The Miz and Daniel Bryan have had a long-standing rivalry that has even carried over into Bryan's retirement, as highlighted by a classic 2016 Talking Smack tirade that was considered among the best promos of the year.
Miz spoke about what motivated the promo, but on the same episode of WWE Photo Shoot, he said that he had no clue how Bryan would react, and that sometimes he gets carried away in the situation, even if the result ends up positive.
Daniel Bryan called me a coward, and it set off everything.
I didn’t know if Daniel Bryan was going to hit me, I didn’t know if he was going to punch me, or what was going to happen. But sometimes my mouth just keeps going, and I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m just going off everything I’m feeling at the time.
Daniel got up and left, and I almost didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if you noticed, but you see me kind of get lost like ‘wait, he’s leaving?’ I was getting ready for him to hit me.
I wanted to make that Intercontinental Championship relevant again. I really did want to make it prestigious. So many times in WWE you have a moment like this, and then the next week the level goes down, and then the next week it goes down, and it goes down, and then people just forget. I didn’t want people to forget.”
The next year, The Miz was moved to WWE Raw and Daniel Bryan remained on Smackdown Live as a GM, ending their on-screen battle.
You can see the full episode of WWE Photo Shoot below. Please credit Fightful.com when using any part of this transcript.
