All Awesomeness Aside: Why The Miz May Become A More Acceptable Face Than Cena

To be honest it doesn’t matter if he loses it to John Morrison, eventually loses it to Randy Orton or even loses it to John Cena himself the fact of the matter is this: The Miz is here to stay as WWE Champion.

We’ve all seen the dozens of articles claiming why it was or wasn’t good that The Miz became champion. We saw the crazy reaction by sources that never even look in wrestling’s direction on a normal day. The IWC literally blew up with people excited, angry and even confused. Suddenly the guy was everywhere.

Not even John Cena got this kind of attention for his first championship run.

Let’s face it, when The Miz won the MITB contract we all knew it was coming. The contract had never failed. Some of us chose to believe that The Miz would be the first to lose and while it crossed my mind, I never truly believed that would be the case. We knew he was going to win, the success rate was 100 percent and yet we were still taken by storm.

Is it fair? Maybe, maybe not. Obviously Miz’s previous background with reality television has made a major impact and Vince is definitely taking advantage. But so is The Miz. The guy is working hard, and whether you love him, hate him, just aren’t sure yet or hope this is all a dream, we have to admit the guy reps the WWE. Not just represents, I’m talking straight up reps the business. He travels, he promotes, he’s doing interviews, late night talk shows, early morning talk shows, radio interviews, any piece of media thrown his way is like a steak thrown to a lion. And that lion isn’t just hungry, it’s starving, we’re talking foaming at the mouth!    

We have never seen a WWE champion like The Miz. And while some of that is in part because of today’s market, media coverage and his background a lot of it is because of The Miz himself. The guy is determined, you can see it and you can feel it whether he’s playing The Miz or he’s in a real life interview. He reminds me of The Rock to be honest. I know a lot of people love to compare these days and the two wrestlers that are compared to The Rock the most are John Cena and The Miz.

But I’m not comparing Miz’s mic work to Rock’s nor am I comparing his wrestling ability. Where the comparison lies is in that determination to want to be the biggest star and to want to be looked at differently. Many believed Stone Cold and Triple H were the guys, the absolute future and that they would be the two biggest stars in the company and while they became stars they were joined and passed by, in many people’s opinions, a third and that was The Rock. His stardom and fame just rose seemingly out of nowhere and he went from being a heel at first, an arrogant heel. Ask anyone who saw The Rock debut or saw his early beginnings, if they tell you they knew right off the back that he was going to be a star, chances are their lying to you.

Many did not believe that The Rock was going to get to where he got but that never stopped him. Flash forward to today and John Cena and Randy Orton seem to be the biggest two stars in the companies yet out of nowhere they have been joined by a third, an arrogant heel in The Miz. If you don’t think Miz is at Cena and Orton’s level of fame, think again and remember I say fame, in the sense of being covered and known, not popularity, in the sense of being well liked.

And even if Miz isn’t popular yet with the fans, he should be with the WWE, both personnel and the locker room. The guy is willing to put people over, he gives credit where it’s due and promotes the present as well as the future. Don’t believe me, ask Daniel Bryan (Danielson), ask Alex Riley or Wade Barrett. But most importantly he’s willing to make fun of himself and acknowledge where he came from but also tell you where he wants to go.

Guys like that tend to get a lot of attention, good or bad.

Today it seems like it’s impossible to get any bigger than a guy like John Cena. I like to compare him to Kobe Bryant a lot, because for as much as he is hated he is loved. The guy is the face of the WWE, the top dog, the headliner. The guy even headlines when he’s not the champion. People who may not have been following wrestling enough towards the latter half of this year might not have even realized that Randy Orton won the title from Sheamus with the amount of attention Cena got with Nexus. He makes appearances, does commercials and his merchandise is so hot even fire gets jealous.

While there are many who are better than him in the ring and on the mic no one can match his media output except The Miz. Miz can and is starting to make as many appearances as he can. Something tells me he sees Cena and he see what he does and what it took, and thus he’s willing to do the same. And in truth he really does have the ability to match Cena at every turn except in the merchandise department, for him that can only come as a face.

Make no mistake, The Miz will eventually become a face. No matter how you feel he’s an underdog and the WWE loves underdogs. Also how many faces right now have great mic skills. Cena has it at times and Morrison too when he’s feeling bold but they can’t deliver each week like the heels can. The Miz essentially would be a more perfect face then Cena and here’s why.

First, he would be able to hold his own in the mic department and do it consistently. Second, he wouldn’t be invincible, partly because he doesn’t have that hulkish size and partly because no one would believe it. Suddenly the reality star can’t lose, yeah right. It would take a lot for him to win, pure determination and smarts an actual true underdog.

Part of the reason the Attitude era was so successful and more believable was because the faces didn’t win all their matches by a landslide, in both the shows and the PPVs. In some cases because things were so mixed, you weren’t completely sure if certain faces were going to win or not. You know Cena is going to win. Yeah he’s going to take a few bumps and act like he's actually hurt, but once the kids start yelling Cena loud enough that red cape is coming out. These days its easier to predict a John Cena win than it is to predict the weather. Miz knows this, he knows how fans react to Cena, he knows what the Attitude era did for the WWE.

And while it may not seem likely with the way he is now, his face run is coming, and he’ll know exactly what to do when it gets here.