The Reason Why The Miz Win The Intercontinental Title on SmackDown !!!!

With all the hype surrounding the historic 900th episode of SmackDown Live centered around appearances from the Undertaker and Edge, the blue brand’s creative team also needed to provide its audience with a memorable wrestling match. And that’s exactly what they did, booking a rematch between Dolph Ziggler and The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship. And yet again, the two delivered.

There have been countless iterations of the Ziggler-Miz rivalry over the years, but the post brand-split version in 2016 has arguably been their most compelling. Not only has the IC title been in the middle of it all, but it also included fine valet work from The Miz’s wife, Maryse, the re-introduction of two members of the Spirit Squad, and Ziggler’s career hanging in the balance.

Several weeks ago, Ziggler took a page out of John Cena’s book, issuing an open challenge for his Intercontinental Championship. In fact, seeing how Survivor Series would provide a battleground for brand supremacy, he laid out the challenge to anyone in the RAW locker room to face him at the upcoming pay-per-view. But The Miz had other ideas.

Backstage, there was a lot of back and forth in regards to how this particular angle would all play out. At first, the WWE wanted to keep Ziggler’s Survivor Series opponent a secret until the actual match. That was soon scrapped in favor of a qualifying match between Sami Zayn and Rusev. The idea there was to push Zayn and invest in his build-up, albeit a rather short one. But then the writing team inserted The Miz back into the equation.

As noted, The Miz challenged Ziggler for the title Tuesday night, as recapped by WWE.com.

“Dolph Ziggler attempted to defend his Intercontinental Championship against The Miz in an opening contest that absolutely tore down the house on #SDLive900. And after a flurry of activity, including interference from The Spirit Squad, it looked as though Ziggler would be able to overcome all the obstacles, catching Miz in a small package. However, Maryse, behind the ref’s back was able to give Miz a shove that shifted the momentum for him to suddenly be pinning Ziggler, which was enough to secure the victory and reclaim his coveted title! It would now be Miz, and not Ziggler, who would go on to defend the title against Raw’s Sami Zayn at Survivor Series.”

The Miz now joins Jeff Jarrett and Rob Van Dam as WWE superstars who have held the Intercontinental Championship six different times. Chris Jericho, of course, holds the record with nine title reigns. But according to Cageside Seats, The Miz’s sixth championship reign is not expected to last long.

As we reported last week, the WWE was planning to swap two titles at Survivor Series. The Cruiserweight Championship is expected to move to SmackDown after Kalisto defeats Brian Kendrick, and the IC strap appears to be headed to RAW thanks to a Sami Zayn victory.

The decision to put The Miz over Ziggler on SDLive900 was made so that Sami Zayn could take the title off The Miz and not Ziggler in what would be a more defined babyface vs. heel match. It’s not clear what will become of Ziggler’s role at Survivor Series, but WWE is clearly intent on the crowd popping for a championship change at the pay-per-view and pitting two babyfaces may have split the crowd.

Zayn, who had gotten lost in the shuffle since separating from Kevin Owens, and to a lesser extent Chris Jericho, briefly feuded with Braun Strowman before that too seemed to be scrapped. Capturing the Intercontinental Championship will boost his relevance, but it will be interesting to see how RAW handles having two mid-card titles on the same show. Keep in mind, however, that both shows have been teasing the idea of roster trades, a lot of which have been centered around both Sami Zayn and The Miz.