This week, in preparation for Friday’s post-Royal Rumble episode of SmackDown, WWE announced the card for what they are calling a “Super SmackDown.” One of the matches announced as part of the stacked card features Heavy Machinery vs. the Revival vs. Lucha House Party vs. the Miz and John Morrison. The winner books a trip to February’s Super ShowDown to face the New Day for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship.
While this is a marquee match in and of itself, the biggest news here is that for the first time since John Morrison’s WWE return in early January, he and Miz will be in tag team action. Allied since the beginning of said return, the two have cornered each other in singles match but this will be their first proper return as a bonafide team in over a decade. The last match they wrestled together was in April of 2009 as they teamed with Tyson Kidd in a losing effort on ECW. Just two days prior, the duo of Miz and John Morrison lost their tag titles in a title unification dark match held during WrestleMania 25.
Miz and Morrison would end up getting drafted to different brands shortly after and over the next two years, sporadically feuded, largely over which one would have the career of Shawn Michaels and which one would be resigned to being the Marty Jannetty. In the end, it was Miz who got the better of Morrison more often than not, including at Survivor Series when the two captained opposing teams to face each other. Morrison’s last WWE match, falls count anywhere, came in 2011 against the Miz, where a kayfabe injury was used to write the former off of television as he decided not to renew his contract.
In the ensuing nine years, both Miz and Morrison would find success. Miz in WWE, where he is now a grand slam champion with the second most reigns all-time with the Intercontinental Championship (8x) and Morrison throughout the world, with championships in Lucha Underground, IMPACT Wrestling, AAA Lucha Libre, PCW ULTRA and more. John Morrison also, who upon leaving WWE cited wanting to pursue other interests in addition to wrestling, found that opportunity as he wrote, directed and starred in his own movie, was a castaway on NBC’s Survivor, and has other film credits including Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Both former Tough Enough contestants (Morrison won the third season and Miz was runner-up in the fourth) and real-life close friends, found themselves pursuing different paths over the last nine years, but now, the Guru of Greatness and Must-See A-Lister have reunited and it couldn’t have come at a better time for SmackDown’s tag team division.
“In Life, There Are Winners and There Are Losers”
In November 2007, WWE decided to pair the former rivals, following their feud over the ECW Championship. A team of barely two weeks at the time, Miz and Morrison defeated the makeshift unit of Matt Hardy and MVP for the WWE Tag Team Championship, after MVP turned on his rival/one-time partner. At the time of their victory, however, Miz and Morrison were united in belt only as it wasn’t until a few weeks later that they were presented no longer as enemies but as friends who trusted each other. Largely this worked because outside of the ring, the two had actually become friends and inside of the ring, they had innate chemistry and an excellent working dynamic.
It also worked because Miz and Morrison weren’t creatively stifled. The two were allowed to be themselves and let their personalities shine through. This was at its most obvious when the two debuted “The Dirt Sheet.”
In 2008, the social media craze was still in its infancy and YouTube wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today. There was no Total Divas, no WWE Backstage, no docs like WWE:24. For the So to give fans some additional content beyond what aired on TV, WWE had several web series over the years. None were as successful and aired as many episodes as “The Dirt Sheet.” The brainchild of Miz and Morrison, the wildly popular and Slammy-award winning, The Dirt Sheet was part talk show, part variety show and part kayfabe way for the duo to advance their ongoing feuds at the time.
Over the course of the show, which ran throughout much of the duo’s two team championship reigns in 2008-09, “The Chick Magnet” The Miz and Morrison’s “Shaman of Sexy” found time during each 4-minute or less episode to stroke their own egos, make jokes, don costumes, insult much of the roster, fake accents, rap, sing, dance and utter no shortage of catchphrases. Especially Morrison, who always opened the show with a one-liner, such as “I’m John Morrison, and if God had two sons, I would be the better-looking one.”
Given Miz and Morrison wrote the show and came up with their own ideas, it was a fun outlet for the duo as much as it was a highly entertaining portion of WWE content. And while its success may not have been directly linked to Miz and Morrison holding the WWE/Raw Tag Team Championship for 250 days, which at the time was the second-longest such reign with the belts, it’s hard to imagine there wasn’t at least some correlation. After all, if the show wasn’t getting over, then it wouldn’t have continued and if the show didn’t continue, Miz and Morrison may not have gotten the spotlight those few minutes a week provided. The duo even had the opportunity to wrestle against and defeat DX, who they mocked in a special live edition of The Dirt Sheet, that as it would turn out, featured Nick and Matt Jackson playing the titular roles of Shawn Michaels and Triple H.
The Dirt Sheet provided Miz and Morrison a platform to show the WWE Universe their personalities in a unique way, and its return, could be exactly what they need in this new chapter of their team. Make no mistake, Miz and Morrison don’t need The Dirt Sheet to find success. But given the role the show played in their first go-around with the titles, it would be incredibly entertaining to see new episodes being made, especially once the reunited duo once again have tag gold around their waists.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. We provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. WWE fan? Check out the WWE Network to fulfill all of your WWE needs!
