I’ve recently discovered that one of the people I work with is a bit of a WWE watcher on the side. He and his housemates think it is terribly funny and he can’t get enough of it. We’ve had discussions about it and the things I dislike about the current product are the things he likes. Because they’re terribly funny. It literally and genuinely never occurred to him that WWE could ever be anything other than stupid television to laugh at. Laugh AT not laugh WITH. I’ve told him that it wasn’t always like that. It used to be good (as in good good not so-bad-it’s good). It was must-see TV because you wanted to know what would happen next. It was as addictive as a soap opera but with the added tension of it being live theatre, warts and all.

The Raw Homecoming marked the return of Monday Night Raw to the USA Network after five years on what is now Spike TV. For an overseas viewer such as myself it makes absolutely no difference because we watch it on Sky and the product that Sky gets comes straight from WWE’s TV department in Connecticut. We only know they moved because they told us they moved. Our version of their last show on Spike TV wasn’t subject to Spike’s censorship so we actually heard more plugs for the move than American viewers did. The Homecoming was a three hour (plus) spectacular which must’ve been quite good as it is the first time I’ve watched an entire Raw show for months. But it did highlight what is wrong with WWE’s current thinking. The show has been analysed and dissected by more learned heads than mine so I’ll just give you my top ten mistakes made during the Raw Homecoming spectacular.

1. They opened with a montage of clips from past Raws. Some were lowlights but most were highlights. In just five minutes (some of which was talking heads) they proved that memorable things used to happen on Raw. When was the last time anything happened on WWE TV that you’ll remember for years to come?

2. It came hot on the heels of Smackdown moving from Thursday to Friday nights. Not as big a change as Raw moving networks but the hype for Raw was a hundred times that given to Smackdown. All Smackdown got was a couple of reheated matches that had been done to death over the summer. Ok, the Friday Night Smackdown debut would’ve flopped anyway as the Hurricane concert meant it was pre-empted but WWE didn’t know that when they made zero effort to hype the move.

3. They hyped a galaxy of returning stars for the show – principally Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Triple H and everyone under a "Legends" contract. Of those only one will be back next week and be making money for the company and that’s HHH. Foley and Piper promoted each other’s media projects, Hogan threw down a challenge for next year’s Wrestlemania, the Legends beat up Rob Conway and Trips… well we’ll get to Trips later. One of WWE’s most common mistakes is their inability to understand that ten big names does not equal ten times better than one big name. Just as they’ve never understood that ten generic blondes won’t make ten times as much money for them as one unique blonde.

4. People say that the Angle-Michaels iron man match was an example of a match that is too big for free TV. I would disagree with them because they needed something for everyone and a guaranteed mat classic was something aimed at a key part of their audience. Their mistake was in making the match so unimportant. It was sort of hinted that the winner might move up the ladder and perhaps get a title shot at some point. The plan was that the winner would be the next guy to face Cena (at Taboo Tuesday and it’s going to be Angle) but I guess HBK wouldn’t do the job.

5. Matt Hardy lost the ladder match with Edge and so leaves Raw. It wasn’t mentioned that he’s going to Smackdown. Since this show was building up something of a Raw vs. Smackdown feud it wouldn’t made sense to have had Teddy Long tapping up both guys (before the match or just Matt afterwards) and saying that Smackdown would welcome them. Bischoff could then have been pissed off with him. Instead they just threw Hardy out like a piece of garbage.

6. The HHH-Flair angle was way too rushed. Trips returns, teams with Flair and then turns on him. What about a week or two of build up? Tease it. Get the fans interested. But no – they do it week one and Flair gets slaughtered. And since we know there is absolutely no way in this world or the next that HHH is going to lay down for Flair we’ve already seen the entire feud. Triple H beats Ric Flair to a bloody mess and leaves him laying. That was Monday night, that will be every night. The only bit of uncertainty is how long it will be before someone comes to Flair’s aid only for Flair to turn on them and go back to being HHH’s lap dog. Like that’s worth waiting for.

7. Is anyone surprised that it was Carlito who did the job in the tag match? I didn’t think so. The small, talented, charismatic guy was obviously going to get less protection than the big, untalented, muscular dolt.

8. The Austin segment was fun for a while but ye gods it went on forever. Vince’s set up – showing the Austin clip – totally telegraphed the surprise of Austin’s appearance. Why not have Vince show his "Top Five" Raw moments and it be obvious (but unsaid) that each one is him getting one over on Austin. But no – they had to skip the set up and have Vince out-and-out say he enjoyed humiliating Austin. So Austin came out, they did some rehashed banter, showed a couple of clips and Vince got stunned for the zillionth time. Shane didn’t say anything – he just came in and got stunnered. Good for Shane. Steph and Linda insisted on boring everyone for five minutes before in the inevitable happened. And Linda’s was the worst bump in history but she’s got an excuse – she has never pretended to be a wrestler. Steph proved that not everyone is a bigger star when the return after a long lay off. We must hope she never comes back again but, unless she gets pregnant, I doubt we’ll be spared her presence.

9. A lot has been made of WWE’s failure to do anything on Raw to promote the Smackdown pay per view that was taking place six days later. Ok, it isn’t normally done to promote the "rival" brand’s shows but this was WWE’s largest audience in years and it would make sense for Smackdown to at the very least "buy advertising time" on the show. Instead Smackdown was humbled at every turn and only Mick Foley (surely acting on his own rather than having been asked to) did anything to promote the No Mercy show.

10. The only plus point WWE can really cling to is that John Cena got a bigger pop than Hulk Hogan. The problem is that he also got more boos too. His match with Eric Bischoff was unfortunately placed on the same show as Austin beating up the McMahon family, thereby reminding everyone that the boss vs. superstar feud has been done before and been done better.

In conclusion, let’s look at the list of big names that were meant to make this show more special than every other show. Hogan, Piper, Foley, Austin and even – because he was given the spokesman role for the "Legends" – Dusty Rhodes. What do you notice when looking at that group? All big draws, all guys who will be remembered for generations to come, all truly remarkable talents. I notice that each was different from everyone else around them. Piper was small but could talk and was always made to look strong. Foley was scarred and thought ugly but he was intelligent and gutsy and was given a chance. Austin was average size and an average physique and his main talent was that he could work. He developed a gimmick that was cool and was given the ball and made as much money as anyone ever has. Rhodes was fat and couldn’t work but he had charisma and never failed to win the crowd over. Only Hogan was a big muscle guy and that was in an era where there were any muscle guys. I am sick of saying it but I can’t help myself. The WWE roster is so homogenous these days – big muscle guys with no training plod through terrible matches and are given shitty gimmicks while smaller guys who can wrestle are either never used or are given even shittier gimmicks and used as jobbers. Carlito might be the next Roddy Piper but he’s seen jobbing every week and never gets any heat on anyone. Rob Conway used to be a decent talent but he’s been told to juice up, been given exactly the same gimmick as Sylvain Grenier and has become a jobber. MNM should be top stars on Smackdown but every week they get destroyed by the beyond-awful LOD2005. WWE needs to develop one of a kind superstars who stand out and who are able, between them, to offer a show with something for everyone from the top to the bottom of the card. Until Vince gets over his obsession with oiled, muscular, untrained morons (which he’s always had but it has become so much worse since he destroyed his competition and he no longer has to cater for anyone who doesn’t like his vision of wrestling) WWE will continue to sink slowly into the mud. Wrestling came from the carnivals and the circuses and would do well to remind themselves of their philosophy of variety.