Dean Ambrose Defends His Intercontinental Championship On SmackDown Live

The Miz and Dean Ambrose have been at each other’s throats for quite some time now, even before Dean snatched Miz’s intercontinental championship a few weeks ago. Daniel Bryan decided that they would leave it in the ring tonight, literally. Therefore he booked an old-school lumberjack match to headline the go-home show leading into Royal Rumble.

The locker room was prepared for a lumberjack match as the heels and faces surrounded the ring waiting to pounce on the the opposite side’s representative.

Miz and Dean circled each other in the ring until Dean threw Miz into the turnbuckle and applied a few doses of stomping to The A-Lister. They bounced off the ropes and Dean went for a crossbody when Miz ducked and Dean went outside on the heel side. Instead, the bad guys took a good dose of abuse from Dean before he rolled himself back in the ring and Miz took back control.

Dean went for a Dirty Deeds but missed as Miz went outside to escape it. Miz realized that he had just gone out on the wrong side and tried to get back in the ring when Dean grabbed him and threw him back outside for a good pummeling from all of the good guys who wanted a piece of his awesomeness.

Dean and Miz ended up on the top turnbuckle and Dean knocked Mike down. Miz avoided a top rope maneuver from Ambrose and Dean went against the rope to perform his signature bounce back closeline thing when the heels grabbed Dean’s body while it was midway outside of the ring pulling him to the ground. There was a skirmish between the heels and face lumberjacks and Dean ended up back in the ring where Miz got to close to count.

Miz added insult to injury while he performed a series of kicks to Dean Ambrose’s chest which greatly resembled that of Daniel Bryan’s. Adding these little moves within a match really gives one hope that Daniel Bryan might come back for one more match… Even if it is against the Miz anything is better than nothing.

Dean ended up outside the ring and up on the turnbuckle where he performed his signature elbow drop to a standing Miz.

There was a little bit of business until Miz ended up outside while the faces held him so Dean could perform his suicide dive and not let him get out of the way this time. It is certainly refreshing to see Miz fully catch somebody during a dive.

While Dean was trying to go back in the ring Mayrse grabbed his foot to distract him and Miz executed a running knee much like Daniel Bryan. The announce team kept bringing up the fact that Miz was ripping off Daniel Bryan too, obviously there is more to this than just speculation at this point.

Dean ended up in the corner and Miz started performing running corner dropkicks to Dean just like The Bearded Goat, it’s a little obvious at this point what they’re going for with Miz and D-Bry.

When Miz went for a third corner dropkick, Dean moved which sent Mike outside of the ring. Miz and every one of the lumberjacks ended up catching Dean Ambrose as he flew off the top rope onto the ground for a splash.

When the two made it back in the ring it was a series of near-falls as they traded roll-up pins and Dean pulled off his springboard clothesline, then covered for a pin when Baron Corbin broke it up, and chaos ensued within the ring as every one of the lumberjacks invaded and reenacted acted their own little Royal Rumble for a moment.

Baron Corbin did a great deal of throwing people out of the ring until Dean finally clotheslined him out. Miz tried a cheap roll up but Dean kicked out at the last moment. By the time Miz got up Dean was already in preparation to execute the Dirty Deeds. The referee counted to three and Dean Ambrose retained his Intercontinental Title.

It was a really good closing match for the go-home Smackdown Live show, but the real story has to be that the Miz and Daniel Bryan rivalry is far from over.