Miz Already Losing WWE Championship? | WrestleTalk News

Miz Already Losing WWE Championship? | WrestleTalk News

Miz Losing WWE Title To Bobby Lashley?

Both The Miz and the Money in the Bank briefcase overcame nearly a year of terrible booking on Sunday night, to successfully cash in and win the WWE Championship from Drew McIntyre after the Raw Elimination Chamber match. But, as Luke and I speculated on yesterday’s WrestleTalk Podcast review of the show, Miz seems set to be nothing more than a transitional champion. 

The Miz, you see, had made a deal with the devils in fancy suits, agreeing with MVP that Bobby Lashley would beat down McIntyre before Miz cashed in his shot – in exchange for Bobbles getting the first title shot. 

This was the main storyline in last night’s Raw, which ended with Shane McMahon booking Bobby vs Miz for the WWE Championship on next week’s show. Which might’ve already had the result spoiled by the very reliable WrestleVotes on Twitter, who’ve tweeted:

“It’s that time of year- LOTS of misinformation b/w sources, which happens around WM. However, from source: WWE Title match- The Miz is not scheduled to be involved. As of now, Bobby Lashley IS.”

It’s important to note WrestleVotes themselves have said this could easily be misinformation, as WWE have been known to purposely feed people false storylines to not give away their big WrestleMania plans. But it certainly looks possible Lashley could beat the Miz on next week’s Raw. And if not then, via some kind of Strowman or Drew McIntyre interference, then at the real biggest show of the year: Fastlane on Peacock Premium.

Would you prefer to see Lashley or The Miz as WWE Champion heading into WrestleMania? Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE.

And move aside McIntyre. Then give me Lashley vs Samoa Joe!

Samoa Joe Looking For In-Ring Return

Because WWE’s main event scene in 2021 is actually either Ring of Honor or TNA’s from a decade prior, why not have Joe and Lashley reprised their Bound for Glory feud from back in 2009? It just needs Joe, who’s been on commentary for almost a year following a head injury during a shoot for a WWE commercial, to be medically cleared. In an interview with Sportskeeda, Joe has confirmed he wants to return to the ring, but, “I’m not putting a timetable on it because the type of injury is not something that I want to rush, obviously, for obvious reasons.”

Meanwhile over in AEW, their Women’s Eliminator Tournament has had one its entrants forced to be removed following an injury.

Anna Jay Injured

AEW have revealed that The Dark Order’s Anna Jay picked up a shoulder injury during training and will have to undergo surgery, which will put her out of action for 6-12 months. Jay will be replaced in the tournament by Madi Wrenkowski, a student of Thunder Rosa.

According to a report from Fightful Select, the injury occurred “well over a month ago”. “The company and Anna Jay were hopeful that the injury wasn’t as severe as it ended up being, but that’s what has kept her sidelined for that long, before the injury was recently aggravated.”

And finally before my Raw review, Big E has launched a Kickstarter! Along with some friends, Big E is hoping to create a new animated series highlighting key black American historical figures called “Our Heroes Rock”.

Currently the campaign has raised $23,000 out of the $75,000 required with 47 days left, and you can find a link to that campaign in the description.

WWE Raw Review

Now it’s time for my review of last night’s Raw, in about 5 minutes!

Now, I don’t know if this came across, because I’m pretty good at keeping my emotions in check when it comes to wrestling, but I wasn’t a big fan of the ending of Elimination Chamber.

I still think the booking of both The Miz and the Money in the Bank briefcase was terrible, and undermines any actual interest or emotional investment I have in the storyline, character or, let’s take it one further, the whole god damn co-you know what, breath.

I’m feeling a bit more optimistic today. Because I think it’s very clear Miz’s reign will be a very short transitional one, and we’re finally getting a fully realised Bobby Prime in WWE.

The episode opened on a MizTV: Champions Edition, because of course it did, where Miz listed through all the people he’s gone through in his career: John Cena, The Rock, Daniel Bryan, Bobby Lashley – confusing main event star power with just being there a really, really long time – but then out came Lashley in the most threateningly pink suit since Mark Henry faked out his retirement.

This was the best Lashley has looked since, well, his WWE return almost three years ago. We’ve gone through sisters. We’ve gone through how powerful his butt is – an actual storyline – so thank you MVP, because just like the Beatdown Clan in TNA, on which the Hurt Business is based, his faction isn’t just giving him the best run of his career, it’s elevating all those around him.

This is when MVP revealed his deal with Miz: Lashley gets the first shot at the WWE title, and he wants it now. Miz was given an hour to respond, which started a countdown graphic.

Then we got two thirds of that very good US title match from Elimination Chamber, with Riddle vs John Morrison. The championship was a great way to build up Lashley in the background, and now he’s lost it without being pinned, he can both move on protected, leaving the rest of the division to actually have competitive matches again. Riddle won in a great back and forth clash, hopefully meaning the US title can once again become the workrate segment on weekly TV.

Rhea Ripley’s promo package said she’s coming soon to Raw. For Charlotte Flair to beat her.

The New Day beat The Biker Mice From Mars’ T-Bar and Mace in barely a few minutes – causing even Ali to get frustrated with Retribution’s booking, as he shouted at them all for losing so much. So they’re either breaking up, becoming serious and adding more recruits, or nothing happens off the back of this, and we just get the same repetitive feuds and in-fighting over and over again until the faction eventually disappears.

After the first hour, it was now time for Lashley’s Ultimatum. Miz said he needed more time, when out came Braun Strowman to say he should get a title match before anyone. 

One Shane McMahon dance later, and he’d booked Lashley vs Strowman for the main event, where if Braun won, he’d be added to the Miz vs Lashley WWE Championship match next week. Which almost definitely means we’re getting Shane McMahon vs Strowman in a Raw Underground match at WrestleMania.

It’s still a good format, it’s still a good format!

I’d actually like to praise WWE for weaving so many different storylines into one night long narrative. And what’s really interesting was how Miz texted someone after begging Adam Pearce backstage to get out of the Bobby match – presumably setting up some interference for next week. Because the Darkest Timeline knows no bounds, I reckon it’s Shane. Former WrestleMania foes coming together to form their own faction with their chief enforcer MizDad! Or Braun Strowman. Braun Strowman also works.

Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander beat Lucha House Party in a fun, quick paced tornado tag where, crucially, they worked together to win. They now deserve a proper tag team title feud.

After R-Truth was too scared of Damien Priest to beat Bad Bunny for the 24/7 title backstage, Priest took on Angel Garza in a singles match. Garza actually got in a fair bit of offence, but it was just to build Priest’s awesome block strike comeback to win – and then he fought off 24/7 jobbers for Bunny.

Randy Orton cut a promo backstage about how he keeps getting distracted. The gauntlet match last week, the Chamber match. But it’s not the Fiend, he burned the Fiend. It’s Alexa Bliss. Or, maybe that dodgy taco he ate in catering, because he then coughed up black liquid and ran away.

Yay, supernatural bollocks is back!

This was stupid, made even more so by the commentary team completely no-selling a man being poisoned because they’ve got to talk about Lacey Evans being pregnant.

Charlotte Flair and Asuka finally imploded despite being the bestest of friends when facing Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler next. Flair accidentally booted Asuka in the face, legit knocking out a tooth, and Jax hit the leg drop to win. Asuka slapped Charlotte’s hand away after the match.

But even when Asuka starts actually feuding with Charlotte, she’s still not the most important thing. Because but two segments later, Charlotte was telling Ric to go home and let her be Charlotte Flair, let her be her own person. Who does the Figure 4, and says woo, and wears a robe. 

This appeared to be WWE dropping any hint of the Evans storyline, as Ric apologised, said he didn’t get Lacey pregnant, and left. Well that storyline sure was worth it at the expense of the Raw Women’s Title.

Sheamus beat Jeff Hardy in a physical match. At least it keeps Sheamus’ momentum going, building a blood feud with him and Drew.

It’s not just Miz title runs that are coming back from the past – Naomi and Lana vs Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke was a total Divas era two minute match. Nobody got entrances, and Naomi and Lana won in a toilet break of a match.

AJ Styles beat Ricochet in a good match for the time they had. Which was more about Omos than any of the action in the ring. He got a video package talking about how tall he is before the match, the commentators talked about how tall he is during the entire match, and then he effortlessly lifted up Ricochet by the neck and slammed him down after the match. They have actually done a really good job building Omos up. Hopefully it actually leads to something now.

The main event of Braun vs Lashley was what really turned my opinion round on the Miz title win. I was prepared for Strowman winning to make it a triple threat next week and stretch out this story. What we got was Bobby being booked Heyman style in an awesome back and forth hoss battle, with Lashley kicking out of the powerslam, which commentary put over huge, and then hitting a double pounce spear to win, and he beat up Miz afterwards for good measure.

It was a very heel heavy main event, with no babyfaces on this Raw chapter of the storyline, which almost made Bobby look even more badass. They’re actually booked him so well, I want to see Lashley’s title run last past Mania.

What are your thoughts on the above story? Let us know in the comments on Twitter or Facebook.

3 years ago by Oli Davis

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