The Miz Beats Jeff Hardy, Retains IC Championship on WWE Raw

The Miz extended his Intercontinental Championship reign Monday night on Raw by defeating Jeff Hardy to retain the title.

After The Miztourage and Matt Hardy were ejected from ringside, The Miz was able to secure a well-earned clean win with a Skull Crushing Finale.

Bleacher Report's Graham Matthews and WrestlingINC.com provided their reactions to the match:

After being relegated to the SummerSlam Kickoff show in a six-man tag team match, The Miz essentially begged Raw general manager Kurt Angle for some competition.

Angle obliged by booking a 15-man Battle Royal on Raw last week with the stipulation that the winner would go on to face the Awesome One for the IC title the following week.

The Battle Royal featured several top contenders, including Finn Balor, Big Show, Jason Jordan and a host of others.

Although Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson eliminated Matt Hardy, Jeff managed to make it to the end on his own and eliminate both Jordan and Elias in the latter stages to earn a title shot.

It marked the first significant singles win for the Charismatic Enigma since his return to WWE, as he has largely been focused on tag team competition alongside Matt.

Jeff is no stranger to singles success in WWE, however, as he entered Monday's match having held the Intercontinental Championship on four occasions and the world title three times.

The Miz was visibly shaken when Hardy won the Battle Royal since he clearly had high hopes that Miztourage members Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas would come out on top.

That would have made for easy work, but he instead had to deal with one of the most successful Superstars in WWE history who happened to have Matt on his side to help neutralize any threat made by the Miztourage.

Monday was far from the first time The Miz had ever mixed it up with Hardy, as the A-Lister and his Miztourage beat the Hardy Boyz and Jordan on the SummerSlam pre-show.

The bout on Raw was an entirely different animal, though, and the stakes were high with The Miz attempting to back up his claims that he is the greatest intercontinental champion of all time.

Miz often talks about how Daniel Bryan regularly forced him to defend the IC title while part of SmackDown Live, whereas the championship has rarely been spotlighted on the red brand.

That changed Monday night, as The Miz was a featured attraction against a surefire future WWE Hall of Famer.

Despite the difficult task in front of him, The Miz was successful in his title defense, and he backed up his big talk in the process.

His title reign is far from safe, however, as Angle made it clear that The Miz will have another title defense at the No Mercy pay-per-view in a few weeks.

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