed winning-streak gimmick is check out Eve in a Divas battle royal that had a foregone conclusion. Great use of him.

• I say that the Divas battle royal had a foregone conclusion since Melina is champion and there was only one heel (Alicia Fox) in the whole match.

• Sheamus' obliteration of Jamie Noble was exactly how they should debut a superstar. Unlike last week, Sheamus, who the crowd has no reason to cheer yet, was put over as a huge killer. Whether or not this is followed up on next week, remains to be seen.

• The Raw's Got Talent segment was another installment for WWE "Creative" to flex their collective muscles. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne being there was largely ceremonial, which is surprising considering people know who they are and Ozzy, in particular, is a pretty huge star. Chris Masters flexing his pecs to Crazy Train was actually pretty funny. The rest of the stuff was what it was.

Also, I would have love to have heard the conversation between The Great Khali and Ozzy Osbourne.

• The main event being won by Chris Jericho was pretty nuts when you consider that Ozzy pretended not to know who he was and DX treated him like a non-entity. Jericho should probably get a world title run again soon.

Tonight's ECW

• Vladimir Kozlov & Ezekiel Jackson vs. Yoshi Tatsu & Christian

Next week's guest host in the UK: boxer Ricky Hatton