WWE superstar and former world champion The Miz recently spoke with Yahoo! Entertainment about his early days with the company, and how he learned to be a main event caliber star by working with John Cena. The A-Lister also discusses the pride he felt after dropping the WWE title to Bobby Lashley, and how proud he was to help build up Lashley as a monster. Highlights are below.
Looks back on his early days in WWE:
“When I first came to WWE, I think everyone assumed — and I wasn’t out there telling everyone I was on the independent scene — I was on The Real World and that’s why I was there. Everyone was like, ‘We don’t care who The Miz is. As a matter of fact, we don’t like The Miz, we don’t like Mike, we don’t like you. Period. You don’t belong here.’ I was always trying to find the right spot on the dial. I was turned up [as The Miz] for so long that when I got to WWE and I was at 100, WWE wanted me to take it down to like a 20. It takes time to develop that, it takes time to learn where you have to be and where you need to go.”
Says he learned what it takes to be a main even caliber star by working with John Cena:
“Guess what? Vince heard about [the media days] and would come up to me and say, ‘You’re doing a great job.’ That’s my boss. That’s the person I want to impress and the person who could get me to where I want to be. Now, at 40, with 16 years in the business under my belt, I get [what I was doing wrong then.] It was just through time and repetition and one day it just clicks. John Cena taught me all of that. When I started working with John Cena in live events, that’s when I learned what it takes to be a main-event caliber superstar.”
How he was proud to be apart of building up Bobby Lashley:
“Do I need a title to be relevant and a main event-caliber player in WWE? No, I don’t, but I can take a title and make someone else. I had the title for eight days, but if you really look at how much I did in those eight days, Bobby Lashley was made to be the biggest monster in WWE [during that time]. I’m proud to say that I was a part of that. Bobby Lashley deserves the WWE championship and my job was to make him the biggest, scariest monster out there. We did it in one night. There is no better thing than when you’re a bad guy and you get pinned, to hear the crowd erupt.”