Miz says backlash to zombie match was because ‘nobody wants to let things develop’

Well, it didn’t take long for someone on the WWE roster to follow Triple H’s lead.

Actually, I’m not sure when ComicBook.com conducted this Pampers-plugging interview with The Miz & Maryse. It could have been before Hunter chastised fans for not “just watching” WWE’s shows. But while they’re addressing different kinds of criticism from the company’s customers, Miz & Haitch’s answers are pretty similar.

Here’s what the A-Lister said when asked what his reaction was when he heard he’d be doing the Army of the Dead tie-in zombie lumberjack match with Damian Priest at WrestleMania Backlash:

“So a lot of people would be like, ‘What is this? Oh, my God.’ I’m the type of person that goes, this allows my creative juices to do whatever the hell we kind of want. So let’s make a movie out of it. Let’s make a meal out of it. I mean, there was a part in that match where Damian and I worked together to beat up all the zombies. And some people give us flack for going outside the box. And the problem with, I feel like, today’s world is that it’s so easy to just literally go on the Internet and just critique and say, ‘This is terrible. This is horrible.’ With my storyline, with Bad Bunny, nobody wanted to see it up until they wanted to see it at WrestleMania. You know? So nobody wants to let things develop and things get fun.”

First, props for the can-do attitude.

Second, Miz & Trips are definitely right that fans can rush to judgement on things, and be their own worst enemies when it comes to focusing on the future or other elements outside of their control.

But in the case of Miz’s answer here*, and I say this as someone who actually did have some fun with the zombie lumberjack match, people’s problems with it weren’t that they didn’t let it develop. It was that it was a financially-driven decision with next-to-no build and little follow-up, and one that followed a different set of story logic than anything else on the show.

Blaming your audience for not liking your show is a bold strategy, but it’s a long-standing and pretty pervasive one in this business born out of conning marks.

We’ll see if it keeps paying off for them.

* The Game’s position is more assailable than Miz’s. Playing armchair booker/personnel manager is just how some people consume your product, Mr. H. And it’s not confined to WWE or wrestling! Fantasy sports are a billion dollar business. And if Trips thinks fan entitlement is a problem for him and his father-in-law, he should try talking to some execs at Disney about Last Jedi, or Warner Bros about #ReleaseTheSnyderCut.