Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz, WWE SummerSlam (8/19/2018)

So, the thing here is that these two already had the best match that they were ever going to have against each other.

A little over eight years ago, the first time they wrestled on pay-per-view, Bryan and The Miz not only had the best singles match Miz could probably ever have, back when he was more willing to simply be led around by the hand by Danielson, but also the best version of this thing. In large part, that is because it was the first time. For all the great work Bryan and Miz have done in the last two years, including the most famous Talking Smack bit ever (but not the best, because I will not disrespect Rhino Claus like that), you can really only hit at that level the one in a match up with someone with The Miz’s level of talent. Bryan grabbing a hold of this absolute fraud, bringing him down to Earth and rubbing his face in the mud before making him submit, it is a certain sort of thing that may never become dull, but can only hit like THAT the first time.

Beyond even that though, this is a match that falls victim to happening in the 2018 version of the WWE.

Even before the feud itself, this cannot help but fall victim to the embarrassingly bad booking of Bryan from WrestleMania until recently. For as noble as it may be to have Miz throw obstacles in the path or manipulate Bryan against bigger heels like Big Cass or the Bludgeon Brothers, the reality is that off of a comeback, Bryan could have been the hottest wrestler in the world but instead was thrown into loser feuds, and this lost like eighty percent of what it had when he was on the shelf, resulting in the fact that on top of following AJ/Joe and a bullshit Elias segment, this itself felt like a match from a dead feud, rather than a match that fans had theoretically wanted to see for the last two years.

The other thing is that, after all that, Bryan and The Miz do not need to have a series of matches, and this is very clearly the first match in a series, nevermind the retroactive strike against it that it is not a series that wraps up in any sort of successful or triumphant way either.

From where I sit, the best possible version of this (outside of happening at WrestleMania itself in Bryan’s actual return match) is ten to fifteen minutes of Bryan absolutely whipping The Miz’s ass, maybe a minute or two of Miz offense that is all cheating, before Bryan either makes him submit like the quintessential coward heel that he is or removes his face with the flying knee to win.

What they offer instead is…not that.

I don’t even want to say it’s bad.

It isn’t.

Bryan and The Miz have a really solid and borderline great fifteen to twenty minutes, where they seem to get like seventy five percent of what this is supposed to be. Bryan always feels above him as a wrestler and puts on another masterful performance on both sides of the match, Miz is is like two-thirds luck and opportunism and cheap shots, so you cannot say it feels as fraudulent as their 2011 Raw match for example, but something never seems correct. You could chalk it up to Bryan again being too giving against someone who ought to simply be a coward heel or you could chalk it up to WWE being WWE, and insisting on drawing everything out and unnecessarily complicating things with a bullshit finish, but it simply does not feel correct.

Or at least, it does not feel correct for these two at this point, as instead, they get a (admittedly well written) piece of bullshit that might land a lot better with someone who felt on Bryan’s level, but also who was good enough to warrant any more than this.

Following a slip of brass knuckles from Maryse in the front row (this is very well blocked out, mechanically, to their credit), Miz blocks a dive with a hidden illegal shot to the face, and gets the pin to steal it, artificially prolonging this for conveniently exactly as long as it takes to also wrap up the AJ/Joe feud on the top of this half of the show.

An ode to force of talent from one of the best to ever do it, despite all of the many forms of large scale waste on display.

three boy

Daniel Bryan vs. Big E vs. Samoa Joe vs. The Miz vs. Rusev, WWE Smackdown Live (6/19/2018)

This was a #1 Contenders Gauntlet Match.

Despite what WWE tried to manufacture earlier in the year with the pre-Elimination Chamber Seth Rollins based gauntlet (and probably successfully did manufacture, given the acclaim it got despite being real average), the best gauntlets in WWE have what that lacked, what so many in recent years have lacked, and what makes this the best of the newer crop.

Part of that is that, rather than simply and obviously existing to fill up a gigantic swath of television time, this is a match with a real point to it.

Several, in fact.

This match not only continues the Bryan/Miz feud by having Miz yet again take advantage of Bryan without ever really facing him in any meaningful way, coming in fourth after two Bryan full-length singles outings already and pinning him, but there’s more than just that. Samoa Joe’s slow-building and self-frustrating quest for a title shot on Smackdown feels like something this match seeks to build as well, and that it does a stellar job with. Most obviously, it is a match that, out of nowhere, seeks to give Rusev a big and believable win to establish him immediately as a World Title contender. The match has three narrative aims, and succeeds wildly with each.

More obviously, in a match that is essentially three different singles match with a few interludes, they stick mostly really good to great wrestlers in there, in three unique and different kinds of matches, and things have a way of working themselves out.

Specifically, when Daniel Bryan gets to take the wheel for two-thirds of the match’s runtime, it’s hard to go too wrong.

Firstly, that comes in a brand new match for ten to fifteen minutes against Big E.

Bryan and Big E make a great enough pairing together that, in retrospect, it feels criminal that this is all that they ever did one on one (although those 2019 Bryan/Rowan vs. New Day matches are a lot of fun). They have a certain chemistry, and both display a gift for being able to walk a line against other babyface, being aggressive and occasionally a little mean, but without losing any of their natural likeability either. The match takes a unique approach, going with Big E on top rather than Bryan in a role he’s incredibly comfortable with, and Big E does a genuinely terrific job in one of the only chances he’s ever gotten at a match like this. He’s forceful and insistent, but never veers off into deeper waters than he can handle as a protagonist himself. When Bryan comes back and does eventually get into Bryan style work, his selling — although never focused on any one body part long term — is always terrific, especially of the leg near the very end.

They also approach the match (we can just call these matches, all three of the big ones are substantial enough to count) from a unique angle, beyond just that Big E controls. You expect Bryan to target a limb or something against a big guy, but in delaying that until the very end, Big E winds up leaving so much stronger than he came in. Throwing one of the most successful wrestlers of the decade off of what he always does and forcing him into a totally new approach at the end, it feels like a large step forward, even if the WWE would revert back to shameful incrementalism and hold off another three years.

Danielson is forced to chain a bunch of different holds together at the end, going from the Yes Lock to a Triangle Choke to finally his recently discovered heel hook, and even that’s a bit of a shell game in and of itself. Bryan uses it to damage the leg, sticks with that just long enough to rob Big E of the explosiveness and mobility he cut him off with earlier in the match, and lands the Busaiku Knee for the win. Big E puts forth a better effort than anyone would have probably expected, and certainly in a different way than anyone could have expected, and in adapting and finding a way to win that is both smart and impactful in a WWE Babyface sort of a way, Bryan looks better in every possible way for still finding a way to beat him.

On its own, Daniel Bryan vs. Big E is one of the better WWE matches of the year, a tremendous achievement for the best of all time, and a career singles match for Big E at this point. It’s outstanding professional wrestling, and a genuinely great match within a genuinely great match.

The same goes for the next one!

Samoa Joe follows that, and not only does a face/face power vs. technique match lead to a much meaner and more hostile version of that, but a brand new match up gives way to one of my favorite pairings in the career of either man.

Joe and Bryan are, again, remarkable together.

Everything that Joe lost to the ravages of time is made up for through intelligence and aura, and against one of his best opponents of all time, it barely even matters. In part, it’s because both are still so great at everything they do, but also because this is a totally different match than they’ve ever had before, both in that it is a more measured approach for television, but also because for once, Bryan is the underdog to Joe’s stalking maniacal villain. Every single thing they do looks and sounds incredible. Joe is intimidating and capable of feeling genuinely dangerous in a way nobody in the WWE but Brock Lesnar is, and yet again, Bryan is the best babyface in the world when he has something worth fighting back against. They play a few hits, but in a really wonderful touch, also break out a bunch of entirely new bits when they absolutely do not have to, including the ending.

When none of his usual stuff works and Joe keeps shutting everything down, they also go to a more unique finish, that winds accomplishing more than a real finish probably could have. Bryan is able to roll back out of the choke outside via the Bret/Piper spot off of the railing, but instead of anything Joe can catch, counter, or avoid, Bryan simply dives back inside before ten, and barely gets past Samoa Joe.

It certainly isn’t satisfying and it’s an unbelievable bummer that they never got a chance at it again under a WWE umbrella, but again, it is perfect for what it is. A beautiful show for people who never got to see the originals, a totally different sort of thing for everyone who did, and a match that again accomplishes so much. Bryan gets past another huge obstacle, but by contrasting his impactful win on Big E with him barely getting past Joe, Samoa Joe feels that much more dangerous. Samoa Joe’s frustration also clearly advances, setting up the next AJ Styles title feud after all of this, without ever putting that so obviously in flashing lights for everybody to see.

The last third of the thing is where this match falters just a little bit.

Luke Harper and Erick Rowan aka THE HAMMER HOMIES (credit: brock) attack Bryan after the fall to set up some bullshit aimless little tag title program, and The Miz sprints down to take advantage to get Bryan without really getting Bryan, in a nice piece of heel bullshit.

Rusev is then the final entrant against a fresh Miz, and while it is a wonderful narrative, the coward heel running into a much more appreciated cult favorite antagonist and getting his ass kicked, the match leaves much to be desired. Maybe a simple sixty to ninety seconds of Rusev whipping ass might have accomplished the same but in a much better and more satisfying package.

That is not to say this is bad or anything. Miz tries his best, I guess, and Rusev is an electric situational babyface. However, after two incredible Bryan showcases, ten or so minutes of Rusev vs. The Miz simply cannot compare.

Still, between the Bryan falls, Rusev’s energy, and the genuinely great construction and concept of this thing as a whole, there is just too much here to deny, resulting in maybe the best chunk of WWE television all year that isn’t just one long match. That doesn’t mean what it used to, but if you’ve got to watch one individual half hour of WWE in 2018, you could do a thousand times worse than this. A hell of a thing, and truly, quality professional wrestling TV out of a place that often feels like they lost the manual on that sort of thing a long time ago.

(a long time ago in this case being the second week of April 2014)

It is not 2013 or 2015 anymore, but it’s nice to know that from time to time, when operated by the right hands and guided towards the right purpose, the old machinery can still work.

***1/4

The Miz vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor, WWE WrestleMania 34 (4/8/2018)

This was for The Miz’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

First things first, it is HILARIOUS that Seth Rollins again went for the Game of Thrones entrance aesthetic for WrestleMania, this time with the Ice King stuff. This is an especially funny choice as — while one could write off 2017’s Kingslayer idea as being tied into his match, as bad as it was — there’s not only no connection, but he chooses a character that winds up being absolutely nothing after all that build up. It ties into the hilarity of the extended bit in general, tying himself so concretely to this thing that, once it was over in a year and change, would have lit itself so severely on fire that it would have almost no cultural impact outside of a few phrases and ideas. It is perfect for Seth Rollins, the most empty calories ass wrestler imaginable.

As for the match, it’s actually really good!

Generally speaking, I am not going to be the guy to do an extended 2018 Seth Rollins retrospective. The idea of him as this workhorse WOTY in 2018 always felt not only like total horseshit that only the most empty minded braying hog WWE fans would get into, but also weirdly astroturfed. It always felt to me like they realized the fanfare that people like 2014 Dolph Ziggler or 2016 Miz or even 2017 Roman Reigns got for these string of long and great TV matches and midcard title defenses/programs, and simply tried to graft that onto Seth Rollins. None of it is really stuff I enjoy, both because of the artificial seeming nature of both the idea and so many of the matches he has within it, but also because he is simply not an especially good or interesting professional wrestler, and so it has no real value.

Having said all of that, it did at least work at the start, as I really genuinely like this match a lot.

It’s not the most complex thing in the world, your standard WWE triple threat.

Still, all three try really hard, the match doesn’t waste a lot of time if any at all, and they have enough cool little ideas to get them through it in an impressive enough way. It’s the kind of match that I very easily can wind up hating, but that never gave me a chance to. The pace is not blistering and nothing they do is blowing my mind, but it all just sort of comes together in a way that I found really pleasing and satisfying.

Far greater than the sum of its parts.

Rollins hits Balor with a curb stomp into Miz’s back as he tries to pick Miz up in a neat little spot, and then hits Miz with the regular edition Curb Stomp to win the title. It’s the correct call for a finish, if not for a result (Balor is naturally likeable in a way Rollins has never been able to simulate, do the same thing in 2018 with him instead, and it is like 50x better), beating the champion himself instead of the other guy, and allowing zero gripe about how it went. Rollins should never have been the one to get the real rub out of beating Miz for the title definitively in a big spot to end the Miz IC Champion era, but as it is, it’s all very well done and I suppose that is all that you can hope for from this company at this point.

Bad ideas executed well enough that, in the moment, they seem simply okay.

A great version of a very particular kind of WWE bullshit.

***

Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz, WWE Extreme Rules (6/4/2017)

This was for Deano’s WWE Intercontinental Title, with the stipulation that if he got disqualified, he would forfeit the title to The Miz.

It’s a lovely little piece of nonsense on a show literally named after the exact sort of lawlessness that a stipulation like this seeks to counterbalance. One might complain about a match like this being on a show like EXTREME RULES, but one might then the target audience for a ruse like this, given that such a thing is exactly the point.

That’s kind of the thing with this match, and I love that.

Does Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz deliver a fine professional wrestling contest?

Sure. They’re fine wrestlers, and have another good match together, but that’s not entirely the point, and this is why this match in particular is easily the best of what feels like the few dozen that they had together in 2017.

It’s another one of those great total packages that occasionally breaks loose out of the WWE, rarer even than just the company getting out of the way and let the best wrestlers in the world cook. It’s something more impressive than that, the sort of thing I feel like I praise TNA/Impact for a lot this decade on the occasions in which I do praise them, helping a decent pairing of two decent wrestlers get over the top as a result of everything outside the purely mechanical. It’s the elevation of good to borderline great wrestling into something more than that through a nice and easy story not only with a coward and a dirtbag but the DQ rule constantly being bandied about in a few different fun ways, great construction, and above all, some real high level nonsense and cheating at the end with manager interference, the tease of a nonsense DQ title switch, only for Miz to steal the title in a wholly different sort of way than one might have expected going in.

Miz gets the title back on the absolute biggest bunch of bullshit he possibly could, and that is absolutely for the best.

People complain about things like this, finishes like this, and matches based around bullshit, but I think sometimes, bullshit gets a bad rap. Bullshit in professional wrestling is never bad, in and of itself.

Wrestling, fundamentally, is bullshit.

The problem is that, so often, you get incredibly lazy or poorly executed bullshit. The same tropes done over and over so they lose all value or impact. Those same tropes either plotted out by people who either never learned how to do them correctly or who no longer care/have forgotten entirely or carried out by people who can’t get the most out of them, usually both at the same time. Bullshit that isn’t good or that doesn’t make any god damned sense.

When executed right though — when done in interesting or less common ways, when you get a lot of different moving pieces and layers to the bullshit, when executed by a genuinely lithesome villain and purpetrated against someone genuinely and innately likeable — it is a beautiful thing, as seen with Eddie against JBL, a million different Raven matches, Jimmy Rave’s entire peak, things of that nature. When wielded responsibly and with the right people in the right positions when executing things like this, there is absolutely a time and a place for some good old fashioned bullshit.

This match is exactly such a time and a place, and I really loved it.

***

John Cena vs. AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt vs. The Miz vs. Baron Corbin, WWE Elimination Chamber (2/12/2017)

This was for Cena’s WWE World Heavyweight Title.

First off, this is the official debut of what I’ve come to know as the Coward Elimination Chamber.

With the return of the Chamber comes higher ceilings and padding on the steel floors of the thing. That’s not to say those landings probably don’t still really hurt and that they don’t pack a bigger punch than landings inside the ring, It’s one of the great symbols ever of the WWE’s attitude in the 2010s towards matches like this, which is sanitizing everything to a disgusting degree, making everything safer and gaudier, while still just blatantly lying about what it is. The contrast is a maddening one, being told about how dangerous and brutal something is while clearly seeing that it’s safer than ever, and it’s one that arguably reaches its apex with the Elimination Chamber redesign.

In spite of that though, this is a really great match.

Partly, that’s because like the best matches of its kind — both Elimination Chambers and WWE multi-man matches — it gets the formula right. A lot of different kinds of wrestlers exist in one space here, from your brawlers to your power guys to your big flier in AJ Styles, and Dean Ambrose, who is a little bit of each of the above. Beyond the diversity of offense that it offers up, it’s another one of these matches that’s incredibly well booked and then constructed as well, for the most part. As more and more of the machine breaks down, matches like these are increasingly the only place on the main roster where you get it working like it’s supposed to (see: 2019’s Chamber), and this match shows that. The match is not always the greatest, having to focus on Barry Corbin and The Miz doing offense is hindrance to be sure, but it feels like the match gets as much as possible out of every element of the thing, while also shooting people off into these brand new directions for WrestleMania season. Corbin and Deano get redirected at each other after an Ambrose/Miz feud had led into this. Likewise, the Cena/AJ title issue gets turned into a Miz grudge on Cena, and the match always feel very measured in this aspect, getting a lot both in terms of match quality and match utility out of a line up that is not the best.

The other reason this is great is the most obvious one.

AJ Styles works one hundred percent of this match.

For something like eighty five or ninety percent of the match, AJ Styles and John Cena are both in the match as well, and having two all-time great wrestlers in a match turns out to have a positive effect. Cena isn’t the powerhouse here that AJ is, but he works here in classic Cena ways, both getting a lot of effort out of everyone, and making everything he does feel bigger. When he’s eliminated before the final two by Bray Wyatt, it really does feel like a big deal, in the same way that his shock first elimination in the 2009 Elimination Chamber did.

Styles though is on another level here, putting forth one of the best Chamber performances ever. If one of the last few of these wasn’t the 2014 title match Elimination Chamber, the best match of its kind ever, it’d be an easy thing to call this the best Chamber performance in a very long time. It’s up there with the great ones in this space from, well, everyone in the 2014 edition to Rey Mysterio in 2009 to Goldberg in 2003, and so forth. It’s maybe the greatest pure bump freak performance in Chamber history, aided I’m sure by the extra padding, but in a way that seems no less impressive despite that. He’s flying around from the start, and takes one real horrific bump off a pod into the ring, bumps on the floor, into the chain wall, all of it. Coupled with the usual AJ Styles stuff against Cena early and late, stellar chemistry with everyone involved, and it’s very clearly the performance that makes the match. If this match really is a machine, there is no question about who the motor of the gigantic beast is, and it is a mother fucker of a motor at that.

The AJ Styles vs. Bray Wyatt run at the end is also genuinely great and the best one on one work Wyatt’s been involved with since he faced the actual greatest wrestler of all time. It benefits from being a brand new match up, so everything they’re doing is fresh, as well as from the set up the match provides them (heel vs. heel is always interesting when the characters are this different, new champion guaranteed), but it also just rocks. Bray is FEELING IT in a way he clearly hasn’t in years, AJ Styles still hasn’t realized that he doesn’t always have to try super super super hard in the WWE, and it comes together as perfectly as it ever could for Wyatt’s big title win.

It’s not what it might have been had they taken the care with the character that they did initially. He’s still been booked into oblivion for most of the last three years, and it’s still just a set up for the Orton title win that seems like it exists largely as a make good for SummerSlam 2016, Wyatt winning the title almost entirely just because of who he was feuding with, rather than momentum or skill. However, as a result of the last four months of stuff and as a result of the match being as great as it was, Wyatt winning the title doesn’t feel like the complete and total miss that it would have had you told someone about it a year in advance, and that’s maybe the greatest victory of the match.

Real far from being the all-time greatest Elimination Chamber, as it was hailed as at the time from people who should know better, but certainly somewhere among the more impressive ones.

***1/4

Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz, WWE Smackdown Live (11/15/2016)

This was for Ziggler’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

In classic WWE fashion, a feel good win gets walked back within a few weeks because, through and through, this is a heel territory. Great match though, once again. These two can’t miss together in 2016.

While it’s not quite what it was either time on pay-per-view, what it is is a really fun little television encounter between two guys with a lot of chemistry and one guy in Ziggler who has a long history of great and fun little television encounters.

The trick is the thing that, at his best (2009-2014) Ziggler did really well relative to a lot of his peers and also that Miz so often failed to do before this peak (“peak”) run in 2016-2017, which is abandoning the house style. No stalling in the first half and blatantly filling space until someone somewhere gives a signal and they begin busting their asses and trying a little more in the last third of a match. There’s a fraudulence there that always has a way of undercutting it even when that back half or back third is actually pretty cool, so much of our time as viewers being killed off with intentionally dull work. That’s not to say that diverting from that necessarily makes this airtight, there’s still a real frustrating bit at the end where Maryse reaching into help Miz reverse a cradle somehow results in Dolph flatbacking and not even trying to kick out despite otherwise being a ball of energy, as if he’s given up now that the match hit its planned finish. But for the most part, this succeeds because it’s a match that they seem to give a shit about for the entirety of the match and not just the final two or three minutes.

Also, there is just a tremendous chemistry here.

Dolph and Miz just kind of riff it out for ten minutes (really more like sixteen or seventeen, but you know, WWE forgot how to not greatly diminish matches with commercials some time in the early 2010s, outside of long and/or important TV matches where they remember specifically not to do it), and there’s a bunch of new little tricks and counters. My favorites are the attempts at move selling that don’t quite pay off in either direction, which is a great little thing that you almost never see. It’s a great way to tell the story not only of two longtime rivals and frequent opponents knowing each other, but a quieter little way to show that Miz, despite a renewed vigor and success, is still ultimately a fraud. Speaking of the match at large, even if it’s not all super clean, there’s an urgency and a snap to go along with all the new ideas and story bits that does a whole lot for Miz and Ziggler in this run together. In a match like this, that could probably go either way based on comparing their 2016, 2014, and 2012 work side by side, that attention and energy proves to be the difference. When you can clearly see people put care into their work like these two do in these 2016 matches, it’s a thousand times easier to reflect that back. Give a shit and I just might too.

It’s a lot of fun, even if it doesn’t reach the highs of their pay-per-view meetings. With the fast pace, cool new ideas, and a great heaping of classical heel bullshit in the back half, it’s the sort of hypercompetent last third of 2016 SDL wrestling television that I maybe don’t love with the entirety of my heart, but that I find it very hard to not speak of with at least a little fondness.

***

The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE No Mercy (10/9/2016)

This was a Title vs. Career match for The Miz’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

In writing about their previous piece, I’d like to think we covered just about everything about this match up and rivalry in 2016 that works. It’s one of the great WWE booking victories of the entire decade, and another late example of the machine working like it’s supposed to. One of those WWE things that you look at and go “yes, this is correct”, no matter what other fair misgivings one might have about something like Ziggler being made out to be a failure despite every effort made to undercut him for the last three years until he stopped even trying to have great matches, as if this is a reward for finally becoming a boring Company Man, the quality of The Miz’s wrestling, things of that nature. On the whole though, it’s just so well done. The act of producing relative gold where none existed before, leveraging the sort of innate feelings most people have about these two wrestlers and have always had and building something that feels real around them, it’s what this ought to be.

The story itself is perfect on virtually every level.

An annoying success who isn’t quite lucky, but benefits from every horrible system that has also constantly undercut a more talented generational peer, and insists on rubbing it in his face. Beyond a situation that just about everyone can relate to on some level, it’s some perfect pro wrestling bullshit, coward heels and underachieving people’s champion babyfaces, interference and cheating, and a classic title chase taken to the perfect sort of a climax for such a thing.

The match itself is not quite so perfect, admittedly.

There are things about this in a structural sense that don’t feel QUITE correct, in really small ways. Wasting an exposed steel buckle spot setting up a mid match nearfall off of Miz’s slingshot Liger Bomb. Having Ziggler need a rope break to survive the Skull Crushing Finale after the hairspray spot that we saw in their last pay-per-view match, which is not really a thing that ought to be done for a coward heel’s finish, on top making the nearfall less impressive for Our Hero. The finish is also a little weird as the referee ejects Maryse and the Spirit Squad for interfering, leading to Miz turning into a superkick for the finish. It’s not a horrible finish, but like with the foot on the ropes, it strikes me as understanding the utility of the spot on a fundamental level. Instead of Our Hero fighting off these odds and overcoming, solving his own problems, it’s an obstacle someone else removes for him, along with a distraction that sets Miz up for the coup de grace.

(Although there is something there, once again accidentally, that kind of sums the entire thing up, the feud and the WWE and people like Ziggler in general. Good enough to do it all along, it only happens for him again once the representative of law and order — i.e. the corporation itself — finally steps in and allows him to do so. It’s not a great finish, but it’s one of those brief little moments where the curtain slips and there’s a real clear message about what all of this is.)

Because of all the obstacles set up, the story told both over the last six months of Miz’s reign and in this series especially, it still feels incredibly good. What they have to get right, they get RIGHT. But it’s hard not to look at this, arguably something this great otherwise is even more liable to be like this than lesser matches, and see all the ways they could have gotten it absolutely perfect.

Speaking of this match in a purely mechanical sense too, of course, it is not exactly perfect. Not that you should have expected precise brilliance from these two. Predictably, that comes almost entirely from one side of this. While it’s a surprisingly tight match and a Miz performance with both a lot of energy and without too many errors, there are still those moments. Sloppy attempts at bigger offense (you can tell me this is a heat getting measure, doing Bryan’s moves poorly, and I am willing to give you that, but it doesn’t apply to everything else), and the occasional moments where he tries to work angry and vicious that never quite seem genuine.

However, he’s better than he’s ever been. Moreso than any match of his to date save perhaps the famous Bryan title switch six years prior, this is the least that The Miz has felt like someone pretending to be a professional wrestler and the most like an actual wrestler. It’s still not a perfect fit, but it’s a better one than he’s ever proven capable of before this point. The work is tight for the most part, and there’s that pep in his step that he never really loses throughout this match. Usually, being a WWE product through and through, you can see gears turning and a switch flips in the back half when it’s Time To Try, all of that. In this match, that switch is on at the start.

Dolph Ziggler is exceptional here, likewise delivering one of his more purely effort filled performances in the better part of two years. He’s such a likeable babyface at this point (a genuinely miserable heel from 2017 on, more of that classic good WWE booking outside of these accidental hot runs), and performs the role with such energy that between that and his opposition, it’s all just very easy. Beyond that, he’s asked to do some heavier leg selling in the back half and knocks it out of the park. There’s some vanity to it at times, never so much that it overpowers the story, only once again hitting that territory in which this match primarily resides, things mostly working out as well as they possibly can.

The match is not perfect, but something about just innately sort of works.

Mechanically, it is the best case scenario, as tight and coherent and great of a match as these two could ever have against each other. The story of it all just happens to be really mostly fucking great too, and ties that all together and elevates it just a whole lot higher.

When I write things about this match like that it was a classic display of age old pro wrestling ideas and the sort of storytelling that the biggest wrestling company in the world/of all time should be capable of, I don’t just mean all the payoffs they barrel over in the back half. Even at the start, when Miz almost immediately takes over because of Ziggler’s overzealousness, there’s something to it. Working smarter and definitely never harder, and wrestling his smartest match ever. When the second half hits and those payoffs start flying, they’re all great. The aforementioned skullduggery from Backlash that falls short now, all these little different fake outs and teases of things that work later on for both men, Ziggler using the Ruff Ryder in a moment of desperation, interference that doesn’t work and leads to a really exceptional second Skull Crushing Finale nearfall this time done correctly, and of course, the finish itself.

Flaws aside, it works for the reasons things like this will always work. Build up a loudmouth coward heel for six months with a title, have him constantly evade justice while talking more and more shit, make someone really chase him, and pull the trigger like they did here. It’s not to say these two didn’t do as great of a job as they could ever do given every possible limitation (it is still weighing on this, I think, that Ziggler genuinely did get beaten into the dirt from Jan. 2015 through August 2016), but it is to say that sometimes there really is a formula and that a well executed standard like this is a great reminder that wrestling is some combination of art and science, and there’s nothing wrong with that being closer to a 50/50 combination sometimes.

Ziggler gets his big win, and even though — like anything positive in the WWE, a heel territory through and through — it’s just for the moment, it is an exceptional little moment.

I don’t know if it’s the sort of a pleasure I ought to feel guilty about or not. I don’t really care. This match whips ass, it’s one of the all around highlights of 2016 even if it might not make a MOTY list cut. More importantly, perhaps the strongest statement yet of how these things, the old classics and standards can still work. While the year is riddled with these sorts of successes, perhaps none of them owes it success to these principals more than this match. A victory for the stuff in pro wrestling that’s always worked and will always work, moreso than almost anything main roster WWE’s done since.

***1/2

The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE Backlash (9/11/2016)

This was for The Miz’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

Everyone always talks about the No Mercy match, the Title vs. Career one, and with good reason. It’s an incredible match and one of the great achievements for WWE all decade. I’m not going to say an ill word against it.

However, this one is right up there too.

It seems necessary with wrestlers like this, these WWE system story-first sorts of guys, the sorts of wrestlers who are really and obviously at their best with a story to sink their teeth into, to point out how great this simple little thing was.

At this point, whatever was working about The Miz in his 2016-2018 prime has been kicked into overdrive from the famous Talking Smack bit. He’s never going to be a superworker, he’s always a WWE house style guy, but with a fire absolutely lit under his ass, it makes a difference in a match like this. This is a match up that’s always worked to some extent, I’ve always been a big proponent of it in the past, but this 2016 stuff is as great as this could possibly be. Losing streak Ziggler against winning streak Miz, each belligerent and upset for different reasons. Ziggler finally at the end of his rope after the booking of the last two years, but primarily, it’s because of The Miz’s whole deal.

Whatever weaknesses there are mechanically — and there were and are MANY — are covered up now more than ever with the most interesting character turn of his entire life. A coward through and through, but upset at being called out for being wrestling’s version of a classic sports grifter and trying to prove it through more legitimate means before constantly giving up because it’s too hard. The Miz has always been easy to hate, but this stuff especially works even better than usual. You always hate a coward, but there’s something so much more despicable about a coward who claims he isn’t. Especially when Miz does things like briefly attacking the knee to set up a Figure Four or stealing Daniel Bryan’s offense and doing it worse, there’s a new element to it. It’s always been fun to watch The Miz lose and eat shit. He’s always been a coward and a cheater, but in 2016, he added an even more despicable element to his game when he learned to lie about it as well. Nobody likes a cheater, but the most despicable thing in the world is to be a liar on top of this, and in the last quarter of 2016, wrestling had no greater liar.

Relatively speaking, it is a sort of paint by numbers thing. A heel and a babyface, the villain cheating in a number of different ways, getting lucky when it matters most in the most infuriating ways, leaving enough on the table for a bigger rematch. There is some skill to this in terms of the construction and the layout, but mostly, it’s the sort of thing that can always work on some level.

It’s textbook stuff and I don’t mean that at all as an insult. It’s one of those perfect sort of visions of what wrestling can be. Smackdown in the last quarter or third of 2016 is the last really great WWE main roster booking run, and maybe at no point is that on better display than in this series, utilizing simple and classic wrestling storytelling to not only create this great memorable midcard title feud, but also to elevate a series that, under previous creative two years ago, did not exactly light the world on fire.

Matches like these live or die on the performances, and this is a match with two very very good performances.

Both Ziggler and The Miz are the sorts of wrestlers, again, who are a thousand times better when motivated, and this is a motivated ass performance. Ziggler’s knee selling is genuinely some of the best of his career. He’s got a lot of fire, and continuing on from the AJ Styles match that really lit a fire under him again, there’s so much more to his bumping and his selling and his comebacks than there’s been in so long. The Miz is a more curious case, as I still have a hard time looking at him and going “yes, this is great wrestling”, but he does so many smaller things right to elevate this performance above his usual. The way he grabs the edge of the ramp on the outside to stop Ziggler from lifting him off the ground to buy time, for example, but in general, also just the way he functions and carries himself throughout. A story guy through and through, the most interesting things he really has to offer are also some of the more interesting things this match has to offer, which are these moments in the back half where he knows enough to target Ziggler’s leg after he lucks out and harms it, but never quite enough to make the most of it. There’s something about both the look in his eyes and the way he moves around in control that says, to me, that he kind of knows he’s a fraud but he’s committed so much now that he has to see it through. I think that’s beautiful.

For whatever else this is lacking in other areas, it’s such a beautiful story and as a match that commits entirely to telling this section of that story, it’s a hard match not to have a lot of positive feeling towards.

Naturally, it’s through the telling of said story that this match really succeeds. Miz’s attempt at being a real wrestler falls short, and he has to once again resort to the real cheap shit. Maryse gets Ziggler from the outside with hair spray to the eyes, and Miz follows up with his move to steal it once again.

If not the absolute best or most famous match they’ll have together, still a testament to how well this combination worked together, and the roll that both the two of them and Smackdown Live as a whole was on at this point.

***1/4

The Miz vs. Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, WWE Extreme Rules (5/22/2016)

This was for Miz’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

As a whole this match stands out as a sterling example, again for this 2016 Owens/Zayn feud, of what the WWE can be. At least what it sells itself as. The best wrestlers in the world in front of the largest possible crowds in matches that feel more important as a result of stories told. It’s always been a myth to some extent, but matches like this are responsible for creating and preserving that myth. Because, really, it’s true here. This is what that looks like when properly put into practice.

It’s a special match.

Things like Owens/Zayn and Cesaro/Zayn are always going to work. Owens and Zayn, again, represent this perfect mesh of everything, all the coolest moves and best offensive ideas in the world, combined with one of the great stories of the last decade. Cesaro and Zayn again combine to deliver on one of the great wrestling pairings of the century so far. Even things that are less guaranteed like Owens/Cesaro or The Miz as a whole work really well here, both as a result of meeting the moment, and as a result of a match like this totally understanding what they ought to be.

We’ve talked on here before, you and I, about what an ideal sort of WWE multi-man match looks like. The qualities it has, what it has to do successfully, and what it has to avoid. My favorite ever versions of this are the inaugural Money in the Bank at WrestleMania 21 for adding in generationally cool spots to a perfect mixture, or the 2014 Elimination Chamber for the quality of the ingredients therein, but the matches in this vein that work all have some things in common.

It’s not a complex recipe exactly, but very few have gotten it as right as this match does.

You need different styles of wrestling, like the powerful brawling of Big Kev, cowardice of The Miz, flying of Zayn, or the more scientific power of Cesaro. Different types of characters, such as our two heroes, but also variations on these themes, as you see with Owens and Miz again being vastly different types of antagonists. Big Kev is about dominance, while The Miz is a coward, through and through. Throw them around in different combinations, and play with it. There are a few combinations that we know can work (Owens/Zayn, Cesaro/Owens, Cesaro/Miz), but a match like this can feel pretty special and unique by delivering the other pairings too. We don’t get a lot of Cesaro vs. Zayn on the main roster, but this match has a few big runs with that combination, and it’s electric.

In general, a match like this shines when they don’t overthink it in the back, and it feels like the company gets out of the way of the match itself.

That’s the case here.

The match never forgets that The Miz is a coward. He’s a survivor and wins at the end, but it’s less because of any of his own merits. The moments where he sneaks in and uses his own move, or has help from his wife in setting up a complex scenario to take someone out are great and they would be fine finishes, but the match achieves on a higher level by not letting these moments end the match, and instead giving Miz a win at the end through pure luck. Owens and Zayn opt to keep beating on each other instead, allowing an open window that lets in just enough air to allow Miz to sneak through. Efforts to legitimize Miz in years past have failed (and will fail again) because he is immune to such a thing, but when allowed to be something like this, he’s never felt more genuine and as a result, has never been better.

It’s better to be lucky than good, and he leaves this match feeling like the luckiest man alive.

As a whole, it all comes together perfectly, creating something greater than just the sum of its parts.

This is how it’s all supposed to work. Hand in glove. A perfectly oiled machine. Great wrestling working hand in hand with booking that aids them instead of hindering them for once. A match that not only delivers on the promise of a great bell-to-bell experience, but one that also helps at least three of the four involved (sorry to Cesaro, if someone’s going to gain nothing, it’s probably always going to be him in the WWE). The Miz leaves as an even more detestable coward and Owens and Zayn have their feud brought to an even higher level by the way it plays out. A rare victory for WWE booking, given how much of a part that plays in this being as great as it was.

When all things work as they’re supposed to, this is the result. 

One of the best matches of the year.

***1/2

Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Stardust vs. Zack Ryder vs. Sin Cara II, WWE WrestleMania 32 (4/3/2016)

This was a ladder match for Big Kev’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

I’ve always had a weakness for a decent enough version of this match. Part of that is because it’s clearly WWE’s attempt at a make-good for all the wrestlers that they know are good or great enough to be on the biggest show of the year (and on the main card, not some battle royal or pre-show thing) but that they’re too lazy and/or inept to really come up for anything else for. There’s something especially depressing about the implied “hey sorry, maybe next time” that comes with a match like this that always makes me real sympathetic towards something like this on a WrestleMania.

Also I like cool spots and these matches are a parade of some very cool spots.

I could write a little bit here about the mix of styles and characters that makes matches like these work at a high-ish level when all goes right, and that’s not something that’s absent here. You have your coward type, your fighter who is pretending to be tough but is also kind of a coward in Big Kev, a few great likeable white meat babyfaces, a total weirdo, things like that.

Honestly though, the trick here is that for the first time in one of these, two of the wildest ladder match wrestlers of the last decade are unleashed in a match like this in the WWE, and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn do a whole bunch of really remarkable and totally outrageous stuff, while also largely being the focus of the match as a story. Some of it is new, but mostly, they’re just bigger and more fantastic and impressive versions of the stuff from something like the Ladder War like eight and a half years earlier.

All match long, our favorite duo are constantly sniping at each other. Delightfully, even in moments when one is out of the frame, they just can never really help themselves. Owens constantly goes after Sami, like he’s trying to pre-empt the sort of thing he instinctually knows is going to happen. In doing so, he turns a paranoid feeling into an absolute guarantee, as wrestling’s greatest vicious cycle continues, with neither man knowing quite how to close it or possessing the desire to close it.

Kevin Owens nearly makes it to the end, only for Zayn to reappear, and take him entirely out of the match with another one of their classic ladder spots.

This match isn’t JUST about Kev and Sami, there’s some other fun stuff. The polka dot ladder, a great Ziggler run in the middle, one big and sensational dive out of Sin Cara II. Everyone gets the chance to do something, and outside of the awful Stardust gimmick, there’s not really a truly weak link here.

The Miz is just about to sneak away with it, but gets exactly cocky enough without anyone to watch his back for Zack Ryder to take him out and get the title.

It’s a nice little result. A feel good victory, and like a lot of the match itself, a kind of make-good to the company a solid four years late after how horribly they fucked him once upon a time. Given how well things turned out for the guy after his WWE tenure eventually ended, it doesn’t feel QUITE as good as it’s no longer like this one bright little moment, but it’s still nice. More importantly, it’s a nice moment that comes largely from out of nowhere, this one little glimmer on an otherwise deeply depressing event that shows that somewhere deep down there, there’s some knowledge of how this thing is supposed to work, or at least how it can work.

Unfortunately this Kev/Sami ladder match with a feel good result doesn’t result in Super Dragon’s return, but given how much this match got right, you can only ever expect so much from this company.

The match of the night, for whatever that matters on a show like this.

***