[2016-05-01-WWE-Payback] The Miz vs Cesaro

[GOTNW]

I'm not convinced Cesaro is a better worker than The Miz right now. This was a total blast-Cesaro has a lot of spots that sound good but often don't amount to much and having Miz stooge for him really helps his matches. The Miz lets him shine early on as Cesaro does come cool matwork spots and his badass deadlift gutwrench. They smartly transition into Miz's control segment by using Maryse and Miz doesn't do nothing fancy, nothing that would get a pop, just goes after Cesaro's shoulder injury. The way Cesaro countered Miz's Sleeper to get back in control was amazing, I don't remember him ever doing that before, ditto the amazing counter he had for Miz's DDT, that's the kind of awesome stuff he used to bust out regularly a few years ago before he settled into an underwhelming formula, and here even when he does use his formula (like the uppercut train I don't really like) he modifies it a little bit by finishing it with a beautiful dropkick. The big nearfall caught me completely off guard and I loved how they incorporated the Owens-Zayn angle into the match. Sure, Miz fucked up the Neutralizer bump after the match, but that was so utterly irrelevant after everything that took place. I wasn't expecting to like this more than Kalisto/Ryback but I did. ***1/2-***3/4