The Miz And his love story with the Intercontinental Championship 

The Miz is extremely proud of being the WWE Intercontinental Champion and will not hesitate to tell you about it.

For decades, it was seen as "the worker's title", held by the true work-horses of the WWE, from Rick Rude, Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig. It's also been used as the "experimental title" to push new acts and odd characters. The Honky Tonk Man and Goldust being great examples.

Enter The Miz. Winning the Championship for the first time in 2012 at Raw 1000. Since then, he's had 8 title reigns, just one shy of Chris Jericho's record. He's also less than 70 days from being the person to hold the title for the longest time. has been The Miz' go-to bragging point on Raw these days. Claiming it will make him better than names like Edge, Chris Jericho, and record holder Pedro Morales. But that's where the sadness of this love story comes.

The Miz has to beg for a title defense on the biggest show of the year.

No one denies The Miz has a great body of work and has grown immensely since his incredible "worked-shoot" promo on the August 23 edition of Talking Smack, making him one of the most respected figures in WWE after years of being seen as a joke because of his time in reality TV and a poor WWE Championship run. When he mentions these names and how he'll be superior to them, that's when you can start to see the flaws. The first and biggest one being that record Pedro Morales holds for longest time as Champion. 619 days total as Champion between 2 reigns. The first at 194 days, the second at 425 days. Meanwhile Miz is at 8 reigns. His longest being 188 days. Sure, back in those days long title reigns were common. But that's not the only issue.

Miz has also mentioned Edge and Chris Jericho. Which presents another flaw. Probably a greater one. Notable title defenses. When one looks at a Champion's run, the big question is "what have they done with the title?" Chris Jericho's 9 title reigns may have all been very short, but for the most part, they were notable. From his feud with Chyna with them as "co-Champions". An incredible Ladder Match at the 2000 Royal Rumble against Chris Benoit. As well as a stellar CMLL inspired feud with Rey Mysterio in 2009. Chris Jericho had great highlights as Champion. In contrast, at 5 reigns, the best Edge can say he did was a great Ladder Match against Christian at Unforgiven 2001 and that's it.

When one looks at the Miz and his 8 Championship reigns, what big matches can one remember involving him defending that title? Just one, versus Dolph Ziggler at No Mercy 2016, Title vs Career. It was the only time a match involving The Miz as Champion could be considered a major Pay-Per-View match. The story was able to successfully piggy-back off the infamous 'Talking Smack' promo. Given WWE decided to open that event with it's originally intended main event match of AJ Styles vs John Cena vs Dean Ambrose, this should've closed out the event. But it didn't. It's the story of Miz and the Intercontinental Championship he loves so much. He may love it very dearly but WWE over the past 6 years has shown they really have no interest in capitalizing on said love and just want him to cut nice promos. They would have him lose 3 times in 2 weeks on his 'Road To Wrestlemania' than truly push him as an All-Time Great Champion.

Roman Reigns in the few weeks he held the belt did, in fact, do more than Miz was mostly allowed to do with constant title defenses and notable matches. Miz himself has shown to be able to do the same but WWE does not book him that way. Since that big match with Dolph Ziggler, 2 years ago his most notable work was a dead-end feud with Dean Ambrose that lasted months trading wins. It only had 2 Pay-Per-View outings in it's 6 and half month length. It's most notable moment being Dean defeating Miz at the very start for the title to avenge his then girlfriend-now wife Renee Young.

Is The Miz a bad Champion? No. A man with great promo skills who has elevated his game to the point that he can wrestle on par with ring greats like AJ Styles, Seth Rollins and Finn Balor with no problem. But it's hard to sell him as the greatest Intercontinental Champion when in fact, he's never been truly allowed to be that great.

There is some positives. Its so long into his success story but he may finally get that great Wrestlemania program for his title. The match seems to loom for him in the form of a Triple Threat title defense against Seth Rollins and Finn Balor. By all means should be happy that finally, he gets a mayor program against Raw's two 'Iron Men' to showcase his love of WWE's most remembered secondary Championship at Wrestlemania.