The Miz vs. Sami Zayn for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
Isenberg: I get the title change. I get WWE trying to keep The Miz as champion. With all of his media appearances, a strap of leather looks good around his shoulder. In this match, I think The Miz retains in a hard fought contest. Have we seen a bad Sami Zayn match yet? He is so smooth and has excellent timing in the squared circle. He might not have the best gimmick, but the Toronto crowd will certainly love him. I just feel for Dolph Ziggler, going from eliminating The Authority from power, thanks to Sting in previous years, to not being on the card. Would a Triple Threat Match be the worst idea here?
Killam: To answer you question Josh, we have not seen a bad Sami Zayn match yet. We aren’t likely to either. In my decade of following that guy’s career – well before the Miz had ever laced up a pair of wrestling boots – I don’t think I’ve seen him have a single truly bad match. Let’s all take a second and remember that the dude pulled his shoulder out, popped it back into place, and then went on to have an excellent multi-segment title match with John Cena on live television. He’s unreal.
Anyways.
The Miz wins. I mean there’s always the odds-on favorite prediction that WWE has no idea what’s it’s doing, but assuming they go into work with their pants on facing forward, The Miz wins. I don’t think anybody can make an arrangement that he’s the superior wrestling in this match. He’s certainly not the more experienced of the two. But Miz has one thing going for him right now that Sami, painfully, does not: he’s over. Sure Zayn is the underdog and that’s always a fun story, and maybe when 60% of the roster isn’t made up of underdogs that will matter again. But right now, The Miz is the man. There’s not a single wrestler on the WWE roster, perhaps anywhere in the world, that has improved more in his character than Mike Mizanin in 2016. Period. Not Jericho, not Drew Galloway, not even the Broken Brilliance that is Matt Hardy (although that’s arguably a very, very close race). He’s the ultimately douchebag – nothing you aspire to be as a person, and yet he has everything you want in life – and I mean that in the best possible way. The Miz is straight fire right now. There is not a single reason he should lose this match.
