WWE Elimination Chamber: The Miz Vs. Jerry Lawler, Breaking Down Their Clash

This Sunday's Elimination Chamber Pay-per-view in Oakland, California will see an uncharacteristically grizzled challenger for a major WWE Championship with WWE in the heart of a youth movement at the expense of Wrestlemania XXVII and beyond.  

The paths taken to WWE super stardom for both Jerry 'the King' Lawler and the Miz wouldn't contrast each other any more if they were ebony and ivory.  

Lawler is wrestling royalty, both figuratively and literally.  He grew up wrestling.  He went to high school with Jimmy Hart.  Lawler worked the territory, he's owned promotions, and he's won enough ancillary territorial championship titles to make Dave Meltzer cry tears of enthusiasm.   

After the territories dried up, Lawler was able to make a relatively smooth transition to WWE (then the WWF) where he was known more for his heat-drawing antics and charisma than his wrestling ability as has really been the case for much of his career.  

A particular feud, with Bret 'Hitman' Hart and the Hart family in the early to mid-90's, repeatedly accentuated Lawler's knack for inciting a crowd and turning anybody who opposed him into the coveted savior. 

This was a rare feat that even the CM Punks of the world (Punk's heel antics draw praise to the point of cheers) aren't able to completely pull off in this day and age.  Never was there ever a "Lawler" chant, for Lawler's brilliance in his role as an uber heel (not antihero), despite the fact that the 'smart fans', who tend to cheer the better heels, were very much alive in the early 90's before the Internet came to be.  

In fact, Lawler's antics, tirades, and heel-leaning sentiments stood out so much that he would quickly find his niche as the heel color commentator opposite Vince McMahon and/or Jim Ross.  This is where Lawler's flavor brought a much needed spark to the announce table that had been missing following the departure of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, who left the WWF in 1990 to tend to his beloved police scanner whose batteries had died.

Lawler legend's non-clique treatment backstage was a non-issue.  Lawler's wrestling pedigree basically spelled out the fact that he didn't have anything to prove to anybody.  It also didn't hurt that, upon Lawler's arrival to the World Wide Leader, he was simultaneously involved in a an invasion-type feud with Vince McMahon and the WWF as the sympathetic legend of the now defunct USWA promotion.  

The same cannot be said for the Miz whose notorious reception backstage sharply contrasts with that of anything Jerry Lawler had to put up with, even if is crown really was used as a toilet bowl once.  

The Miz came into WWE as an outsider, who was perceived as a reality show celebrity looking to get rich quick off of the otherwise unforgiving lifestyle of sports entertainment.  The story of Miz being incessantly hazed backstage in his early WWE days, only to go on to become a main eventer and WWE Champion, has been told and re-told to the point of syndication.  

Miz was, and still is, far from wrestling royalty.  Unlike many up and coming stars in the Fed, Miz has no family ties to wrestling.  He wasn't even born during the territories' hey day.  It could be easily argued that the Miz paid his proverbial dues, to become a WWE mainstay, by refusing to leave despite the persistence of JBL approved hazing that has been known to bring about lawsuits.   

Miz saw his own persistence pay dividends in 2010, a year that saw Miz capture the pivotal Money in the Bank briefcase and ultimately the WWE Championship. Both critical wins saw Miz become emotional in victory, thus reminding consumers of the tough road he took to get to where he is today—the frog fresh faced poster boy for a company knee deep in fiscal armageddon (see Shawn Michaels, circa 1996).

Despite Miz and Lawlers' juxtaposing roads to the biggest national wrestling company in the world, the striking differences of their in ring accomplishments in WWE does not follow any conventional or proverbial script. Lawler, despite holding a laundry list of pro wrestling accolades and having his legend proceed him upon entering the Fed, has never even held a WWE Championship. It has also been well documented that Lawler has never competed in a Wrestlemania match.  

The Miz, in all his hallway locker room glory, has held multiple WWE championships.  Miz was a dual champion in 2010, winning both the United States and Unified Tag team Championships simultaneously, and currently holds the WWE Championship.  The frog-faced up and comer virtually ribits gold. Miz competed in his first Wrestlemania match last year at Wrestlemania XXVI in Phoenix, Arizona, and it certainly will not be his last.   

A Ven diagram of Miz and Lawler would see few items written in the center as differences in age, WWE accolades, and career spectrum dominate the remarkably dissimilar comparison of these two notable stars. 

This particular WWE Championship match up is a strict microcosm of what WWE will set out to do over the next few years to get their business back on track. Young stars are being booked to feud with, and hopefully beat, older, more established stars who are on their way out.  

The inevitable Sheamus/Triple H feud, Edge/Dolph Ziggler, and Alberto Del Rio/Rey Mysterio are all examples of how WWE is

trying to create new stars by putting them over veterans.  Once established as bona fide WWE Superstars, the hope is that these individuals can move the needle to the point where future Wrestlemanias featuring their likenesses aren't seen major rebuilding projects.  

Miz vs. Lawler is yet another illustration of yet another necessary changing of the guard era in WWE.  The "opposites attack" storyline is what makes such a match up so intriguing and appetizing to the casual fan.  WWE has already done a nice job of planting the seeds of animosity between these two, as their last one on one meeting came in the form of a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match contested for the Miz' newly won WWE Championship on RAW. 

The free TV match was the most exciting RAW main event in quite some time, and it saw Lawler almost defeat Miz before Michael Cole, who will figure to get involved at the Elimination Chamber WWE Championship match, made his presence felt at the King's expense.  

The budding rivalry between the Miz and Jerry Lawler is far from a paper feud, yet at the same time the match up serves as an alarming reminder (with WWE calling on 61-year-old Lawler to help sell a pay-per-view) of WWE's dire need to expedite its star building process.

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