The Miz has enjoyed a career resurgence since WWE's 2016 Brand Split, and has solidified himself as among the best Intercontinental Champions on WWE history.
During a recent interview with WWE Hall of Famer Booker T on Heated Conversations, Miz opened up about his desire to make the championship mean something again. During the last three years alone, the championship has been held by the likes of Miz himself, Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan and others.
When my wife [Maryse] first came to WWE, it was like the day after WrestleMania and she had came back and actually helped me to defeat Zack Ryder for the Intercontinental title. At that moment, I was like, never again will I ever be looked as anything other than a main eventer. Everything I do will be at an elite level; the boss level. I will tell you what, I looked at that Intercontinental title---when I was a kid, my heroes had that title; Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Mr. Perfect. I was watching this title get dug and dug into the grave, because anytime you have the title it is more like, oh, that guy is going to lose. Anytime there was a non-title match that person was going to lose who had the title. I didn’t want that anymore. I was sick of it, and I will never forget where I went off on Daniel Bryan. That day, I went through so much on my mind, I was so aggravated. Here I was trying to make the title as prestigious as I can in WWE but I wasn’t even on the show. They told me that I was involved in a dark match to open the show. It is not that I didn’t want to do it and perform for the audience, it was more like, this title deserves better than this. We are bringing out new Tag-Team titles, new Women’s title, so we don’t have time for your title. I told them to put me on ‘Talking Smack.’ They were wondering why I wanted to be on ‘Talking Smack,’ and I said, ‘what do you mean why do I want to be on Talking Smack? It will be the ability to showcase what I can do so you can see exactly the abilities that I have and showcase my talent.’ I told them that it was going to break the internet if they put me on ‘Talking Smack,’ and they agreed to put me on the show. Then, when I went on there, Daniel Bryan and I kind of went off. I literally thought he was going to punch me, but he just walked off. Honestly, it was the best thing that could have happened because it allowed me to be center stage and just let off all of my frustration and everything that I was feeling at that moment, and I remember feeling inside my head reminding myself to not lose it. I then said, you know what, lose it. People tell me it was the best promo I had ever done, but here I was flubbing words because I was so mad.
Last year, the Miz was in a high profile WrestleMania match with John Cena & Nikki Bella alongside his wife Maryse. This year, he defends his Intercontinental Championship against former world champions in Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, as he looks to pass Pedro Morales' record of cumulative days as champion.
You can hear the full podcast with Booker T and The Miz at this link.
