4 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (13 Nov - Results & Review)

5. Gotta Keep Miz Strong

After sacrificing both members of the New Day to Ivar, it seemed like WWE had done the impossible and turned a tag wrestler forced to compete as a single into a legitimate – and highly entertaining – threat.

And then the company decided that they needed to make Miz a serious babyface challenger for Gunther’s Intercontinental Championship. So Monday night, Ivar slipped on a banana peel – Wade Barrett even used this exact term – and lost to Miz via distraction and powerbomb. Along the way, Ivar had to sell Miz’s “It Kicks,” slow-motion tilt-o-whirl DDT and other offense as fans inexplicably rallied behind him.

Ivar can obviously claim that Bronson Reed distracted him, which then sets up what could be a really fun fed between the two bigger men, but then fans remind themselves that Miz pinned both men the past two weeks. So these behemoths have lost to a guy who jobbed to a single punch from Snoop Dogg at WrestleMania 39.

And no one outside of fans who don’t know any better or those trying to be ironic rebels are going to seriously buy Miz as being the guy to dethrone Gunther at Survivor Series. WWE will have sacrificed Reed and Ivar on successive weeks to turn a comedy wrestler in a challenger-of-the-month for the IC title.

That’s pathetic. Don’t waste fans’ time building up a guy the majority of fans aren’t buying. The only redeeming factor here is that a Reed/Ivar match could be tremendous. But there had to be a better way to get there than this.