#8 – The Miz
I anticipate getting a lot of heat for putting The Miz on this list, and for putting him above Daniel Bryan of all people. But when you think about who the most hated man during the entire PG Era has been – outside of John Cena – The Miz has to at least be a contender on that short list of people.
Let’s not forget that he was WWE Champion for 160 days. If the PG Era spanned from 2008-2013, The Miz was the reigning, defending champion for more than 7% of the entire thing. How does a guy who knows how to draw that much heat, who was WWE Champion for that long, and who has main evented WrestleMania alongside John Cena – even if it was to put over The Rock – not deserve a spot?
#7 – Edge
Edge is one of my all-time favorite WWE Superstars. He’s one of the few guys to really never venture outside of the WWE bubble, cementing his place in the company and never letting go, until he was forced to by a career-ending injury. So why is he so low on this list?
Edge had one really fantastic, break-out feud in the PG Era, and it was with The Undertaker. That feud alone gets him a spot on this list. My favorite period of Edge, by far, was the “Rated-R Superstar” gimmick, along with Lita, that just couldn’t be done in a PG environment. It’s not that he couldn’t adapt, because he obviously went on to have a few years of great success, but his peak period was not during the PG Era, which he spent putting a lot of people over. Not to say he wasn’t great – he just wasn’t as great.
