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Posts Tagged ‘The Miz’

Tonight’s WWE title match all but assures champion The Miz that he’ll be headlining WrestleMania this year. His opponent for tonight’s Elimination Chamber PPV is Jerry “The King” Lawler. Unless they do something cheesy to kill off any and all heat Miz has generated the last few months and have King win to vacate the title and crown a new champ before WrestleMania, the most likely bet is that Miz’s title defense will be brief, brutal and over before you know it.

The Miz goes to WrestleMania? That’s a good thing. I’ve enjoyed his championship run so far, and it’s made me tune in each week. He’s evolved his character effectively into a heel champ from the karaoke-singing buffoon he initially was when he appeared on ECW on SciFi.

Hopefully, tonight’s match will set the table for who Miz will face for the title at WrestleMania. The participants in the number-one contenders match in the Elimination Chamber include John Cena, Randy Orton, R-Truth, CM Punk, John Morrison and Sheamus. Most folks are looking for a Cena win, but I think the most electrifying opponent for Miz would be CM Punk. However, a heel-vs.-heel match might not be the way WWE will go. So of the faces in the Chamber, Cena would be the top pick, since Morrison and R-Truth simply are not ready to headline WrestleMania against Miz.

Of course, never count out Randy Orton, who can subtlely shift his character to become an effective foil for Miz at the drop of a hat, and you know what? Orton-Miz hasn’t been overdone on free TV to the point that it would lack drawing power.

Still, Cena seems the most likely to emerge against Miz.

New WWE champion The Miz has come a long way, baby.

Last year, Miz made a cameo appearance in the Royal Rumble and his character seemed headed toward comic relief dolldrums. This year, he’s wearing championship gold and everyone in the Rumble is fighting to get a shot at him. There are only so many jobs in the WWE, and for now, the former Real World-er has the spot everyone on the roster wants.

Talk about a career turnaround!

A couple weeks ago, a young girl was featured on Raw in a crowd shot that showed her “angry demon face” in reaction to The Miz cashing in his Money In the Bank contract to defeat Randy Orton and become WWE Champ for the first time in his career. This week, the so-called Angry Demon Girl won a Slammy Award for the Best Crowd Reaction shot of the year.

I have to agree with the selection; no other crowd reaction show left such an indelible impression in my mind, and screenshots of that moment have set many HP printers to work the past couple weeks, printing out that stunned, angry reaction.

Interesting that one ticked off little girl can do more to sell an angle than all the announcing at ringside.

I never would have predicted it, but so far the reign of The Miz as WWE champion has been quite entertaining. I love the pot-shot he took at Rowdy Roddy Piper recently, pointing out that despite his Hall of Fame status, Piper never wore the best as Miz has. That makes Miz a great heel.

Not since that Texas truck accident lawyer known as JBL has a heel reign been this fun. I mean, sure, Randy Orton has done the heel thing, as has Triple H, but their of them are funny while also being genuine heels.

The only downside is that his reign shows just how much WWE booking has changed since Piper was in his prime. Back then, the average Hulk Hogan title reign lasted years without interruption. These days, the titles change hands several times a year.

Former Real World: Back To New York star turned WWE superstar (thanks perhaps to some hgh supplement along the way?) The Miz cashed in his Money In the Bank option on Raw last weekend, attacking Randy Orton after an intense victory over Wade Barrett to take advantage of Orton’s injured knee and came away with a three-minute win over Orton.

The victory puts a nice cap on Miz’s WWE rise to fame, and if he manages to retain the title for a while, it’ll be even better. Initially starting out as a comedy act in WWE’s version of ECW, Miz has slowly shed the silliness to create an intense in-ring heel persona that has seen him improve both his mic-work and his ring work.

Will WWE give him a real push with his title reign and following it, or will they Jack Swagger him, sending him back to the mid-card after a token title run? Let’s hope The Miz’s reign truly is… AWESOME!

In becoming Raw general manager, Bret Hart announced he was vacating the US Title he won off The Miz last week and that Miz would face top contender R-Truth to determine the new champ. R-Truth, coming off a nice win over Ted DiBiase Jr. at the Over the Top PPV, put on a show and was awarded the title.

This win sets up a natural feud over the US title between R-Truth and the Miz, which ought to make for more good matches, if this title match was any indicator. They displayed good in-ring chemistry and told a good tale from a ring psychology standpoint without over-relying on high-spots.

The Miz, who has obviously been laying off the weight loss diet supplements since his Real World New Orleans days, has matured into a solid heel, though he hasn’t yet rid himself of that youthful, Real World look.

Bret Hart will get a chance to once again wear WWE gold next week on Raw; he will be facing current US champ, The Miz. My tv stands are still shaking from shock and surprise.

Hart famously left WWE around 1997 to join the competition, WCW, and exited the company angry when he felt Vince McMahon welched on a promise to allow him to leave WWE undefeated as champ. A vacated title was his preferred way to exit.

When Vinnie Mac booked Shawn Michaels to win instead, in front of a pro-Hart Montreal audience, the incident became known as the Montreal Screw-Job. The event festered well over a decade and was only healed 12 years later, in 2009, when McMahon successfully negotiated to bring Bret back in a limited role, in a storyline that involved him getting retribution on McMahon for perceived wrongs.

It made for good TV and good ratings; but now Hart has apparently earned a title shot by being a good company man in his return to WWE. While it’s unlikely a title change will occur, it’s definitely decent of Hart to willingly give “the rub” to a young turk like The Miz. Classy move, Bret!

I remember “The Miz” from his days as a Real World star on MTV. The guy was tall but scrawny back then, and when he came into the WWE with his Miz gimmick intact, I was skeptical. But as a comedy character, he’s grown on me.

While it’ll be a while before The Miz has the mic skills to go toe-to-toe with John Cena, I do find his promos somewhat entertaining these days, though he’s taken far less seriously than a life insurance quote.

Still, his new gimmick of coming out every week to call out John Cena, only to be ignored and have The Miz claim a victory over him is a smart, nicely-thought-out gimmick that hopefully WWE has the patience to play out for a nice long while before bringing on the inevitable payoff of having Cena appear and destroy him. The longer it takes to get to that moment, the better.

The six-person diva tag match proved ECW is more in need of cat supplies than it is in need of Mike Adamle’s incompetent announcing services, but the real mystery surrounding ECW last night was why The Miz is suddenly getting such a strong push from the Fed.

C.M. Punk, the golden boy of the ECW promotion since its WWE-powered relaunch, and since WrestleMania, the new Mr. Money In the Bank, punked out to The Miz in an almost meaningless, six-minute match to open, rather than close, the broadcast.

The former Real World reality star, Miz’s star has been on the rise a lot lately… but at Punk’s expense? That rooster just don’t crow!

Welcome back, all!

These are my reactions to what used to be one of the WWE’s more enjoyable gimmick PPV’s. I’m speaking, of course, about Survivor Series. I love the old-style Survivor Series matches, but as time has gone on the company has drifted away from traditional five vs. five elimination matches and turned it increasingly into a generic PPV. I think there was at least one year where they had no traditional five-on-five match at all.

Well, we’ll see how tonight goes soon enough.

I’m doing this PPV a bit differently than I handled last month’s PPV, Cyber Sunday. Instead of trying to blog about each match as I watch it, I’m just doing this all after the fact. So it’s not so much live thoughts as reflections. Ready? OK.

Match 1: C.M. Punk vs. John Morrison vs. The Miz for the ECW Title

Well, ECW gets the first match of the night. That’s not as bad as being buried in the first hour, I guess. Nice to see Miz involved in the title picture; he gave good match last month with some moves that surprised me at his ring ability, when given his shot at Cyber Sunday.

The whole “Miz and Morrison team up against Punk” concept is such a retread, but they broke with it somewhat early by having Miz play the opportunist card against Morrison. Of course, the real reason he was in the match was to have someone for Punk to pin while building up the feud between Punk and Morrison for that big, ultimate showdown at WrestleMania next April.

Punk pinning Miz keeps Morrison looking like a bigger threat, though that’s kind of like watching a fire from behind fire glass: there’s not a lot of danger to it.

Again, I was impressed by Miz’s work ethic in-ring. He hit some nice high-flying moves that frankly I never thought he was capable of until recently. Seems like the kid’s really trying to make the most of his opportunity.

WINNER: C.M. Punk retains the ECW title
RATING: 7.6 (out of 10)

Publish!