Saviors of 2016: The Miz

Saviors of 2016 is our series where we recap the year by discussing its most redeeming players.

As the public’s voice grew louder than ever in 2016, our public figures assumed a greater role (responsibility?) in responding to that voice. Sometimes, the response hit us like an Attitude Adjustment (A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul). Sometimes, it buried us beneath our own scorn, like a Tombstone Piledriver (Childish Gambino). And in one very special case, the Walls of Jericho came crashing down (Chance the Rapper). But we’re here to talk about someone else. Maybe this should come with a Trigger Warning (hey, would also be a great name for a finishing move!), but we’re about to talk about a former reality star who took major steps upward in 2016.

Let’s talk about a professional wrestler called The Miz.

Way before Miz was on WWE, he appeared on the MTV reality series Real World. He was on the tenth season of the show, and he dropped out of college to appear on the program. That’s a dubious-at-best life decision, but turns out, Miz was great on TV. He would go on to have a rather lengthy run on Real World and its various spin-offs, and along the way he would craft his unmistakably combative, argumentative, and pot-stirring on-camera persona. After years of refinement, Miz took his new character to WWE. That’s an oversimplification of what happened, but that’s a nutso career path. It’s not like he had been going to school for theater, either. Miz used to be a business student. Go figure.

But after years of the Miz scrapping through independent wrestling circuits, WWE offered him a developmental contract in the early 2000s (he had been doing about five years of reality TV at this point, and about two years of indie wrestling). After the contract signing, Miz moved up to territorial circuits, and it was in a region called Ohio Valley Wrestling where someone finally took notice of his second-to-none microphone skills. OVW gave Miz a regular segment—the birth of his now-foundational Miz TV (which still airs on WWE’s Smackdown to this day). The segment was so over—wrestling slang for “accepted and beloved”—that by 2006, Miz debuted on the WWE main roster.

Zoom back to the present: Miz has been a WWE superstar for almost a decade now. He’s been in the main event at Wrestlemania—the Super Bowl of WWE—and he’s widely considered one of the company’s greatest talkers (that might be a low bar to clear, because some wrestlers seem like they barely understand the dynamics of human speech, but still). The Miz is now a company veteran. He’s 36. The fans love him. He’s an institution.

Of course, that glosses over ten years of grueling Miz labor. Wrestling, for all its pyrotechnics and glamour and lights, is by all means a workhorse industry. It’s ruthless and political and cliquey, and to achieve a roster spot on WWE is impossible outside of pure merit (unless you have close ties to the McMahon family). Remember: WWE is a family operation, and while they’re by no means a small business anymore, their structure means they still operate like one. The industry of professional wrestling is a ladder, and anyone who wants a shot at the giant pay-per-views like Summer Slam or Wrestlemania has to climb that ladder and grab the championship belt at the top all on their own. You’re only successful if you prove yourself in the ring and in front of the crowd. You can’t game the system. The McMahons respond to who the crowd invests in, so if the crowd rejects a wrestler, they’re SOL.

And for a time, WWE fans wouldn’t let Miz win them over. To a degree, this was justified, because Miz really didn’t have a lot of pure wrestling ability, and he sort of slipped by on his punchable face and snively promos.  True, his path to WWE is its own testament, but fans still criticized him for being an entertainer above an athlete. The greats in WWE—John Cena, The Rock—have to be both. The Miz had haters even as he was climbing that ladder, but here’s the last spot of the match: 2016 was the year he legitimized himself as a wrestler. A decade into his career, he evolved. He found a moveset and a distinguished style and he merged it seamlessly with his evil, manipulative microphone persona. To put it simply, Miz chose to be better at his job. He listened to the people and gave them what they wanted.

That’s why The Miz’s year was special. He embodied everything that is great about wrestling and everything that is great about celebrity. He’s a smack-talking example of the idea that a performer is only as good as their production, and man, his production is so effing watchable. The Miz used to operate in a fake world that presents itself as reality, and he still does, but for all the theatrics and drama that he brings to pro wrestling, his personal slice of reality bites harder than ever. It’s—to borrow his tagline—aweeeeeeeesomeeeeee.

America’s entertainment world has moved past the façade of realness. Consumers know what’s scripted and unscripted now, and that allows them to dictate the things they want to change with more authority. Fans drive nostalgia, trends, and popularity. Nothing’s cool unless the people deem it cool, and Miz lies at the center of that dynamic. Most wrestlers climb the top rope and bask in the roar of the crowd, but Miz listens. After all, the most powerful people in entertainment today are not the performers. It’s us, the audience.

The Miz evolved his product to be a better servant of the people. By giving us the power and control as wrestling fans, he made himself more powerful in turn. That’s the symbiotic potential of entertainment; that’s the give-and-take found at the root of art. It’s a surprising story to find in the grit-and-grind world of professional wrestling, but then again, so is he.