What’s the story?
Dave Meltzer has reported the reason why WWE has seemingly forgotten the red hot feud between Dean Ambrose and The Miz for the Intercontinental Title, explaining that it is due to both Ambrose and The Miz’s inclusion in the Royal Rumble match and the Elimination Chamber main event.
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In case you didn’t know...
On the January 3rd episode of SmackDown Live, Dean Ambrose beat The Miz to establish himself as the new Intercontinental Champion, but the feud between the two started far earlier than that. During an interview after his successful title defence against Apollo Crews in December, The Miz gave an interview with Renee Young who asked if his ‘obsession with Dean Ambrose’ cost him a chance of being the number one contender for the WWE World Championship.
The Miz (real name Mike Mizanin) retorted sarcastically, outing Young and Ambrose’s real life relationship by saying “You’re the one sleeping with him!” This prompted the usually calm Renee to slap The Miz, marking the first time she has been involved in an angle on WWE programming. This then prompted Maryse (real life wife of The Miz) to slap Renee in retaliation the next week.
Things escalated with Ambrose attacking The Miz backstage, and this is when the angle inexplicably stopped. Fans were perplexed, as the angle was receiving widespread praise from fans for blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
The heart of the matter
Dave Meltzer has reported that WWE creative has pulled the angle due to The Miz and Dean Ambrose both being involved in the Royal Rumble match and the main event at the forthcoming Elimination Chamber Pay Per View, forcing them to sideline the Intercontinental Championship storyline.
Meltzer has also stated that it is unlikely that the angle is going to be revisited, as WWE creative seem keen to move away from it entirely.
What next?
Fans and critics alike continue to speculate that there could potentially be a match at Wrestlemania for the foursome to tie up any loose ends left by the storyline, but this is pure conjecture. It could potentially even be revisited after Orlando unless another a storyline presents itself. However, these are just speculations as of now. WWE has moved away from the storyline entirely.
Sportskeeda’s take
It is somewhat of a shame that this feud, which was garnering so much praise, has now seemingly been canned without a second thought. Though understandable that both men would take part in the Royal Rumble match, neither offered anything and neither were pivotal to the over-arching story of the Rumble. Perhaps it would have been better to put them in a match there? The feud can be revisited after Elimination Chamber is done and dusted.
However, whatever the final decision is from WWE, we as fans would love to see a proper culmination to all of this as the feud itself was perfectly built!
