While discussing the fallout from the Daniel Puder/Kurt Angle incident on Tough Enough 4, JBL took time on his Something to Wrestle With podcast to heavily praise another contestant from that season: The Miz.
Miz famously came into WWE from a reality TV background on MTV’s The Real World and Road Rules. JBL acknowledged that this background might have made things tougher for him initially, but praised Miz’s ability to overcome it and build a stellar career.
“Miz is pretty salty. You know, people like to talk about Miz not being tough or whatever. Miz is a pretty tough guy,” JBL stated, referencing Miz holding his own against Puder in a boxing segment during the Tough Enough finals. “Miz made it made a pretty good name for himself.”
JBL noted the difficulty Miz faced learning the wrestling business on global television against a highly talented roster.
“Miz, to me, I’ve never seen a guy come in and work on top with such a loaded roster and make it, I mean, it was almost a completely untenable situation that Miz had very few people,” JBL explained. “And, I mean, like a few out of 100,000 could have made what Miz did. Miz has made a Hall of Fame career, and he did it from one of the hardest starting points you could possibly have a learning on worldwide television against an incredibly loaded roster”.
“Miz has built a Hall of Fame career already off of one of the hardest starts in wrestling history,” JBL reiterated later. “He doesn’t come in trained through the territories. He comes in from a reality show and goes right on global television. That’s an almost impossible situation to make… Miz made it, and that tells you something about Miz. He’s a man. He is a once-in-a-lifetime performer”.
JBL also addressed long-standing rumors that he hazed The Miz, specifically regarding an incident where Miz was kicked out of the locker room for eating chicken over Chris Benoit’s bag.
“He did. They got thrown [out of the] locker room for eating chicken over Scott Armstrong’s bag,” JBL confirmed the incident happened, attributing it to Benoit. “But I had nothing to do with it. I took credit for it. Storyline-wise, which, for years, people always assumed that I’d done it because I took credit for it… I was told about it after the whole thing had happened”. He added that a running joke he had with Miz (“Look forward to your excellent work today, miss”) was misinterpreted by some as hazing, calling it “bullshit” and just fun between them.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Something to Wrestle With with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can listen to the podcast on podcast platforms or watch on YouTube.
