Who else was surprised at how entertaining the Intercontinental Championship battle royal was? Sure, it wasnt a great match, but it had points that were pretty good and kept fans interested, with Sheamus threatening to unify the secondary titles, Bo Dallas looking to inspire people as their IC champ, and fan-favorite Dolph Ziggler making the final two. And then Miz emerged from hiding to dump Ziggler to win. No, seriously. The Miz, who hasnt done anything of consequence in the ring for the past year, came away as Intercontinental Champion by lying on the floor feigning injury for three-quarters of the battle royal. Its a hackneyed, overdone finish that should not be seen in a WWE ring again. (The last time it was successful was Santinos near-win in the 2011 Royal Rumble.) Going into the battle royal, there were a couple picks that conventional wisdom said would be logical winners: Bo Dallas needs to either sink or swim, and an IC title run might help determine which way hes going. Sheamus could unify the two secondary titles (which still might happen given Mizs victory last week over the Celtic Warrior). Cesaro is treading water and was originally thought to be the favorite in the number one contenders tournament that Bad News Barrett won a couple months back. Even Ziggler had standing as an outlier who would be believable if WWE wanted to surprise people. But Miz? Hes not drawing heel heat, hes drawing what people often refer to as X-Pac Heat. Fans want him off their screen and out of the ring. Hes really not as bad as people make him out to be at times, but Sunday night was just a terrible move. Miz has been back for two weeks. At least let people develop the right kind of hatred for him before pushing him as IC champ.
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.
