TV Review: The Miz layeth the Smackdown

The Miz puts his U.S. Championship
and tag team belts on display.

As Bill Simmons has pointed out, it is odd to think that of all the Real World and MTV casts, the only one who has kind of made it big in television amongst the scores of wannabe actresses and actors is Mike Mizanin, who wrestles as The Miz in the WWE.

The progress he has made in the ring and on the mic is simply shocking. When he first debuted with the company, he was an annoying and cocky host of stupid segments, like the Diva search and bikini competitions. He was clearly raw in the ring as well, but a little less than four years later, he is a legitimate heavyweight champion competitor. Of all the wrestlers in the midcard, The Miz is the one I want to see as champion, and I think he is the heir-apparent to Chris Jericho as the smarmy heel who gets over with the crowd anyway.

A good example of his new prowess was on display on Smackdown last night. He sat in on commentator with Matt Striker and Todd Grisham, and overshadowed both of them. And I'm normally a guy who loves Striker's obscure references. However, The Miz's bombast and forcefulness makes him an interesting character.

From top to bottom, not much has changed since the last couple times I talked about Smackdown - It is still by far the best weekly program that the WWE does. While I'm still not crazy about the booking of Jack Swagger as the world heavyweight champion, he at least got the pin in a triple threat match with Jericho and Edge. From top-to-bottom, the show featured a lot of good wrestling, with the highlights being the triple threat championship match and a six man tag (CM Punk, Luke Gallows and Darren Young vs. Tyson Kidd, David Hart Smith and Rey Mysterio).

It was a brisk 90 minutes to watch, and hopefully when the show moves to SyFy this November, it will allow for some even better, more mature angles.

Grade: A+

The picture is from WWE.com.