Roman Reigns vs The Miz, Raw, 20/11/17

Intercontinental Championship Match

 

This match came out of a really fun MizTV segment with The Shield earlier. Miz stalls to start but gets his clock cleaned by an awesome uppercut. Reigns dominates with power early on and the crowd chants "Roman, Roman!" Miz runs away from a superman punch and takes over with a DDT on the outside. Reigns beats the count out at the absolute last second. Reigns might have the best punches in WWE. He fights out of a Miz chinlock with another big uppercut but Miz stays on top with his backbreaker-neckbreaker combo. Miz running desperately towards each corner to keep on offence is great. Of course he inevitably misses one charge and crotches himself. Yes! Kicks are dodged and it's a Samoan drop for Miz. Awesome counter to a superman punch where Miz hooks Roman's knee then kicks him in the head. Double-axehandle attempt off the top is met with a superman punch that finally hits to pop the crowd big. The Bar run out for a distraction allowing Miz a close nearfall with the Skull Crushing Finale. The crowd is right into this as Seth and Dean run out to take out the tag champs. Miz takes his eye off the ball to see what's going on outside and walks right into a spear to give Reigns the Intercontinental Championship.

 

Really fun match and it's nice to see a hot crowd that's fully into Reigns. Another strong TV performance from him as he sold the outside DDT beautifully and used his sweet strikes to set up hope spots. Miz was great here too. He knew Reigns was bigger and stronger and it really came through with his tenacity to stay on top when he got the opening. He was running around like a madman when he had Reigns in the corner and pulling out all the stops to cut off his comeback spots. Great fun and the ending will hopefully set up a rematch where they can get 20 minutes plus because they have a great match in them. I'm excited to see Roman working competitive IC title matches with guys lower down the pecking order a la Cena with the US title in 2015.

 

***1/2

This was so good. The reactions from the crowd and The Shield after the match were both wonderful. Announcers sold it as a big deal. Just a great piece of professional wrestling.

Pretty good TV match. I love how Miz has made the softness of his strikes part of his character. Great heeling on his part and very good comebacks from Reigns who's pretty easily the TV match kings this year.