The Miz Is Showing the WWE Universe How Awesome He Really Is

The Miz is the current WWE Intercontinental Champion and he’s also been one of the five best performers in WWE this year.

As we enter the final few months of 2016, did you expect somebody to make some statement back in January? Probably not. However, if you looked at the year as a whole and focused on how far The Miz has come, he really does deserve a lot of credit.

The Miz won his 5th Intercontinental Title on April 4, which was the Raw after WrestleMania. He beat the surprising WrestleMania IC Title winner, Zack Ryder, thanks to the return of The Miz’s wife Maryse. It was an unexpected title change that set Miz on his current run holding the IC Title for over 170 days. Were any of his other IC Title reigns that memorable? Not really.

Obviously, the most significant title run of his WWE career was his 160 day run as WWE Champion. That lasted 160 days longer than what most people would have guessed when he started in WWE. The fact that he main evented WrestleMania 27 and beat John Cena (thanks to The Rock) is also a major surprise from his career.

The question is, was he better in 2010/11 or is he better now? I think he’s at his best right now.

In the last few years, Miz has had a tough time finding a serious persona that worked for him. Remember his face run? That failed miserably.

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The “stunt double” angle with Damien Sandow mimicking everything he did was good for laughs, but it didn’t lead to people taking him seriously. Plus, that feud lacked the payoff that fans were looking for.

It wasn’t until this year, thanks to the help of his wife, that The Miz upped his game to another level in the ring and in terms of his character. He is performing in such a way that it would be believable if he were to win the WWE Championship again.

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Maryse’s role in the rise (or is it a resurrection?) of The Miz should not be ignored. After leaving WWE in 2011, the former two-time Divas Champion returned following WrestleMania. Instead of wrestling this time around, she is focused on being the manager of her husband The Miz. The couple is also a part of the upcoming season of Total Divas heading to E Network soon.

She’s played a pivotal role in making him come off as an obnoxious “A-List” actor that thinks he’s a bigger star than he really is while he kisses her in front of the crowd. Who isn’t going to be jealous of the guy with the really hot wife? It’s easy heat and they know it.

In terms of promos, Miz has always been really good. That’s what really helped him get over as an obnoxious heel when he was teaming with John Morrison, then later on his own and with Alex Riley as his buddy. It is fair to say that his biggest strength as a professional wrestler is his ability to talk on a microphone.

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What’s interesting about his promos is that the best promo he did wasn’t even in a ring. He delivered the promo of his career on the August 23 edition of Talking Smack when he unleashed a terrific, yet believable rant against Smackdown GM Daniel Bryan. It came after Bryan questioned Miz’s work in the ring and said he wrestled like a coward because he didn’t have a reputation as a hard hitter in the ring. Miz fired back talking about how durable he has been in his career, how much he loves being in the business and how Bryan can’t do it anymore because of injuries.

It was a heel promo that fit The Miz as a character, yet it also made people talk about how much they respect Mike Mizanin for what he has done in his career. Call it a “worked shoot” if you want. I call it a promo master at work.

The two most recent Miz IC Title defenses against Dolph Ziggler showed how much Maryse matters to his career at this point. At Backlash, during a very competitive, Maryse sprayed Ziggler in the face with a bottle of perfume (at least that’s what we think it was).

On this week’s Smackdown when Ziggler got another shot at Miz, Maryse was ejected for trying to interfere. When the referee was distracted after Miz tossed the IC Title into the ring, Miz sprayed the perfume in Ziggler’s eyes. Then hit the Skull Crushing Finale to retain his title again. It was a genius way to end the match while showing that Miz will do anything he can to retain his IC Title.

It’s hard to know where things are headed for Miz because WWE does like giving performers long title reigns (see New Day and Charlotte) and they may choose to keep the title on him so long that he breaks The Honky Tonk Man’s record of 454 days as champion. That would be a significant thing for Miz to do, which is something WWE may want to consider if they don’t want him to move to the main event level any time soon. He seems perfect in the spot he’s in, but if they do feel the need to elevate him then it’s clear that he deserves it based on his performance.

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The Miz could have rested on his laurels this year, but he chose not to do that. He’s worked his butt off to perform at an incredibly high level. The days of the guy saying “really” all the time are over. Instead, he’s just known as a long reigning Intercontinental Champion with his wife by his side and like the first word in his theme song says, he has proven to the WWE Universe that he is indeed…awesome.