The Miz is superstar who became an unlikely two-time WWE champion after being shamed for his reality TV world connections early in his career so much so that he was forced to change outside of the roster locker rooms.
It’s a dramatic rise from his humble, fan-driven beginnings, but there is nothing unlikely about his success.
The Ohio-born star has put together a hall-of-fame worthy 19-year main roster career and had the bandwidth to grab 12 movie credits to his name – several as the leading star – with many more TV cameos and hosting gigs. And that’s not even mentioning the reality TV show he shared with his wife Maryse, Miz and Mrs.
Now, aged 44, Miz is heading to WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas without a clear path, but he has still been helping elevate burgeoning star Carmelo Hayes in recent weeks, assuming the veteran role in the company.
MailSport caught up with The Hollywood A-Lister ahead of the Showcase of the Immortals to discuss where he is at in his career, what’s next and some of the highlights of his run.
I’ve noticed you love spending time playing golf recently on your socials. Is that becoming more and more of a passion alongside wrestling?
Miz: So I started watching YouTube golf, and I never really got into it until maybe a couple of years ago and I was like, wow.
And so in order to focus with golf, it’s reps. It’s doing the reps. It’s like with WWE like when I first got started in WWE. I needed reps upon reps, upon reps.
And now I’m a professional, right? I’m a professional WWE superstar. I’ve honed my craft. Now with golf, I like to hone my craft.
When I come to stay here, I would have loved to go golfing today, but it’s a little chilly. So instead I’m in my room working on this (his torque and moving his hips). So I’ll be doing that for like an hour.
I’ll go over my grip because grip is, if you listen to Scottie Scheffler, he’s like “I go over my grip every day all the time”, and I’m like, wow, a guy like Scottie Scheffler doesn’t know how to like just, grip it? But it’s true.
I’m starting actually a YouTube channel. I’m working on that. Editing is the tough part about it though. So we have, I think, eight in the can right now. We haven’t debuted it yet, but Miz Golf will be coming, probably debuted Miz Golf, that easy, huh?
A lot of like, so PGA professionals, like, not, not necessarily on the tour, but like they are at their club – the professional at their club.
They will come on and kind of teach me. And so I’m working my way. You said you’re a 20, like I’m an 18. So I was a 17 and then I got worse in 18. But now I think I’ve kind of locked in to where now I’m scoring better.
But now I need a bunch of scores to really get me, get me down. So that’s, that’s been my golf journey. I’m a big believer in like do what you love. I love being a WWE superstar. I love traveling the world and performing in front of thousands and millions watching at home, but I also love other things, other hobbies, and other hobbies is golfing.
So how do you feel about kind of your spot in WWE now? You’ve had real runs deep where you’re one of the main players. Where you’re at now in the company, you’ve been helping Carmalo Hayes recently but don’t have an obvious WrestleMania path. At this stage of your career, what gets you excited now?
Miz: What gets me excited, , honestly? Coming to London and literally going to be able to perform in front of probably what, 20,000 at the 02. Oh my God, like because I’m what, 44 now turning 45 this year. I don’t know how many times more like when I was 25, I’m like, yeah, I’m coming to London every single year, twice a year, let’s go.
I don’t know how many more times I will be in London with WWE doing what I love to do because I don’t know how much longer my body can do it right now.
I feel great. I’m not saying like, oh hey, I’m getting a little tired here, but you know, when you, when you become 50, it’s very difficult to do what we do on a full-time basis.
The Miz feuded with John Cena over the WWE title and main evented WrestleMania 27
It’s a reason why there’s a farewell tour for [John] Cena. He’s he didn’t want to wrestle past 50. Me? I feel great.
I’ve always been doing things even in 2010, 2011 [when I was main eventing], I was doing the Marine 3, 4, 5, 6; Santa’s Little Helper, hosting shows over in the states. So I’ve always dabbled my hands into everything I possibly get because I think it all helps me to be a better WWE superstar.
Well, whenever I’ve done those hosting gigs, like being able to host Sofi WrestleMania, you know, at Los Angeles in front of 100,000, it’s a very difficult thing.
It’s very challenging and not only that, have two matches on two nights, so it’s things that I’ve learned and taken from acting as well as hosting and bringing it to WWE.
And just utilising all the tools that I could possibly get to be the better superstar.
I was there watching that and obviously the Shane McMahon moment happens. Were you very much on the fly with trying to rescue that moment?
Miz: I think my first reaction was, OK, he’s injured. No one else knows he’s injured and no one else knows what’s going on. So how do we make this the best we possibly can? In my head I was going, all right, we need to figure this out.
And then Snoop got the message and came in and jacked me and I didn’t even see him, right? But when the red lights on, I knew the red light would be on me. It wouldn’t be on Shane. They are usually, they’re very good at that.
Snoop Dogg saved the day by beating The Miz up
So if I would have been like, ‘oh my God’ that’d have been terrible. Honestly, it was terrible what happened, but given what happened, what we did was best case [scenario].
When we got done, everyone thought it was part of what was supposed to happen and I was like, that’s, that’s that was not that was not what was supposed to happen [laughs].
One match I do want your thoughts on is when you took on the reformed Shield, but with the last-minute addition of Kurt Angle. Can you talk us through the chaos of putting that together and was it the only time you ever worked Kurt?
I think so, yeah, like I mean that in itself is quite a big, a big deal too.
I’ve had the opportunity to work superstars that I dreamt of working when I was a kid, you know, like when I was a kid, I used to remember like me, my buddy and I would be the rockers, right? Marty Janetty and Shawn Michaels. I’d be Marty Janetty. I got to work both Shawn Michaels and Marty Janetty, Roddy Roddy Piper, people that you don’t get a lot of people don’t get to work, right?
I never worked him and then all of a sudden he comes in and it’s like, oh wow, I’m working Kurt Angle. And I remember it was like, you still got it chants, which is always the best.
Like I was the Rocks first match back for Survivor series after nine years of not being around. And all of a sudden, who’s his first match? This guy? Are you you kidding me? Like, the reason I wanted to become a superstar was because of the Rock.
Like I remember his action figure on my shelf and me trying to contemplate what I wanted to do with the rest of my life after I got done off the Real World, which I don’t think you guys know too much about the Real World. Pretty incredible.
And then to come full circle where The Rock helps me win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 27 and then have his first match back at Survivor Series. It was pretty cool. It doesn’t get much better than that.
The Rock’s first match back after a 7 year hiatus saw him clash with The Miz in a tag match
When we finally get there with you and Daniel Bryan, are you kind of pleased looking back on it and what you was able to do with him and kind of execute such a story that people were so interested in?
Yeah it’s crazy you’re bringing up all these things and like trying to remember them, right?
I’m like, well, what was my feeling of like, I remember feelings obviously like, , talking smack, but I also remember the first time it got out that I was gonna be Daniel Bryan’s pro on NXT, which was before NXT it is today.
It was the game show, if you will, like literally it was us having a pro and a rookie come into WWE and teach them the ropes of being a WWE superstar and when it came out that I was gonna be his pro, the internet was set afire.
How dare they put The American Dragon with The Miz because I was hated and he’s known as an independent wrestler that is huge on the independent scene and I was just came from the real world and I shouldn’t even be in the ring.
I shouldn’t even be here. So I wrote – I asked.com WWE.com – I was like, “hey, If I write something, can you put it out there?”
And they were like, this is before kind of Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, any of that stuff was really popular, right? So .com is where you put it out.
So I put a message out there basically telling all those fans that like just because you’re good on the independent circuit doesn’t mean you can do what we do here at the WWE. It takes a lot to get to where I was and he didn’t get here for some certain reason and we’re gonna find out what that is.
And so that was the first inkling that I was like, wow, there’s something here. Then when we got in the ring for the first time and I think I smacked him and the crowd was captivated. They were always captivated because we’re such opposites.
And so then he was the perfect person for that day at Talking Smack. I don’t know if it would have went the same, but I was in a very, very bad mood that day. Very bad mood.
I still remember the feeling of how angry I was that day about where I was in my career and what I was doing and I had this title and it wasn’t even being mentioned on TV and they were like, hey, you got the first match of the night. It’s not gonna be televised.
And I’m like, this is the title that like I grew up watching and now you’re not even giving me a second on the on the show. It wasn’t that I had to do the first match – I wasn’t even on the show.
It wasn’t even be mentioned, not even a package or or a two second thing of like and and it it was a couple of weeks where I wasn’t doing anything and I was so furious.
I was like, you know, you have this new show Talking Smack that you want to get off the ground, put me on it.
Why do you want to be on it? Just put me on it. But it worked out pretty damn well.
Watch WrestleMania 41 from Las Vegas LIVE on Netflix on April 19 and 20
