The Miz Originally Said “No, Absolutely Not” To Reality Television Return

WWE Champion The Miz has revealed that prior to his successful Miz & Mrs television show, he was against delving back into reality television.

Prior to his success as a WWE Superstar, Mike Mizanin rose to fame as a reality television star on MTV’s The Real World and The Challenge. It was a past that not only followed him onto WWE television, but one that he was hesitant to return to one when WWE approached him with the idea of a Kardashian-type fly-on-the-wall show.

Joining Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, The Miz discussed how against returning to the genre he was after finally escaping his beginnings and how, inevitably, it pulled him back in after creating such a programme with his wife Maryse:

“I’m told, ‘we would love to do a reality show with you,’ and I said ‘No, absolutely not.’ It was a 100% no. They thought it would be good. Three years later, Maryse and I created a sizzle for a house-flipping show because we were flipping houses at the time and we brought it to WWE and said, ‘We’d love for WWE Studios to produce this if you want.’ Sat down and they were like, ‘We don’t want this, it isn’t money. You two on a show is money. What will it take to get you on a reality show?’ This is a moment where I was doing bits and pieces for Maryse to do Total Divas. I told them, ‘I’m very minute in Total Divas.'”

According to The Miz, after shedding the stigma that came with being a reality television star over a decade ago, he didn’t want to return to be looked at as anything other than a professional wrestler:

“I didn’t want the stigma that I remember 15 years before of being on The Real World. I wanted to do movies and host. I couldn’t do those things back then because nobody would let me in the door. I didn’t want to do that again. I said to Maryse, ‘[Social media] is a reality show.’ I know what The Rock is doing. I go on Instagram and see what he’s doing. I started getting confidence that I could do my own thing and not take the path of The Rock, John Cena, Batista. I could be my own superstar and was going to do the reality show. Maryse motivated me as well. We said, ‘Let’s do this, but we’re doing it our way.’ We wanted to be executive producers and have full say. I told Maryse, ‘The best reality shows are when you have butterflies in your stomach and not in your throat and you don’t want it to air. That’s what people want to see. That’s what we’re going to give them.’ We did it our way and it’s been a success.”

While Miz & Mrs will return to the USA Network on April 12 for Season 2 Part 2, ‘The A-Lister’ has more prominent problems on his plate when he defends his newly won WWE Championship against Bobby Lashley on the March 1 Monday Night Raw with Drew McIntyre waiting in the wings.

Credit for the interview: Oral Sessions

h/t for the transcription: Fightful