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Understand this, I am not saying that I am a diehard Miz fan; I just think that WWE has screwed up once again and it will ruin this kid’s career before it even gets started.
When the Miz first got some face time, he was hosting the 2006 Diva search and he became infamous for screwing up his lines on one show. He was so remembered that DX mocked him the following week on Raw when Shawn Michaels could not remember his lines. Once the Diva search was over, Miz was placed in competition against Tatanka, who was corking on a gimmick where he would be blaming the referees for his poor record and eventually turned heel. That gimmick seems to be on a slow boil, but back to the point. The Miz is not the best wrestler, and he is not being asked to be. He has been placed in matches with guys who themselves can go and can carry Miz until Miz hits his finisher and wins the match. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to get over as a face if you are booked against guys as popular as Scotty, Matt Hardy & Funaki.
While Miz and his “Hoo-Rah†have not really endeared Mizanin to the fans, his problems, though not completely fixable, could be improved if not for the poor Smackdown roster.
Booking Miz against low level talent, except for Matt (so I don’t get any letters about Matt’s feud against Helms), is a good idea, but there are no low level heels on Smackdown. In fact, there are no low level heels anywhere on WWE rosters. Now if he was on ECW, Miz would get to wrestle guys like Shannon Moore, Danny Doring or CW Anderson, but who wants to see that. Maybe if the WWE would use some OWV talent (have I said this once?) to fill out the SD roster and create some low level heels for Miz to get over on, then maybe the fans would take to him if they had someone that they hated more.
Maybe the problem is JBL. If the heel commentator would actually talk as if he disliked this man…wait a minute, he does. Never mind. JBL is confused because he also hates Sylvan, but that’s another commentary for another day. JBL is the only one of the two who is calling the Miz’s matches honestly. He is not very good in the ring (not yet), and he is being carried by the bottom of the WWE roster (except for Matt Hardy) and “Hoo-Rah†is annoying, so JBL might genuinely dislike Miz, and since JBL is the heel commentator, I have no problem with his match calls.
Maybe if Miz was an annoying heel that thought that he was a face and he actually was trying to get the fans to hate him by beating faces and by trying to shove “Hoo-Rah†and his reality show resume down their throats then…wait a minute, that is what he is doing to get face pops. Never mind.
WWE often releases wrestlers and uses the excuse that creative has nothing for the wrestler. Well, it seems to me that WWE creative has already hit the wall with Miz and he is just getting started. There is nothing that can be done to put the brakes on this train wreck and it will only get worse. If WWE decides to elevate Miz into some true competition against mid-card heels like Sylvan or Sylvester Terkay, then it would be inconceivable that Miz would win when WWE is trying to establish these men as well. Miz is in bad shape and it will only get worse.
There is no way that the Miz will get over as a face, and his current shtick will only make him hated in the eyes of the fans. But if he were to try to be a heel, he would just be pathetic.
Send comments, complaints or questions to me @ ericej@netzero.net
Eric E. Jenkins is an author who has written a semi-biographical book covering the last 20 years in professional wrestling through the eyes of a fan entitled “Reflections of a Professional wrestling Fan: My 30 Years ‘In’ the Businessâ€ÂÂÂ. He is currently writing “Dead Too Soonâ€ÂÂÂ, a book chronicling the careers of and paying tribute to many of the wrestling stars who passed away very young.
