I think the real problem with the WWE is encapsulated within the Miz.
Unlike other people, I am actually a pretty big Miz fan. I think he's a great mic guy and a decent wrestler. His main event run was one of the few times WWE actually struck while the iron was hot and, I guess, unlike everyone else in the world, I think, at the time, he deserved the championship. He didn't deserve to main event WM but putting him in the role they gave Bryan the next year (Curtain jerking ass who gets stomped immediately) would've made for a hot crowd in WM 27.
My problem with Miz is this new babyface run. I think Miz's success as a heel was that people genuinely hated him. They didn't like him as a person or a character. Miz helped matters with his mic work but at the end of the day, if Miz succeeded, it was because there was nothing redeeming about him. Now, WWE is using the exact same character, w/o any change, and expecting people to cheer him. They've given no reason why we should cheer him and there is still no redeeming quality about the character. They've just said, "He's a face now, so cheer him." I know the logic was, "We've done everything we can with him as a heel, so lets turn him and see what happens." But that cheapens the idea of what a face and heel are. In the 80s, they never would have changed Dibiase or Rude (To name just two) for one simple reason: There's no reason to cheer a guy who bought his way to the top or a guy who continually talks about how he's banging your girlfriend. Beyond that, it made an actual philosophical point: These are bad traits and shouldn't be emulated. What's the message with the Miz? Arrogance, cheating and whining are bad traits until we say they aren't?
In a sense, this is worse than when Russo was turning wrestlers left and right. At least, back then, since "Shades of Grey" (not the book) was such a big thing, changing, say, Hardcore Holly wasn't such a big deal since there was nothing to his character except that he was hardcore. Miz is a character with definable traits that a fans, almost to a person, hate. Unless you give the character a complete makeover, there's no point in changing him, and, in fact, it's insulting to the fans.
Thoughts?
Yeah, this Miz babyface thing is a disaster. Fans clearly don't give a shit about him as this character because as noted he's the same douchebag he was before. I do think that if JoMo returns at the Rumble as rumored Miz could tag along as his comedy foil again, but this thing is a dead end for Miz as a top guy as it stands.