This was a guest spot written by Gary Mehaffy on blown angles. Pretty good read, but this one section really hits home re: last night with Miz/Cena. After the jump, the passage that describes it:
After the jump...
Miz/Cena (2009)
A good while ago in a column, I wrote how I felt Miz had potential to be a truly annoying top level heel. I got emails agreeing with me, but I got more disagreeing with me and detailing how John Morrison was much better. If you see what I wrote at the time, I never once tried to say that Miz was a better in ring competitor than Morrison, far from it (how could I?) – but what I did say was that Miz had all the attributes needed to succeed. All he needed was, when they split, a sustained push.
Then the strangest thing happened. They split on the WWE draft show and Miz ended being drafted to Raw. Step 1 in the plan, I thought. The he began grandstanding about facing Cena (a la Jericho & Goldberg in WCW). Step 2. This is great, I thought.
And the crowd caught on to it and wanted to see Cena beat Miz up. Step 3. Game, set and match Miz. Or not quite……
After claiming several (bogus) victories over John Cena they finally squared off at The Great Amer….sorry, The Bash. All things considered, Miz was reckoned to be the winner of the match (somehow) or at least lose it after looking strong and come back after Cena. But no, Miz was squashed like no other. There was no mistaking who was the main eventer (Cena) and who was the wannabe (Miz).
WHAT A WASTE VINCE! CAN YOU SEE THIS CLEARLY ENOUGH?
Why when someone starts to connect with the masses would you cut him off at the knees? Why when it looks like we could get a fresh face at the top of the card is he sent packing? Why give us the same old, same old over and over? Why not plan for the future? Why?
When no one gets behind any of your wrestlers don’t blame them, blame the useless booking they’ve faced!
To make it worse, over the weeks since The Bash, Miz has been on Cena’s case several more times, and with what result? Getting treated like the red headed step child. Even on this week’s Raw, with a stipulation that made it blindingly obvious that Miz would win due (probably) to Orton’s interference, as he was at ringside, what happens? He loses, with all of the heels standing watching him! Miz is therefore banned from Raw, the Staples Centre and SummerFest. WHAT?
If this was to show how everyone on Raw hated Miz then it would make sense, but it wasn’t. All it did was lead to a Piven/Dr. Ken angle with Cena.
I’m hoping that Miz ends up feuding with Morrison on SmackDown but what message does it send to the rest of the roster? Work hard, develop a character that connects with the audience and for what reason? None. Because the main eventers that have been seemingly main eventing since 1976 will make sure that they make the money while you scrimp and save. Yea, the WWE really is one big happy family.
I don’t know, maybe all of the wasted angles were mistakes. Or maybe egos dictated that things happen a certain way.
Vince, when your buy rates are down and you wonder why, don’t look too far. When you (or heaven help us, HHH or Stephanie) give the roster another pep talk about creating an opportunity and talking to creative, forget it. When you wonder why audiences generally don’t give new comers a chance, don’t.
As I said above, the more things change the more they stay the same. And people say TNA rely on recycled WWE talent……….
Rant over.
This is the idea that I point to when people say that the WWE is fine because it's making money. There was a time when the WWE made a lot more money and had a lot more people watching. Of course, wrestling is cyclical, but there could have been places where hubris and stagnation have stunted guys who could have been stars to stem the tide.
Miz is one of those guys. Notice that I say "is" and not "was". I'm not one of hte sky is falling guys, well, at least not anymore I'm not. Over the years, even if I wasn't watching the product, I was following it and seeing guys that Triple H mowed down in his path to jamming himself down everyone's throats as a Hogan/Rock/Austin level superstar get over and become big names, over names, moneymaking names. Rob Van Dam, Booker T and most recently, Chris Jericho recovered to become bigtime players in the wrestling world. Miz isn't a lost cause, but he needs rehab. He needs to get away from RAW and from Cena and get into a good midcard program where he can credibly throw his weight around and build himself back up.
Still, the opportunity was there, and the WWE squandered it. I was admittedly hard on Cena last night, and at this point, who knows if he's becoming Triple H or if this is just another case of Creative catering to kids and ignoring the demographics that the WWE still prides itself on getting, that being males aged 18-34. Males of that age only have so much disposable income and so much free time to devote, and there are a lot of things out there for the target demographic to latch onto. There's baseball, MMA, muscle cars, football (which directly competes with RAW for four months out of the year, mind you), porn, drinking and hanging out, other TV shows... I mean there are six hours of original WWE programming a week, and two of them on prime time on Monday on the highest-rated cable network. That's more than enough time to cater to all the demographics that the WWE wants to bring in.
I'm not advocating that Cena jobs to everyone and everything that moves. I've also come off the Cena haterade from last night, and while I'm still pissed at the circumstances, hey, Cena is entertaining, he's a good wrestler and a good sport. Still, if Cena were to job 3 times out of 15 PPV appearances a year, then he's still winning enough times to warrant his spot as a perpetual contender to the WWE or World Championship. That's a fact. Those three losses then become so important for the guy scoring them. Furthermore, any losses that Cena suffers on free TV become so important, even if they're dubious, which is something that Miz would have benefitted from. Miz is the kind of character who will scrimp and sneak and skulk and take every advantage he could, no matter how dubious and claim that he did it all by himself. He has the charisma to back it up, and he truly has the sort of character that would make a crowd want to scream for his blood.
So why not play to that and build up a feud where Miz keeps getting cheapies on Cena until Summer
People don't lose charisma unless they're so weak-minded as to turtle up at adversity. Hopefully, Miz isn't one of those people and can rebound, but at the same time, it also sucks that, as Mehaffy is saying, that his hard work and his legit connection with the crowd is getting him jobs, carrying bags for a Diva with a worse W/L than him and a ticket off RAW and onto one of the "lesser" shows.
It is frustrating being a wrestling fan sometimes, especially one that doesn't "turn the brain off" when watching and actually views with a critical eye. Be thankful that there are really cool alternatives out there if you live in the Northeast, and that you can at least get the Chikara or ROH experience through DVD and Youtube.
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