In the era of the “cool heel”, where everyone seems to want to gravitate to the bad guys in WWE and support the villains, it’s become difficult to make a crowd truly dislike you. Often times, villains who perform well at their role organically become fan favorites , as we’ve seen with Kevin Owens, The New Day, and Seth Rollins.
In 2016, it takes something rather special to not only have fans boo you, but to have them also be interested and invested in seeing you get what they believe you have coming, and there’s very few on the roster currently that I’d say have mastered that ability. Which is one reason it’s so disappointing to see where The Miz has ended up today.
Now, since I realize that some fans either may have not been watching during Miz’s highest point, or recent perception may have forced that memory from the minds of the WWE Universe, it’s important to remember where Miz has been. A time before the most important thing Miz was doing was being interrupted by seventeen different people on a pointless talk show. When The Miz began his ascent to the top of the mountain, the WWE Universe never truly knew how to take him. Miz won the Tag Team Championships on multiple occasions, but most fans were of the belief that Miz was simply riding the coattails of The Big Show, or expected future star John Morrison.
Even when Miz was victorious in the Money in the Bank ladder match, most believed that The Miz was destined to become the first man to win the prestigious briefcase and fail to win the Championship. However, The Miz shocked the world on November 22nd, 2010 when he cashed in on a vulnerable Randy Orton and captured the WWE Championship.
Fans were upset when Miz won, but outraged when Orton failed to regain the Championship after multiple attempts. Now, I was there live, in the building at Royal Rumble 2011, and can honestly say I was 1 of approximately 6 people cheering for The Miz that night.
More importantly, the crowd wasn’t apathetic towards Miz, nor were they disinterested in the match. That building vehemently disliked The Miz, which means only one thing: everything The Miz was doing was working.
When it became apparent that The Miz would be taking on John Cena at WrestleMania 27, absolutely everyone assumed that Cena would be ending the Championship reign of The Miz, and that The Miz would prove to simply be a transitional Champion, preventing WWE from needing to put Cena and Orton in the ring together. However, WWE decided at that point that The Miz was worthy of not only a WWE Championship reign, but a victory over John Cena, the face and leader of the WWE , in the main event of the biggest WWE event of the year.
Let’s take time to recognize that fact. Some people, such as CM Punk, have said that The Miz was not a successful Champion or even a quality villain, but WWE undoubtedly recognized that at this time, The Miz was the most hated Superstar on the roster.
Now, I know that the Attitude Era changed the perception of what a heel could be, but let’s remember that not every antagonist on WWE needs to be “The Cool Guy”. You need characters that the audience actively dislikes, because when they dislike someone enough, they will pay money to see that person get beaten up. At this point in time, WWE had that person in The Miz.
So eventually, The Miz would fall to John Cena and lose the WWE Championship. This began a downward spiral for The Miz, as after failing to recapture the gold, he would enter into an expected but appropriate feud with his accomplice in crime, Alex Riley. After that, besides being a constant punching bag for John Cena and The Rock as those two built towards their match at WrestleMania, The Miz was a man without a true purpose. Also during this time, WWE began to explore the possibility of placing The Miz in movies, due to his extensive media skills and work on television.
However, the most successful movies include stars that people actually like, so WWE decided to transition The Miz into a fan favorite. While this change was a benefit in terms of exposure for The Miz, giving him more opportunities outside of the ring, it was a death knell for his character inside the ring. This cocky, arrogant “must-see” Superstar became an uninteresting, vanilla “Good Guy”, and fans stopped caring almost immediately. WWE tried to force him on everyone by giving him the Intercontinental Championship, but all this did was make challengers such as Cesaro and Bad News Barrett more popular as fans rebelled against this new Miz.
The biggest problem with all of this is that WWE took a character that people had interest in, even if it was just to see him lose, and they removed every characteristic that made them care, leaving a generic babyface character in their wake. Certainly not a recipe for good business.
Since that time, WWE has returned Miz to his heel persona, as the actor who believes he’s bigger and more important than he truly is. And while, yes, that character will always draw a negative reaction, it’s nothing compared to the levels of hatred Miz was able to earn years past.
He’s been brought back to the middle of the pack, consistently shown as a character who stands no real chance once the bell rings. Unfortunately, this watering down of Miz’s character has forced many to tune out when he shows up onscreen, which may have prevented many from realizing the truth that’s been rediscovered during his most recent run as a third wheel to Chris Jericho and AJ Styles; Miz is capable of having a really good match.
This week, Miz had matches with both Styles and Jericho, and both matches were high quality, and told a great story. Make no mistake, that isn’t just Jericho and/or Styles making that match, it takes two to have a great match, and Miz deserves credit for elevating his game to match those two global superstars. Miz isn’t the focus of the ultimate storyline, as we build to Jericho/Styles, but the opportunity to get in the ring for 15 minutes with each of them has showcased the skills many may have forgotten (or simply ignored) that Miz possesses, and it’s hard to argue that The Miz may be the biggest beneficiary of the current program. Jericho and Styles will both remain high-profile names after this story concludes, but perhaps the in-ring work shown over the past two weeks with guys most would have said were out of his league will force WWE to rethink the current role they’ve shackled Miz with, and he’ll be able to rediscover a bit of the edge that made him a success.