Miz is doing excellent work within the context of the WWE and Meltzer's/Alvarez's inability to detach his critical mind from Reseda or Korakuen (or 20 years ago in Alvarez's case) when analysing WWE is pretty bad, if that is what is happening. Like seruously, do you judge a DG 6 man cluster on the same scale as Trauma I vs Canis Lupus or a ZSJ/Tyler Bate World of Sport throwback or a NJPW main event or Matt Riddle in some high school gym somewhere? The presentation, methods, lineage and goals of all these things are different.
The Miz isn't trying to break new ground with innovative spots and offense. The DG 6 man isn't trying to emphasize selling or the importance of the opening moments, Tramua/Lupus isn't about scientific, realistic wrestling, ZSJ/Tyler Bate aren't going to ditch the one upmanship element of the WoS style, Naito isn't going to DQ himself in the main event to hold on to the belt, the setting of Matt Riddle's match does not preclude you from recognizing his huge star potential.
And yet with The Miz, who is perhaps doing the best job on the entire WWE roster of being what the ideal "Superstar" should be, of building a heated feud with a man who has no right to be cheered or believed in, to executing his in ring performances to exactly what is needed according to storyline, to living and breathing his gimmick and building interest in his belt...after all that he's bad because Alvarez is an out of touch geek? Or because people's preconceptions are so set in stone they can't get over that to see the work this dude is putting in?
God, I sound like a Miz stan, which I definitely am not, but the dude deserves all the credit in the world for dredging the IC belt out of the fucking sewer, snapping at that opportunity as soon as it was presented to him and looking, acting and feeling like the most hungry, motivated guy on the entire roster. More than Jericho, Owens, Cena, Reigns, Rusev, all your favs, everybody. You can feel the need to be back in that main event. That's what's most exciting about The Miz. And fair play to SD for giving him a platform to do that, rather than be crushed alive by Stephanie McMahon and Hunter.
