The Miz is an incredibly polarizing figure in the WWE Universe. Wait, no, that’s not right. He is universally hated by WWE, polar bears? Let me start over.
You probably hate Mike “The Miz” Mizanin, and you’re not alone. Dude called himself a future WWE wrestler back when he was first introduced into America’s collective sludge-mind on a weak season of MTV’s The Real World. He fancied himself some sort of second strudeling of The Rock. He was even kinda racist, but that was mostly because he was just a young, sheltered dude who had never really been exposed to anything except pro wrestling.
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So I actually think he came off pretty well in a sorta-redemption story by the end of his New York City getaway. He got called out by his castmates and instead of lashing back, he listened to them. That gets big praise in my book, but “big praise” for a reality tv star is the equivalent of “not actively hating” anyone who isn’t from the 10th season of a show that is basically a farm league for MTV’s The Challenge these days.
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A lot of people say a lot of things about The Miz, but you can’t take away his dedication. He wanted to be a pro wrestler so he did everything he possibly could to become one. Not only did he become one, training in multiple territories, but he made it to WWE. He won tag titles and second tier titles and top belts and headlined WrestleMania. Oh, yeah, he beat Big Match John Cena in that one to retain the top most belt in the world. He may or may not have married a pretty lady because of all this, too.
A mediocre wrestler?
The most common accusation lobbed at Mike is that he can’t wrestle. This is incredibly short-sighted because of course, he can wrestle. He is literally paid money to do it, has held his job for a decade, and, as he likes to mention whenever he gets the chance, has never called in sick.
Wrestling has many different styles, and sometimes “style” can be confused with “level of ability.” Let’s cut that out. Anything that involves a form of art or expression has endless styles. In wrestling, you have Technical, Strong, Classic, High-Flying, Comedic, High Spot...the list goes on. But within each of those categories, you can have upwards of 30 (30 is the highest known number in every culture) different subsets of style that contribute to the myriad of combinations. That’s like multiplying 30 by 30, no one knows what the answer is.
Ability is easier: you either have the ability to wrestle professionally or not. Easy as 1 + pie. The Miz has the ability, whether you like his style or not. Full disclosure, of course, I find his wrestling style boring, but i haven’t questioned his ability in half a decade, at least. He wrestles a safe, WWE 2K create-a-wrestler default setting skillset.
Very little flash, lots of “whatever” and “sure, I guess’s. But as we all know it’s not just the moves inside the ring that can make a wrestler great. There’s a lot more that can elevate someone to must-see status.
The best at being bad
I’m not gonna name names, but it’s common knowledge that some of the most famous wrestlers of all time weren’t actually all that exciting at physical wrestling. Some of their moves were slow and boring, like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Some were goofy and ham-fisted, like The Rock. Some were just plain insulting to our intelligence, like Hulk Hogan.
The Miz is a little of all of those things, which almost makes it worse. He doesn’t even have a good finishing move. But, he’s actually the best out of everybody in the entire WWE Universe at something. I mean besides being the best wrestler from Parma, Ohio. Is that even a real place?
No, he’s the best as making you hate him. Emoting real emotes and making you do the same. He’s smug, narcissistic, whiney, bratty, dumb, creepy, kind of a sociopath, The dude doesn’t even have a good t-shirt in the WWE Shop Zone!
He’s the best heel working today. He is 100% the bad guy. And he’s so good at it that I bet a lot of you missed the transition. I hate him more now just writing this. Oh, crap, I forgot not to name names.
There are are other heels currently doing the lord’s dirty work but not like Mizzy Smelliot. Kevin Owens is one of the best on the mic, but he’s almost too good. The fans love him. Jericho is doing his best heel work in decades by being the hip/cool 40 something that still goes to Varsity Blues keggers and tries to get his lame-as-hell catchphrases over with kids who don’t remember that during a WCW broadcast when he listed 1,004 holds he could execute.
Roman Reigns might be the only legitimately hated guy in the company, but that’s not by design and it’s not his fault. My friend JC will kill me for this but even Bray Wyatt can’t hit Boss Level Heel because he’s too unfocused and frankly, too lovable.
There’s such a thing as being too good at your job in WWE. If you’re so good at being the bad guy that people start to actually respect you then you’ve gone too far. Nobody respects Mike and that’s where he leaves everyone else in the dust.
Mizzy Stradlin doesn’t fall prey to those pesky fans secretly liking him in spite of his horrible presence and demeanor. He recently got brutally real with WWE’s most universally loved former pro wrestler, Daniel Bryan, last week on Talking Smack. He ripped the heart out of the former WWE Champion like i do to the sleeves of my shirts. I don’t know where that’s going, if it goes anywhere, but it was mean-spirited, born of self-loathing, misguided, and it felt real. I think he really found his acting chops on the set of The Marine 4: Still Marining.
Pay attention to The Miz
This isn’t all about The Miz, though. It’s about how we, as fans, need to pay attention to the subtle work that some of these performers do that largely goes unnoticed or underappreciated. Remember a couple years ago when Damien Sandow was Miz’s stunt double? Mimicking his every move, even falls, to pure hilarity. Of course Mizdow nailed the whole thing and got a swell of fan support for making one of the dumbest ideas in recent history work, but it was actually Miz who was integral to the entire angle.
He’s like some sort of human light refractor that bounces hate off of himself, turning it into insta-love for everyone around him. He’s so good at his job he can control light, or space, or speed, or emotion, or space light or emotional speed or something. It’s literal magic. He’s Now You See Me 2 in unspectacular flesh. He’s the best pure heel and I’m worried everyone will miss it.
So don’t miss it. Pay attention to The Miz. Pay attention to the other workers tht put in that extra little something that makes watching wrestling for 30+ hours a week a little more fun. Don’t make the same miztake 80s hair metal band Cinderella made. Know what we have now. Don’t be a star, be a mark.
