The Miz recently challenged the popular backstage philosophy that wins and losses are irrelevant in modern professional wrestling. Speaking on the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, the multi-time champion came out with a strong defense of the importance of winning, particularly for babyfaces. He noted that while he can survive losses as a heel due to his microphone skills, the audience quickly loses faith in a hero who constantly fails.
The “A-Lister” also admitted that his on-screen persona “doesn’t really work” as a babyface because the role requires consistent victories to maintain crowd support. He contrasted this with his heel work, where he can lose a match and immediately erase the defeat from the fans’ memory with a single promo the next day.
“My character doesn’t really work as a babyface, if I’m being honest. It’s a person that can lose, and then the next day, you’ll forget about that loss, because I’ll just cut a promo and just make you believe. But with the babyface, babyfaces can’t really lose a lot. If a babyface loses too much, you lose [appeal]. Everyone always says winning doesn’t matter, winning doesn’t matter. It matters. It really does matter. Especially if you’re a babyface, because in my opinion, if you’re a babyface and I’m a kid out there, my kids always ask me, ‘Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?’ I always have to go, ‘Ah, daddy didn’t win this week. But you know, I’ll get him next week.’
You can only say that so many times to a kid where they’re just like, I want a winner. I want a winner. I want to cheer a winner. People like winners, people like first place, they don’t like second place, they don’t like third place. They want the guy, their guy, and they want their guy to win, so if he doesn’t win… So that’s why I feel like my character, I’m so good at losing and then making you forget about that loss, and then making you believe the next day that I can beat the biggest superstar in the world. I could lose to whoever. Guy comes up from NXT, Je’Von Evans, and beats me. The next day, I can be in the main event. I can go up against John Cena, not anymore, but I go up against your biggest superstar, and I can make you believe I can beat that person, and you will believe that I will beat that person. But as a babyface, it’s a little tougher. It’s been weird these past couple of years, though. I would say this past year has been weird.”
Current plans for The Miz involve a matchup this Friday on SmackDown. He is scheduled to face Randy Orton in a qualifying match, with the winner advancing to a fatal four-way number one contender’s bout on January 24 at Saturday Night’s Main Event. The ultimate winner of that four-way will go on to challenge Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can find the full interview on Chris Van Vliet’s YouTube channel or podcast feed.
