Miz vs. Lawler - All in here.

[Vash21]

Well, to be fair Jerry Lawler has held more championships than any one man currently or ever in the WWE. There is a reason Jerry Lawler is a Hall of Famer. He was one of the true greats back in the day so give him at least a little credit. Jerry still wrestles when the WWE allows him to in Memphis at his own Wrestling fed. The Miz hasn't even been Champion all of a month yet and people are already saying he's shit. Give it time, he's green, he will get better.

And honestly, would you have rather see a squash match between Lawler and The Miz? Not really. What happened tonight will probably lead to some kind of retirement thing for King which everyone bitches about so there's always some good to come out of a negative. Just give it time.

Champ or no champ, I have never liked the Miz. He looked extremely weak in that match, how is he supposed to stand up to someone like Sheamus, or a healthy Orton, or if Trips comes back.

Wouldn't have liked a squash either, they should have given Jerry the title. What the hell else do they have going on. If they wanted to get Cole some heat, he could have cost him the title next week.

It shouldn't have taken outside interference from two different guys for the Miz to beat Lawler.

 

[bigdogstalfos]

King only really had a chance because Miz got pushed through a table while trying to be cocky. He is a cocky heel, after all, and part of the reason the match even happened was because King called him out for ripping on all the guys who never got the title. Miz made the mistake Punk said would happen, which is also kind of the point of TLC matches, as one mistake can completely change the face of the match. King took advantage and Cole got to further his pretty much being Miz's other personal assistant. As other people have been saying, would you have really wanted a squash match? It wasn't great wrestling, but it was entertaining.

And to those saying how Miz looks super-weak now, remember a few weeks ago when Santino beat Sheamus in a fluky way after Sheamus got cocky? That loss sure hurt Sheamus's credibility and permanently downgraded him as a legitimate competitor in the eyes of the fans. It's not like he won King of the Ring or anything tonight. Oh wait.

 

[LOC]

Not for nothing, but doesn't King wrestle like once or twice a week still for indy shows etc? I know I heard him say that in some interview or something recently. I'm pretty sure he's still active in the ring. Now, I'm not saying he's a full time wrestler, or should have won...clearly he shouldn't have won. In fact, he should have been destroyed. The match made Miz look very weak to be honest. I mean, he had to seriously work to beat a 60-something year old announcer (kayfabe) in a TLC match?

 

[pepentorresHHH]

The problem with the miz is that he can talk the talk but he cant back it up on the ring... As it was already said here he has no credibility in the ring... True he has been champ for a week and this is just a tribute for the king.. But how are we supposed to believe he can beat orton,sheamus, cena, hhh??? Is he can barely win and on top of that with the help of two other guys against a /60 year old guy?? I wont judge his reign, it could be awesome for all we know but it has had a very disappointing star.....

 

[Dagnirion]

I figured that they were going to let Jerry win, and bury Miz. Since he won the MITB, I've had this feeling that they were going to screw it up somehow. First, I thought that when he cashed in, the defending champion (Orton, when he finally did) was going to win, and he'd be the first guy to cash in and lose. Then, tonight, I figured they'd make Miz lose, especially after he said he wanted to be the longest reigning champion. Thankfully, that didn't happen, but the writers are going to mess it up somehow, I just know...

 

[Calamity-Jim]

I don't think it's a bad start.
Didn't Edge fight Ric Flair on RAW as his first defense? In the same type of match too?

 

[blackmetalbuick]

Yeah, we all knew. But they did a good job with this match. If you weren't quite a "smart" fan, it would be very easy to believe that King was going to win after Miz took that table bump. Even I thought it miiiiight be possible, like the thread started said, even as a one week fluke with Miz getting it back next week.

 

[tjmars]

Birthday present? Seriously? This isn't an after school special. This is the wrestling business and you're supposed to do what is right for business and that is not have you're current WWE champion almost lose to a sixty something year old guy and only win with the help of a lackey and an announcer. That is not how you groom someone who you claim to be the future of your company.

And to get Cole over? I'm sure there could be like a million other ways to get over as a heel like umm... just screwing over someone else who is facing Miz.

Oh and by the way, it probably is stupid to have Shemus lose to Santino, but at least Santino is an active competitor in what is probably the prime of his career if he wasn't a comedy jobber.

Well that's my rant...

 

[Gallops]

The only possible way they could have had Miz lose the title to King tonight was if Orton were the one to cost him the match. Hit him with an RKO off the ladder or something and help Lawler get the belt. But even that'd be a stretch. It'd have to be followed up with The Miz envoking his rematch clause next week, only to completely dominate King, and possibly counter a post match attack from Orton.

But I'm happy they didn't decide to ruin the Miz's run. It would leave fans all over the world asking the question....why?

 

[LSN80]

I didn't have a problem with them booking King vs Miz for the title. King made a good, relevant point. He had been wrestling for 40 plus years, and had never been champion(in WWE). Hell, Vince freakin McMahon has won a Royal Rumble and WWE Champion, and pinned Randy Orton on his birthday last year. So no problem with Lawler being in the main event.

The problem I had was, unlike the booking of the Sheamus/Morrison match, the booking of this one was attracious. I know Alex Riley was a whipping boy before he got his DUI, but there's no way he should have been manhandled so soundly by a 61 year old man. It took Michael Cole to keep Lawler from winning the title. Michael Cole.

The last thing Miz could afford during his first night as champion on Raw was to be made to look weak. He should have dominated Lawler in this match. Instead, he was taking dives through tables and Lawler was headed toward resoundly defeating him. It turned basically into a 3 on 1 handicap match, and Miz BARELY kept the title. How much weaker could he have been made to look in his first title defense? In only the 2nd one on one TLC match in the history of Raw?

No problem with Lawler getting the title match. A nice birthday present. But it's a detrimental start to a championship reign that so many are questioning already, and it worries me that they won't be able to establish Miz as a credible champion whatsoever because of this.

 

[jimpedro419]

That main event did nothing but make the Miz look very weak and even the Raw show itself look horribly weak. This main event never should of taken place or better yet if it was going to take place never should of been the last match. Now for a week we are left with the taste of watching the King vs the Miz. What happened to Raw did they forget what they were about the Senate race is over now go back to old school wrestling already before they lose all their fans.

 

[The Calgary Kid]

I got nervous as soon as they announced it was Lawler's birthday and they showed the career retrospective video. I'm infinitely grateful that they didn't have Miz lose the title to him as a birthday gift, but I thought that it could have been a great way to earn Miz some serious heat at the start of his reign by having them start off competitive, then ultimately have Miz annihilate Lawler and look like a cheap, violent and aggressive heel, capped by Lawler being off air for a few weeks to recover from the beating. The crowd would despise Miz for being responsible for seriously injuring a Hall of Famer they look forward to seeing every week. I was incredibly disappointed that they had Lawler on the verge of winning only to be stopped by Michael freakin' Cole. It's a weak start to the title reign, which I have very high hopes for in terms of establishing Miz's future. The booking should get better from here. I mean, how much lower could it possibly go?

Let's not all jump off the bridge prematurely, though: it's one week and one match in. The bigger picture here is that it was a cheap marketing plug for the new WWE Championship History book. While I didn't like the way it was handled, they can turn it into something better than it looks. Miz can learn from his mistakes and be more aggressive in securing wins after almost losing the title one week in to a guy in his 60s, and if Lawler misses any time due to "injuries", Miz can still use that for heat. Having Lawler win the title tonight would mean that, in fairness, they should invite Piper, Steamboat, Curt Hennig's corpse, et al to appear on TV and win the belt if they were going to go the "he never won it, but should have" route. Thank God they didn't.

 

[Wrestling Free Thinker]

Birthday present? Seriously? This isn't an after school special. This is the wrestling business and you're supposed to do what is right for business and that is not have you're current WWE champion almost lose to a sixty something year old guy and only win with the help of a lackey and an announcer. That is not how you groom someone who you claim to be the future of your company.

And to get Cole over? I'm sure there could be like a million other ways to get over as a heel like umm... just screwing over someone else who is facing Miz.

Oh and by the way, it probably is stupid to have Shemus lose to Santino, but at least Santino is an active competitor in what is probably the prime of his career if he wasn't a comedy jobber.

Well that's my rant...

You know how to groom a champion? Why are you writing on a board then? Go get an interview with a wrestling company ASAP!

Even though I've seen this done so many times before. Orton jobbed to Hogan, I guess his career ended there.

It's ONE night on the FIRST show he was from winning the damn title.

 

[Alucard316]

I don't think it's a bad start.
Didn't Edge fight Ric Flair on RAW as his first defense? In the same type of match too?

Yeah, but Ric Flair was an active competitor back then, and he was the Intercontinental Champion. Also, he was already in a feud with Edge before he cashed in on John Cena.

I don't really know about this. I don't think that you can compare this to the Sheamus/Santino match, because in that match, Santino was obviously the weaker of the two, and obviously needed help to win. If you're building up this guy to be the next big thing, then it shouldn't take three guys to beat a 60 year old man who hasn't wrestled in a while. I just don't know. Miz's title reign is starting to show signs of Sheamus' this time last year.

 

[Rampage Bentley]

Why the hell not? Raw doesn't have a world champion, it's a mid-carder carrying around a belt that's a little too big for him. Lawler could carry it, even at his age, better than The Miz

 

[mral82]

I thought the match was good and all. This is The Miz' 1st wwe title reign and yes ppl he gets help cause he's a heel, just go back and look at Trips 1st reign he had to have Chyna and DX help him retain titles so did Orton w/ Evolution or Legacy, Flair w/ the Horsemen, JBL w/ the Cabinet, and Hogan w/ the nWo are all prime examples right there. As heels are supposed to be dis-honorable when it comes to Winning it's all logical. Yeah I was hoping the "E" would of thrown us a swerve but the didn't as Lawler is not champ and The Miz is and Kevin Nash is a bitter hypocrite about the Miz. It was a cool thing we saw the past vs the future tonight And one other thing people Jerry Lawler is 61 as of today.

 

[LSN80]

No. Absolutely not. If they were confident enough to put the title on Miz, they needed to be confident enought to have him defeat Lawler and retain the title in his first defense. To have Lawler win that match would have been the biggest blow to the career of the Miz possibly.

I think it was detrimental already. It basically took 3 men to defeat Lawler. Riley was flipping and flopping through tables for a 61 year old man. Miz was getting tossed around like a rag doll. Is that ANY way to make a champion look credible, or deserving of the title? It took THREE men to defeat Lawler. I know Miz is a heel. But there's no way he should have been playing seesaw with Lawler in a tug of war for the title at the end. He should have DOMINATED Lawler to retain the title.

Instead, as Punk pointed out, Miz looked like a rookie making mistakes. He took too long setting up moves, turned his back to Lawler for long periods of time, and needed a brawl between Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler just to SNEAK in the back door and climb the ladder and retain. This is the LEAST credible a champion has been made to look in a title defense in a very long time. Head scratching booking.

 

[marklouis]

That is absolutely a ridiculous idea. It would kill any respect Miz has as a champion-caliber competitor. Him losing to a retired wrestler who's been a commentator for over a decade? Damn near impossible to come back from that defeat.

Not if he had gotten help from someone, maybe Orton. Miz said Orton wasn't there, which he probably wasn't, but if Orton had appeared & cost The Miz the title, then it would've worked. But I don't really care if The Miz gets respect. I think he's a horrible wrestler & will be a horrible champion, & the sooner he loses the title, the better it is for the WWE & their fans.

 

[bigdogstalfos]

The comparison I was thinking of with the Santino match was that both Miz and Sheamus were clearly in control and could have won but opted for the heel "I want to embarrass this guy" route. Sheamus chose to whale on Santino until Morrison came out and distracted him which led to the pin. Miz could have just ended the match around the point when Punk was repeatedly saying "just climb the ladder" but didn't and eventually led to the sequence of events involving Cole. This was by no means the best way to start Miz's title reign, but I don't see it turning out like Swagger's because of this one match at all.

And hey, Orton will be back next week, so the focus can turn to the inevitable Miz-Orton match at TLC.

 

[Tech N9ne]

Straight up........ NO!!

LOL dude, Lawler was too injured to commentate a couple weeks ago, and now you wanna put the business's biggest and best title on him?? Yeeeaaaahhh!!

Must be a fan of TNA that is looking to sabotage WWE. lol.....

Seriously, it would have hurt The Miz. It takes everything away that has been built with him over the last year.

Sure it would have been a "feel good" moment for Lawler and his 5 fans, but maybe a career ruining moment for The Miz.

 

[Calamity-Jim]

Yeah, but Ric Flair was an active competitor back then, and he was the Intercontinental Champion. Also, he was already in a feud with Edge before he cashed in on John Cena.

True. But I guess what im trying to say is it could of been worse.
Hell, they could of made the match for TLC! Some bullshit about the legends not deeming Miz worthy and having to face him.
I have to say that I liked Cole getting into the ring though, I didn't really see it coming and show's how far he would go to help Miz retain.

 

[Tully]

The only way this dumb match should've been fought is by having The Miz completely destroy Lawler. They could've let King have a few gift chair shots to start or something...but then get annihilated by Miz. SCF on a chair, etc. Have Cole come in and give King an elbow drop to accomplish the same thing in that regard.

Instead, they made Miz look weak IMO.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

So The Miz didn't win cleanly and people are already saying strip him of the title or he has no credibility and all this other stuff. He's a heel for Christ's sake. He's supposed to cheat to get the win. He's supposed to use dirty and underhanded tricks to retain his championship. People seem to think that heel champions are supposed to be these ultimate badasses that go in there with their heads held high, look a man square in the eye and go at him one on one and the best man wins. That's the heel mentality of a monster heel, some 7 footer or some 350 pound Samoan but not for your cocky, overconfident douche bag heel.

They played things just right in my view. The Miz could've climbed the ladder multiple times during the match and gotten the win. However, they used the whole scenario with Jerry Lawler representing wrestling's past veterans and The Miz representing the arrogant upstarts of today to tell a great story using a basic and easy to understand formula: The Miz has Lawler where he wants him but doesn't go for the win. Lawler, painted as the underdog, makes a rally and uses the arrogant young heel's confidence against him, underdog looks like he's going to win the big one, fans are going nuts and cheering their heads off, underdog gets so close only to get cheated out of it in the end due to the underhanded tactics of a heel and his allies.

 

[Y2JChrisJericho]

I don't know why everyone is whining and complaining over this, I thought it did well to put Cole over as a heel and also Lawler had a match on his birthday and it was fitting being the KING OF THE RING. I saw no bad in what happened tonight, I don't even mind Miz winning with the help from Cole.

What I don't get is everyone saying Miz is looking weak, this isn't anything new. One complaint I had when Miz was holding the breifcase was that he always looked weak, he never seemed to be a main eventer to me and I still don't see him as a main eventer. He just seems to weak and his in ring skills are lacking for me to believe he's a world champion. I love the Miz though, don't get me wrong, and he has come a long way, and he's right now the best wrestler on the mic with Jericho on a hiatus.

This title defense didn't hurt to have at all, it's on Raw for god sakes, not like it's a PPV match. I wouldn't even mind seeing Riley get a shot at the title next week maybe. I'm also hoping for a Miz-Orton-Barrett triple threat match, I'm sure Miz can sneak in a win here. HE just seems like the type of champion that just barely wins the matches, it's something common for first time heel champions.

 

[Con T.]

..... Meh?

Look, I get, it wasn't the most credible win in the world, against what wasn't exactly the best choice. Though, in all truth, Lawler actually looked pretty good out there. But that all well and said, can anyone seriously tell me the damage done? What's so damn horrible about this that hasn't been done with other MITB winners? Fact: We're going to likely forget about this in a few weeks or so anyway, and it isn't as though World Champions haven't been taken to the limit against opponents they shouldn't have. Pretty sure Triple H almost took a loss to Rikishi one time. Don't quote me on that. Miz doesn't need the build up, he's already getting enough heat. This isn't going to be some massive reign of dominance, this is going to be a transitional reign to gauge Miz's ability to work as a main event heel. Let's not get too carried away here; Big picture, guys.