6 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE No Mercy 2017

5. Know Your Audience

The Miz Jason Jordan
WWE.com

Booking Miz to be the heel in his adopted hometown against a guy who fans have been at best lukewarm to is not the best climate to make a new star. You’re just begging for “Bizarro World.”

And that’s exactly what happened Sunday when Miz faced Jason Jordan for the Intercontinental Championship. Billed as residing in Hollywood, Miz had the Los Angeles crowd behind him while Jordan struggled to get fans to react positively when he wasn’t performing an impressive move (such as a deadlift delayed suplex or twin Northern Lights suplexes).

At one point, fans chanted, “Let’s go Miz!/Who’s your daddy?” which pretty much summed things up. Corey Graves (most likely with Vince McMahon in his headset) tried to spin it as the fans being disrespectful to Miz by chanting about his father, which was so ludicrous that he should have been embarrassed for even saying it.

Jordan is extremely talented, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that something is going to have to give at some point. His in-ring talent isn’t going to completely overshadow this poor soap opera storyline.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

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.