The Miz wasn't originally seen as a WWE Superstar.
The Miz competed on the fourth season of WWE Tough Enough, and though he was ultimately defeated by Daniel Puder, he earned a developmental contract with the company. Since signing with WWE following Tough Enough, Miz has become one of the most decorated and reliable wrestlers in the company.
Speaking to Brian Baumgartner on Off The Beat, Miz recalled WWE originally seeing him as an announcer coming out of Tough Enough.
"I'll never forget, they were like, 'You impressed us so much that maybe there is something for you here.' They brought me up to Connecticut to commentate. Joey Styles brought me up with Todd Grisham and Michael Cole, they brought me up and I had to do a take of commentating. They told me, 'we might bring you in as a commentator or interviewer.' It was the first time I said, 'but I want to be a WWE Superstar.' They didn't look at me like a WWE Superstar, they looked at me as a personality. I saw something different, 'I love what you guys do and you do a great job, but I want to be bigger than The Rock and bigger than (Hulk) Hogan. I want to be a Superstar.' 'Alright, okay,'" Miz recalled.
He was then offered a developmental deal, which was for less than he was making as a reality star on MTV.
"They gave me a developmental deal to go down and they didn't think I was going to be much of anything, to be honest, you could kind of tell, 'let's see what we got here.' They gave me this developmental contract and I was like, 'I'm making more than this doing Real World and The Challenge. I'm not taking a paycut to do this.' I had to think about that. Are we looking at this as a career move? Sometimes, you have to take less because you see the big picture. That's what I did. I took less money to go there, train, and prove everyone wrong," he said.
Miz went on to become Deep South Heavyweight Champion during his time in developmental.
Now, Miz is regularly featured on WWE programming and is still part of reality TV on "Miz & Mrs" with his wife Maryse. He is currently part of the WWE Raw brand and is involved in a storyline with Dexter Lumis and Johnny Gargano.
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