The Miz still feels the fire when that heated Talking Smack segment from 2016 between he and Daniel Bryan gets brought up and that’s what happened during Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast.
The WWE Champion is Paquette’s latest guest and she mentions that she, Miz and a then retired Daniel Bryan all took part in. Paquette mentions how she could feel the tension building between the two, so much that she thought she might have to step in.
“Just the level that it got to, I remember at one point feeling like I needed to get in between you two cause I was like legit concerned cause there was like a bit legit animosity between the two of you.
“I thought he was going to hit me. I was waiting to get hit,” Miz said.
Renee agreed. “I was waiting for you to get hit too.”
“I was going to start spitting fire cause I was so angry and then when he left it got me even more angry,” he added.
Renee details the moment further. “When you were cutting that promo, You were like so on one and like your eyes were even welling up that I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is like so personal.’ You dug so deep and then Bryan’s sitting next to me and you know, he’s dealing with being out with concussions, having to retire, knowing that nothing physical was going to happen between the two of you, but feeling like -”
“That’s not true,” Miz interrupts. “I didn’t know if he was going to hit me or not.”
“No but I mean that he could not be hit,” she clarified. Like it wasn’t going to lead to a match at that point because -”
“If he would have hit me I would have hit him back,” Miz said.
Renee laughs. “You’d have to, right? That was such a wild moment, but it’s cool now to see what Talking Smack has evolved into because you were the person to really use that platform to make -”
Miz interrupts again and gives context to the crappy career day he was having. “That was a bad day for me. It was a really bad day,” he said, mentioning that he just won the Intercontinental title and was just drafted to SmackDown, but was nowhere to be seen on the show. “It was like I really wanted to make the Intercontinental Championship, like I said I wanted to make it relevant again. Like I want to make it as big as it was when I saw it in the 80s with like the Ultimate Warrior having it, Shawn Michaels having it. It was literally like the workhorse title and I wanted it to get back to that and then you walk into TV and they said, ‘Ah, yeah. You’re not needed. You’re going to be on the dark match tonight.'”
“I was so angry I went up to Road Dogg and I said, ‘Put me on Talking Smack.’ He said, ‘Why?’ ‘Daniel Bryan’s the General Manager. I’m gonna unleash it all on him.’ And so they were like, ‘Alright, cool.’ So we go into Talking Smack and he called me like a coward and in my head I’m going, ‘This guy’s calling me a coward,’ and everyone gets called a coward, but when Daniel Bryan called me it, it was different. It was different than when someone on a promo: ‘You’re a coward!’ There was something underneath it. I knew what it was. I knew where he was going with that and it infuriated me because I was still able to do what I do and he wasn’t. He wasn’t there. He’s [at the time was] not there anymore. The way you wrestle and you can sit there and hate it the way I’m in the ring but I guarantee I can entertain an audience. I don’t have to do all the flippy stuff, all the stupid stuff that gets you injured because I’m gonna be there day in and day out, each and every week and you’re not. And when he said that, it was like, ‘Hmmm, I know where you’re going,’ and I feel it right now. I feel it right now talking to you. It made me think of like of everyone that doesn’t get it or doesn’t understand me and I was trying to make people understand what I go through and what I do and why I do the things I do and then when he walked off, it was almost like, that was even more disrespectful. If you’d have punched me, it would have been better than him just walking off.” Miz also added that Bryan was beloved by the fans and he was the one who walked off. Why can’t he be loved?
“Bryan can be mean when he wants to. He cuts deeps sometimes and you’re like, ”Oh, shit.’ It’s like unexpected,” said Renee.
“I don’t think he was trying to be mean. I think he was just trying to get under my skin and he did,” Miz replied. “Very successful at it and then it created a whole thing where I was actually successful at making the Intercontinental Title relevant again, which was great. So sometimes you just need those moments and those opportunities and when things aren’t going your way, find avenues, like Talking Smack wasn’t anything before I went on it, and even Road Dogg was like, ‘Why do you want to be on Talking Smack?’ And I was like, ‘Cause if you’re not going to give me the opportunity, I’m going to make an opportunity for myself,’ and that’s just the lessons that I feel like a lot of up and coming Superstars need to understand to do. If you’re not on television, WWE has many different avenues where you can showcase your talents.”
Miz talks about getting that charge out of Big E and the untapped ceiling of Cesaro. You can check out the full clip of Oral Sessions below:
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
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