When you have a potentially raucous crowd, one of the best ways to win them over is to put a few fan favorites out there and let them tear the house down. It worked in March when Goldust and Cody Rhodes won the tag titles and the Shield and Wyatts went all-out. WWE delivered again Monday night with Cesaro and the Miz battling Dolph Ziggler for his Intercontinental Championship. This match did more than win the fans over. It also made up for the silly stunt double angle that had been taking over the IC feud lately. The Intercontinental Championship used to be held by some of the best in-ring performers in WWF/E, resulting in some great undercard matches. Ziggler certainly has the goods, and Cesaro is the real deal, so Miz just had to keep up to put on a solid match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oucyOtF0oP0&list=PLF0CB8E7B4C77DB61 For 10 minutes, fans basically got nonstop action, and not the typical triple threat trope of throwing one guy out of the ring and letting the other two wrestle a sequence, have the first guy return and throw another outside, etc. They worked in innovative spots involving all three men constantly, which then made the finish Cesaro uppercut to Miz, Ziggler superkick to Cesaro, Ziggler pins Miz flow even better. Plus, it gave Ziggler a convincing IC title defense. Baby steps.
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.
