WWE Raw Became The Better Show When The Miz Joined
By Josh Raibick
In the past 16 months since the WWE Draft, my feelings on which brand between Raw and SmackDown Live was the better watch has changed. What has been consistent is whichever brand I enjoyed more at the time had The Miz.
It is difficult to think of a superstar that has had more of an impact in WWE since the brand split than The Miz. The A-Lister has cut promos that have blurred the line between scripted and reality on Daniel Bryan and John Cena, in addition to having multiple Intercontinental Championship reigns.
In many fans’ opinions, SmackDown was better than Raw right out of the gate after the draft. It was difficult at first to pinpoint on why Tuesday nights felt more special than Monday nights because Miz was not in the WWE Championship picture, and as fans we tend to give the superstars in the WWE or Universal Championship picture either all of the credit or all of the blame.
A while ago, a certain Straight Edged superstar told fans that power is just having a microphone in your hands and having your voice heard, and in the case of The Miz that was true. Week after week, promo after promo, The Miz not only made himself more credible, but he made the blue brand itself more credible.
After an extremely entertaining build to WrestleMania, The Miz and Maryse would put Cena and Nikki Bella over in Orlando. It was shortly after WrestleMania that it was time for The Miz to move to the flagship show of WWE, Raw.
Now I must admit that Dean Ambrose also made a big move to Raw at this time, and “The Lunatic Fringe” was the WWE Champion on SmackDown following the brand split. On Raw, Ambrose gave WWE Creative the option to build storylines around burying the hatchet with Rollins, and reuniting The Shield.
That said, as an individual The Miz brought something to Raw that SmackDown had for almost a year prior, and that is a mid-card superstar performing at a main event level. Each week during MizTV, The Miz would deliver heel promos to perfection.
What makes a great heel promo? It is getting heat from the crowd, while indirectly getting the opposing superstar over. The Miz does such a great job of summarizing other superstars that by the time they interrupt the A-Lister, the audience is already drawn in.
The depth The Miz adds to any show is important, especially to Monday nights which has an extra hour of programming to fill compared to it’s Tuesday night counterpart. As fans we have to remember that WWE is producing a weekly television show and the “E” in WWE is just as important as the second “W”.
Without superstars like The Miz, who enhance the talent around him on the microphone, fans would not care about the “big end of the month showdown”. While The Miz might not be the Intercontinental Champion anymore, he was able to raise the prestige of a championship that has not felt relevant in over a decade.
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The Miz right now should be compared to a professional athlete who has outperformed his contract, was originally signed for a bargain, and is a big part of his team’s future plans. Raw has a main event talent who has been wrestling on the mid-card, but now it is time for The Miz to receive his promotion to the main event.