Enzo Amore, The Miz and How WWE Has Failed to Define Babyfaces, Heels

The Miz just might be the biggest babyface in WWE right now, which is odd considering his longstanding reputation for being WWE's top heel. 

Monday on Raw, Miz tore down Enzo Amore, who is among WWE's most popular Superstars, for his backstage antics. Miz brought up Amore's recent exile from the WWE locker room, which is fodder that only a specific sub-genre of fans have knowledge of. 

Not only was the content of Miz's lecture against Amore out of place on a nationally televised broadcast, it was doubly confusing to the dynamic of just who the babyface was in this situation. 

Miz, who just moments earlier announced he and Maryse were expecting their first child to the tune of cheers and fanfare, was interrupted by Amore in a way that positioned Amore as a heel. From there, Miz cut a promo that made it seem like we were watching a backstage squabble that wasn't supposed to air. 

Miz praised cruiserweight champion Neville, not because of his similar sensibilities as a fellow heel, but because of his real-life hard work and determination that actually pierces through his veil of being a villain.

The segment was further proof of WWE's ongoing struggles of properly establishing good from evil, which is at the crux of every great wrestling feud. 

Roman Reigns and John Cena are set to do battle at No Mercy in a matchup pitting babyface against babyface, but both seem to have jumped in and out of being a heel. Instead of a storyline pitting the old guard vs. the new, with respect at its core mixed with tension—as is typical when two babyfaces do battle—John Cena has torn down Reigns as a drug-test-failing imitation whose comments about WWE's record-setting business in Cena's absence cannot be trusted. 

Reigns' extensive cursing and boasting about his genitals haven't exactly portrayed him as the top babyface WWE promotes him as, either. 

Even on SmackDown Live, when Vince McMahon came to the defense of his son as a babyface, he quickly threatened to make Kevin Owens bankrupt because "the laws of this land are written for people like me." 

Though Owens has done an admirable job of portraying an insubordinate heel, being threatened by a billionaire who will use the legal system to take advantage of a member of the 99 percent does nothing to underscore Owens as the bad guy in this feud. If anybody should know that, it's McMahon himself. 

WWE's use of inside baseball and real life have obstructed what's supposed to be a scripted showcase of good guy vs. bad guy. It's a simple formula, really, and when done poorly, it confuses an already fickle fanbase as to who they should be cheering for. 

WWE needs to get back to basics and take the backstage politics out of its globally televised broadcast. It's one of the philosophical changes that will allow the promotion to expand its currently stagnant base of WWE Network subscribers, which over the past few quarters has stalled at just around 1.6 million. 

Alfred Konuwa is a Featured Columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report and Forbes. Like him on Facebook.