I’m gonna try something new here. I couldn’t really get behind vlogging about wrestling, because it’s hard to dish opinions on something by yourself without any input from anyone else. Similarly, I couldn’t really do a wrestling podcast with a friend because… well… I have no friends here who watch wrestling. So, I’ll take to the keyboard and tip-tap away at the keys. I’ll probably do it weekly so it has some regularity and base it off of something that irked me while watching the televised grapples during the week.

Welcome to Wrestlelogue! This week’s topic is “Credibility”. It’s something that’s severely lacking in the WWE main event scene, and something lacking in the entire company of TNA/Impact Wrestling. We won’t even get into the latter – I don’t really have time to write a novel at the moment.

It’s basic story telling. For a good guy to look strong and dominant in victory, he has to have a suitable bad guy in his way. Otherwise, what’s the point? A good guy beating up a schlub doesn’t do anything for anybody, and it’s pretty boring to watch. The biggest schlub that WWE has fed us lately is, unfortunately, The Miz – and he was fed even more unceremoniously to John Cena and, to a lesser extent, The Rock.

The Miz, by all rights, could have been a big star as a cowardly bad guy in WWE. He came in and was immediately hated because he was a reality TV star, not a wrestler. This later became part of his gimmick – it wasn’t just the fans who hated him, but some of the wrestlers in the back. He “didn’t belong” in the business, according to some. But he stuck with it and became successful as a douchey, and cowardly, bad guy.

Eventually, The Miz would capture the Money In The Bank briefcase, guaranteeing him a WWE Title shot whenever he wanted it. He would cash it in on Randy Orton in the same way that almost every other MITB winner had – wait for the champion to be vulnerable and then pick at the scraps. The Miz solidified himself as an opportunistic jerk and captured the WWE Title… but then it all went downhill.

Lumped into a feud with Jerry Lawler, The Miz should have dominated. Give Lawler some good shots and a little bit of offense in their matches, but not too much. Well, that’s not what happened. Lawler, at times, was mopping the floor with The Miz. At this stage in his career, Jerry Lawler certainly didn’t need any rub that The Miz could give him – his job should have been to make The Miz look good. At the end of their feud, though, The Miz looked like a weak champion who could barely beat a retired wrestler in his sixties.

Then came John Cena. And The Rock. The WWE Title match at Wrestlemania would be John Cena challenging champion The Miz. Unfortunately, The Miz could have been completely absent from the feud, because the entire focus of WWE programming leading into Wrestlemania was on John Cena versus The Rock. The two traded insults back and forth for weeks while The Miz sat in the background, a footnote in his own feud.

Eventually, The Miz would speak up and take his place in the feud… only to be summarily disposed of by The Rock.

WWE must have noticed how poorly The Miz was being booked at some point, because they suddenly turned up The Miz’s intensity, having him layout John Cena several weeks in a row. It was a bit too late, though. They had already told the audience that The Miz wasn’t important enough to even be considered a factor in a feud for his own title, instead building tension between his challenger and a non-wrestler.

Once Wrestlemania rolled around, The Miz truly lost twice – his match with Cena first ended with a double count out when neither man could return to the ring before the referee’s ten count. Sure, neither man won the match, but The Miz, who should be able to beat ANYONE in the company if he is the WWE Champion, couldn’t beat his opponent that night. Suddenly, The Rock burst onto the scene and restarted the match – then laid out John Cena so The Miz could capture the victory. Again, the focus was placed on The Rock and Cena, with The Miz looking too weak to win his own battles.

The Miz would go on to lose to Cena three more times in a row – once in a 3-way steel cage match also featuring John Morrison, once in a rematch the following night and a third time in an “I Quit” match some weeks later. The “I Quit” Match is one of the most glaring examples of The Miz’s weakness. He spent an entire match beating John Cena with various weapons, unable to make the champion quit. In a flash, Cena rallied with a flurry of offense and, after being beaten for what seemed like forever, defeated The Miz in a matter of minutes.

Since then, The Miz has fired and begun a feud with his former protege Alex Riley. The feud has just started, but already The Miz looks like a clown, being beaten down twice in a row by Alex Riley, then defeated in a match by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, another WWE Legend who The Miz should have had no problem overcoming.

At this point, does it even do Alex Riley any good to defeat The Miz? The guy has become a punching bag and a joke for half of the year, and now the viewers are supposed to care when a new face in the crowd upends him? If Alex Riley beats The Miz in this feud, he’s just beating someone who has already been beaten by everybody else he’s been in the ring with. If he loses, he’s losing to someone who has been made to look like a complete turkey. The long-term damage done to The Miz through his terribly booked title reign may be a bigger detriment to the WWE main event and mid-card scenes than we can imagine.

Thoughts? Comments? Leave ‘em below! See you again next week, wrestling nerds.