At the end of 2014, one of the best storylines going was the relationship between the Miz and Damien Sandow, who had taken months of impersonating other wrestlers and famous people and segued into becoming the Mizs stunt double, Damien Mizdow. Miz berated his stunt double, whos mirror act became so amusing that fans couldnt help but cheer him. The storys ending was as clear as day, and for once, it was something that every fan wanted to see, predictable or not: Damien grows tired of being Mizs whipping boy, stands up to him, beats him silly and sets out on his own. Miz finally gets his comeuppance, and Sandow cashes in on his newfound popularity. Of course, none of that happened. In a shocking display of sheer stupidity, WWE managed to swerve everyone. Mizdow stood up to Miz at WrestleMania in the battle royal, finally turning on Miz and eliminating him. Damien almost won the event, but despite losing, he had taken that first huge step in declaring his independence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5yBku6MV6g But instead of setting out on his own, Mizdow battled Miz over the rights to the Miz brand, meaning that Damien was trying to own the rights to Mizs character instead of establishing his own. Mizdow then got double-crossed by Summer Rae (which led nowhere) and now he is impersonating Randy Savage as Macho Mandow and hasnt been seen on Raw or Smackdown for nearly two months. Of all the bad decisions and mistakes made this year, this one might hurt the worst, if only because this was a no-brainer of a storyline that was working, evolving naturally and was building to a logical conclusion and they screwed it up.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
