Last week on RAW, The Miz set out to make his name as a solo wrestler on the program by calling out John Cena. From both a kayfabed character standpoint and from a storyline standpoint, this is a very, very ballsy move. Kayfabe, of course we know the perils of an unestablished guy calling out the biggest star in the company. Out-of-character is what I'm mainly interested, given how delicate the 'E needs to tread so that they don't ruin Miz in the process.
Last week was a great start. Miz called out an obviously injured Cena, who was not known to have been in the arena until his surprise appearance at the end of the Show/Batista match. He challenged Cena to a match and had the truck even play Cena's music in preparation for him to come out, which he didn't. It made Miz the heel of the night when he claimed to have a 1-0 advantage over Cena.
Without Cena being involved in this pseudo-feud, Miz has gotten over huge in its initial stages. However, the WWE must tread lightly in the coming weeks so as not to totally drop this angle or end up having Miz get crushed by Cena in an instant blowoff that if it does happen could happen as early as tonight. If done correctly, the WWE could have a months-long program on their hands that establishes Miz as a true main event heel and allows him to retain his heat even after Cena defeats him cleanly in the blowoff match. Several things have to happen for that scenario to play out though.
First thing's first, Miz has to be allowed to accumulate heat on Cena over the next few months. Even if it's superficial and Cena's attention is more focused on people like Big Show and Randy Orton, they have to allow Miz to keep playing up the angle that Cena is ducking him and that he continually has an advantage over him.
Second, Miz should always be on the periphery of Cena's stories. Even if Cena is feuding with Show et al., Miz has to become at the very least a temporary heel ally to the guy Cena is feuding with.
Third, whenever Cena and Miz are in the same match, Cena cannot go over Miz cleanly until they're ready to finish the feud. That means in tag matches, Cena can't be pinning Miz for the fall. In singles matches, if Cena wins, it's by DQ, or Miz wins via dubious means.
Finally, and most importantly, Miz has to be protected. No matches against superheavyweights. No matches against Triple H. If he's put in a match where a clean fall has to take place, it needs to be against opponents that he's clearly above so he can win. If he has to lose, it has to be because his cheating backfires, or it's because he loses by DQ.
This may seem like a tall order for a guy who just got out of the tag ranks, but the live crowd responded to him well a week ago, and there's no reason to believe it won't continue to. He was very over as a heel as part of the Mizorrison team, and I fully believe that he was as big a part of that, if not bigger than John Morrison was.
Miz also has been very solid in his solo matches so far this year. Morrison has been touted as the breakout singles star, but Miz and Primo had the far better singles match than Morrison and Carlito did in the build to WrestleMania. Miz was also great in the three way with Morrison and CM Punk for entry into Money in the Bank and in a WWE Draft Night match against Kofi Kingston that ended in DQ. He has all the tools to be a solid main event heel, so I don't really have any doubts that he should get the push outlined above.
Now, if I were booking tonight's RAW, I'd have Miz bait Cena again. This time, Cena comes out mid-promo and tells Miz that despite him being banged up from Backlash, he'll take out Miz and shut him up. Cue the Big Show coming out from the back and destroying Cena before he makes it to the ring. Show rolls Cena into the ring, and Miz hits his finisher on him for the 1-2-3. Miz can then proclaim that he's now 2-0 against Cena, while the announcers play up Big Show's brutal attack.
This does two things. One, it furthers Miz's heel push without generally hurting Cena, and two, it shifts Cena's focus from Miz back to Big Show for the time being. In the rest of the time before Judgement Day, Miz stays in the periphery, although he can keep bringing up his "wins" over Cena. Miz doesn't need to get involved with the Show/Cena feud at Judgement Day, which should end in a schmozzy finish to continue the feud until the ECW-themed PPV (whatever it's going to be called).
Meanwhile, Miz is inserted into, and wins, semi-high profile feuds against names like maybe Kofi Kingston, MVP or even Shawn Michaels. This way, Miz has some momentum going forward and he can hang his hat on a few good wins.
However at One Night Stand/Night of Extreme/(insert hardcore-sounding PPV name here), Miz HAS to be involved in the finish of the Show/Cena match to set up a Miz/Cena PPV match at Great American Bash. I don't think you can afford to drag this feud out longer than that, and I think that GAB is a good enough PPV that you can have this match be a sub-main or even main event.
Of course, Cena would go over clean here, but by this time, Miz would have established himself as a wrestler capable of hanging with a guy like Cena. Afterwards, you hammer the point home by having Miz capture the United States Championship at either Night of Champions or SummerSlam (probably SummerSlam, since NoC could be before GAB on the PPV schedule... too many damn PPVs!) and go onto hold it for a long time, defeating quality opponents on the way before dropping the belt at, say, the Rumble against Evan Bourne for example.
While I don't think that it will play out exactly like I think it should, I do think the WWE has big things planned for The Miz. While my optimism is there, it is guarded, and hopefully, I don't get let down by them blowing off what could be a very good and elevating feud super early. The WWE has gotten a lot better at this over the years, but there's enough anecdotal evidence to say that they might just drop it. That scares me.
However, I'd rather be optimistic, because when Miz says he's a future World Champion in character, I believe it from a realistic standpoint. He's got all the tools, and if this feud is played out right, it'll be his launching pad.
BE JEALOUS!
