Post by Jonathan Michaels on May 27, 2023 1:07:18 GMT -5
This one is simple.
Tell me, in some detail, how you would book the ending of a WWE Superstar’s career.
An example.
The Miz is drafted to the same brand as the Intercontinental Championship
Over the next several months, he wins about as often as he loses, he loses a couple of #1 contender matches, but most notably, his heel tactics seem to be mostly ineffective, he tends to win cleanly but loses when he pulls his usual tricks.
It’s like the more desperate he is to win, the more it costs him. He’s getting into his own head as opposed to his opponents.
Around Summerslam, he is involved in a fatal four way #1 contender match, about halfway through the match, after taking moves from all three opponents, he sits in the ring, looks around him and exits the ring, heading up the ramp.
We don’t see him until after Survivor Series, and not just in the ring. No Miz TV, no PR appearances, no interviews.
He returns and explains that he realized that he has two wonderful children, a loving wife, and pretty much everything a guy could want.
He spent the last few months with his family, away from WWE entirely, cold turkey as it were, to see if maybe he was done.
And he thought he was.
But there was that one little thing in the back of his mind, something he couldn’t shake.
And it was the fact that, for over fifteen years he had been so desperate to prove the haters wrong, everyone who had ever doubted him, even long past the point when he became the first ever double Grand Slam champion, that fire that drove him for so long, but recently his biggest doubter, the person who believed he was a failure the most was himself.
The only person he needed to prove wrong was himself, and there was only one way for him to do that, the same thing that led him to beg to be on the same brand as his beloved Intercontinental championship.
He needs the record.
He needs to prove to himself that he was, no, he IS the greatest IC champion ever, the belt he carried proudly when Brock Lesnar ran off with the world title, he must prove that he is worthy of that title and that record.
He makes the following request of Triple H, he wants to earn a chance at the Intercontinental Championship at the Elimination Chamber, and that if he wins he will defend it against anyone Hunter chooses at Wrestlemania, because as it happens, if he wins at the Chamber, he will tie the record for longest total days as IC champion at Mania, he needs to prove himself on the grandest stage of all, not just for the record, but also because in 2011 he walked out of the main event of Wrestlemania as WWE Champion and he doesn’t remember any of it.
He got concussed, what should have been the greatest moment of his career was wiped from his memories, and the last piece of the puzzle is a memory that will replace it.
In exchange for this, he makes a promise.
At Wrestlemania, if he loses the match, he will immediately retire, and if he is disqualified or counted out, he will lose the match and forfeit the title, which will also end his in ring career.
Triple H acknowledges that this clearly means a lot to him and that it’s the most sincere he’s seemed since he met him, so he grants the request.
The way he can earn the title shot is by completing a gauntlet of sorts, each week, he will face off against a former champion in a match, and he gets three strikes, if he can get to Elimination Chamber without losing three times, he gets his title match, and if he wins the title, he will get the chance to break the record at Wrestlemania.
For the sake of this scenario, we’ll say the IC title is held by Sheamus.
Miz defeats the likes of Dolph Ziggler, Ricochet, R-Truth, Baron Corbin and even AJ Styles.
However, he loses to Lashley in a short match, and a couple of weeks later is brutalized by Gunther.
The week before the Chamber, his last barrier to his title shot is against Kofi Kingston, and after about ten minutes, the match ends when Sheamus comes out and hits Miz with a Brogue Kick, which means Miz wins the match and gets his shot.
Sheamus tells him that he wanted to ensure that he got his hands on him and defend his title, it’s nothing personal, but he knows how desperate Miz is, and that means he’ll put up a good fight, and there is nothing Sheamus loves more than a good fight.
That’s what he gets at the Chamber as Sheamus batters Miz six ways from Sunday, but Miz refuses to die, and resorts to some unique ways to thwart his opponent, at one point he dodges a Brogue Kick then grabs Sheamus’s leg to hit a modified Skull Crushing Finale, tweaking Sheamus’s knee.
The match ends when Sheamus gets Miz up for a Celtic Cross, but Miz slips off and catches Miz with a SCF to just barely get the three count and win the Intercontinental Championship for the ninth time.
Miz is joined by Maryse as he celebrates, crying as he clutches his beloved title.
The next night on RAW, he comes to the ring, and asks Triple H to tell him who he will be defending against at Wrestlemania.
Triple H replies that over the next four weeks, Miz will compete in a series of matches against the ghosts of his past, the first person to beat him will get the title shot, and if Miz can fend off all four challengers, he will get to name his opponent.
His first opponent is Dolph Ziggler, and Miz dispatches Dolph surprisingly quickly.
His second opponent is a returning John Morrison, and the two have a friendly but competitive match, which ends with Miz rolling Morrison up after a series of counters for the win, they hug afterwards.
His third opponent, Dexter Lumis, gets into the ring with Miz and stares him down, looking at him curiously, examining him, and finally gives Miz a thumbs up before leaving, getting counted out in the process.
This unnerves Miz, and he still seems a bit out of sorts when his final opponent comes out, Tomasso Ciampa, accompanied by The Way
Ciampa gives Miz a restaurant quality beating, revenge for Miz seemingly abandoning him a year before, Lumis, Gargano and Candice cheer Ciampa on, and Lumis at one point pulls out his hatchet when Miz mouths off to him, which brings out John Morrison and Maryse to even the odds.
Eventually, a fight breaks out among the seconds resulting in the match being thrown out when it spills into the ring.
Since Miz didn’t lose the match, he gets to select his opponent for Wrestlemania, he wastes no time, telling Ciampa that despite what he may think, Ciampa was his friend, and he wants to prove himself against the best at Wrestlemania.
So he is choosing Tomasso Ciampa.
At Night One of Wrestlemania, both Ciampa and Miz agree to bar all outside interference, and they have a 15-20 minute match where Miz keeps gutting out last second kickouts, Ciampa
can’t quite put Miz away, he goes for Project Ciampa but Miz is able to slide over behind Ciampa and hit the Skull Crushing Finale for a cover but Ciampa kicks out at the last possible moment.
Miz is distraught and Ciampa takes advantage to lock in a Gargano Escape, Miz struggles to drag Ciampa towards the ropes and is able to get a finger on the rope to break the hold.
Ciampa goes for a running knee strike but Miz ducks and Ciampa accidentally hits the ref, Miz hits Ciampa with another SCF while he is distracted, Miz goes to the outside and looks under the ring, but pauses, looks around at the crowd, and decides against it.
He reenters the ring just as the referee comes to when Ciampa pops up and hits a running knee strike on Miz.
He covers and the ref, still shaking it off, counts the fall, but he takes just long enough for Miz to kick out.
Ciampa goes to the corner, setting up another running knee strike on Miz, who gets to his knees and holds his arms out, telling Ciampa to do it.
Ciampa runs at Miz, who moves at the last second and catches Ciampa in a third Skull Crushing Finale for the win.
He lured Ciampa in on the last move and outsmarted Ciampa without resorting to dirty tricks.
He has secured the all time IC title record, he has a Wrestlemania moment he can remember.
Night Two begins, unexpectedly, with Miz’s music, he comes out dressed to compete.
“Last Year at Wrestlemania in Hollywood, due to a series of circumstances, I ended up having three matches I wasn’t ready for.
And I lost.
Well, I did beat Shane by forfeit, let’s be honest.
But that’s besides the point.
Last night, I broke the record as the longest overall reigning Intercontinental Champion of all time, and that’s a Wrestlemania moment that didn’t get knocked out of my head and will stay with me forever.
And now it’s time for someone else to have their Wrestlemania moment.
So if anyone back there wants a shot at this title, get out here and take it!”
The challenge is accepted by Grayson Waller, and the combination of being fresher, younger and hungrier is too much for Miz to handle after the night before, and a few minutes later, Grayson Waller is your new Intercontinental Champion.
Miz grabs the title, looks at it for a minute, and puts it on Waller’s shoulder, leaving the ring and looking at the crowd as he exits.
Tell me, in some detail, how you would book the ending of a WWE Superstar’s career.
An example.
The Miz is drafted to the same brand as the Intercontinental Championship
Over the next several months, he wins about as often as he loses, he loses a couple of #1 contender matches, but most notably, his heel tactics seem to be mostly ineffective, he tends to win cleanly but loses when he pulls his usual tricks.
It’s like the more desperate he is to win, the more it costs him. He’s getting into his own head as opposed to his opponents.
Around Summerslam, he is involved in a fatal four way #1 contender match, about halfway through the match, after taking moves from all three opponents, he sits in the ring, looks around him and exits the ring, heading up the ramp.
We don’t see him until after Survivor Series, and not just in the ring. No Miz TV, no PR appearances, no interviews.
He returns and explains that he realized that he has two wonderful children, a loving wife, and pretty much everything a guy could want.
He spent the last few months with his family, away from WWE entirely, cold turkey as it were, to see if maybe he was done.
And he thought he was.
But there was that one little thing in the back of his mind, something he couldn’t shake.
And it was the fact that, for over fifteen years he had been so desperate to prove the haters wrong, everyone who had ever doubted him, even long past the point when he became the first ever double Grand Slam champion, that fire that drove him for so long, but recently his biggest doubter, the person who believed he was a failure the most was himself.
The only person he needed to prove wrong was himself, and there was only one way for him to do that, the same thing that led him to beg to be on the same brand as his beloved Intercontinental championship.
He needs the record.
He needs to prove to himself that he was, no, he IS the greatest IC champion ever, the belt he carried proudly when Brock Lesnar ran off with the world title, he must prove that he is worthy of that title and that record.
He makes the following request of Triple H, he wants to earn a chance at the Intercontinental Championship at the Elimination Chamber, and that if he wins he will defend it against anyone Hunter chooses at Wrestlemania, because as it happens, if he wins at the Chamber, he will tie the record for longest total days as IC champion at Mania, he needs to prove himself on the grandest stage of all, not just for the record, but also because in 2011 he walked out of the main event of Wrestlemania as WWE Champion and he doesn’t remember any of it.
He got concussed, what should have been the greatest moment of his career was wiped from his memories, and the last piece of the puzzle is a memory that will replace it.
In exchange for this, he makes a promise.
At Wrestlemania, if he loses the match, he will immediately retire, and if he is disqualified or counted out, he will lose the match and forfeit the title, which will also end his in ring career.
Triple H acknowledges that this clearly means a lot to him and that it’s the most sincere he’s seemed since he met him, so he grants the request.
The way he can earn the title shot is by completing a gauntlet of sorts, each week, he will face off against a former champion in a match, and he gets three strikes, if he can get to Elimination Chamber without losing three times, he gets his title match, and if he wins the title, he will get the chance to break the record at Wrestlemania.
For the sake of this scenario, we’ll say the IC title is held by Sheamus.
Miz defeats the likes of Dolph Ziggler, Ricochet, R-Truth, Baron Corbin and even AJ Styles.
However, he loses to Lashley in a short match, and a couple of weeks later is brutalized by Gunther.
The week before the Chamber, his last barrier to his title shot is against Kofi Kingston, and after about ten minutes, the match ends when Sheamus comes out and hits Miz with a Brogue Kick, which means Miz wins the match and gets his shot.
Sheamus tells him that he wanted to ensure that he got his hands on him and defend his title, it’s nothing personal, but he knows how desperate Miz is, and that means he’ll put up a good fight, and there is nothing Sheamus loves more than a good fight.
That’s what he gets at the Chamber as Sheamus batters Miz six ways from Sunday, but Miz refuses to die, and resorts to some unique ways to thwart his opponent, at one point he dodges a Brogue Kick then grabs Sheamus’s leg to hit a modified Skull Crushing Finale, tweaking Sheamus’s knee.
The match ends when Sheamus gets Miz up for a Celtic Cross, but Miz slips off and catches Miz with a SCF to just barely get the three count and win the Intercontinental Championship for the ninth time.
Miz is joined by Maryse as he celebrates, crying as he clutches his beloved title.
The next night on RAW, he comes to the ring, and asks Triple H to tell him who he will be defending against at Wrestlemania.
Triple H replies that over the next four weeks, Miz will compete in a series of matches against the ghosts of his past, the first person to beat him will get the title shot, and if Miz can fend off all four challengers, he will get to name his opponent.
His first opponent is Dolph Ziggler, and Miz dispatches Dolph surprisingly quickly.
His second opponent is a returning John Morrison, and the two have a friendly but competitive match, which ends with Miz rolling Morrison up after a series of counters for the win, they hug afterwards.
His third opponent, Dexter Lumis, gets into the ring with Miz and stares him down, looking at him curiously, examining him, and finally gives Miz a thumbs up before leaving, getting counted out in the process.
This unnerves Miz, and he still seems a bit out of sorts when his final opponent comes out, Tomasso Ciampa, accompanied by The Way
Ciampa gives Miz a restaurant quality beating, revenge for Miz seemingly abandoning him a year before, Lumis, Gargano and Candice cheer Ciampa on, and Lumis at one point pulls out his hatchet when Miz mouths off to him, which brings out John Morrison and Maryse to even the odds.
Eventually, a fight breaks out among the seconds resulting in the match being thrown out when it spills into the ring.
Since Miz didn’t lose the match, he gets to select his opponent for Wrestlemania, he wastes no time, telling Ciampa that despite what he may think, Ciampa was his friend, and he wants to prove himself against the best at Wrestlemania.
So he is choosing Tomasso Ciampa.
At Night One of Wrestlemania, both Ciampa and Miz agree to bar all outside interference, and they have a 15-20 minute match where Miz keeps gutting out last second kickouts, Ciampa
can’t quite put Miz away, he goes for Project Ciampa but Miz is able to slide over behind Ciampa and hit the Skull Crushing Finale for a cover but Ciampa kicks out at the last possible moment.
Miz is distraught and Ciampa takes advantage to lock in a Gargano Escape, Miz struggles to drag Ciampa towards the ropes and is able to get a finger on the rope to break the hold.
Ciampa goes for a running knee strike but Miz ducks and Ciampa accidentally hits the ref, Miz hits Ciampa with another SCF while he is distracted, Miz goes to the outside and looks under the ring, but pauses, looks around at the crowd, and decides against it.
He reenters the ring just as the referee comes to when Ciampa pops up and hits a running knee strike on Miz.
He covers and the ref, still shaking it off, counts the fall, but he takes just long enough for Miz to kick out.
Ciampa goes to the corner, setting up another running knee strike on Miz, who gets to his knees and holds his arms out, telling Ciampa to do it.
Ciampa runs at Miz, who moves at the last second and catches Ciampa in a third Skull Crushing Finale for the win.
He lured Ciampa in on the last move and outsmarted Ciampa without resorting to dirty tricks.
He has secured the all time IC title record, he has a Wrestlemania moment he can remember.
Night Two begins, unexpectedly, with Miz’s music, he comes out dressed to compete.
“Last Year at Wrestlemania in Hollywood, due to a series of circumstances, I ended up having three matches I wasn’t ready for.
And I lost.
Well, I did beat Shane by forfeit, let’s be honest.
But that’s besides the point.
Last night, I broke the record as the longest overall reigning Intercontinental Champion of all time, and that’s a Wrestlemania moment that didn’t get knocked out of my head and will stay with me forever.
And now it’s time for someone else to have their Wrestlemania moment.
So if anyone back there wants a shot at this title, get out here and take it!”
The challenge is accepted by Grayson Waller, and the combination of being fresher, younger and hungrier is too much for Miz to handle after the night before, and a few minutes later, Grayson Waller is your new Intercontinental Champion.
Miz grabs the title, looks at it for a minute, and puts it on Waller’s shoulder, leaving the ring and looking at the crowd as he exits.
