Before starting out his WWE career on Tough Enough, The Miz had hopes of making it in Japan. A new episode of The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast premiered today with The Miz discussing his early days in wrestling.
When he was contemplating trying out for Tough Enough, Miz — already a reality star from MTV’s The Real World — was worried that he would never earn respect within the wrestling industry. He had attempted to go to Japan but was rejected while training at UPW in California. Advice from Simon Dean (WWE/ECW wrestler Nova) ultimately convinced Miz to go through with the reality competition.
“Before trying out, I called Simon Dean,” Miz said. “Do you remember Simon Dean? I called him because he was part of UPW and I said, ‘Hey, I want respect in the business. And I know if I go on Tough Enough, I won’t get any respect. I didn’t do it the right way.’ And he goes, ‘It’s for a million dollars. It’s for a million-dollar WWE contract. How many opportunities do you think you’re going to get? This is your opportunity, this is your time.’ And so I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to try out, I’m going to do it.’”
‘Japan Would Never Take Me’
Miz revealed that he repeatedly tried to get signed by Zero1, a Japanese wrestling promotion founded by the legendary Shinya Hashimoto that had a working relationship with UPW. Despite his belief in his own abilities at the time, the promotion was not interested.
“Because I tried to go to Japan, they wouldn’t take me. Every time I tried going to Zero1, they would come in and we would wrestle, we’d do a match. I’d think my match would go great. It wasn’t, but I thought at the time I was really special. But, yeah, Japan would never take me. So I was like, ‘this is the opportunity.’ So, tried out and then gave it full force and didn’t win, but got a contract to go to developmental.”
The Miz lost out to Daniel Puder on Tough Enough season four but was still signed to WWE, where he has now been a fixture for two decades.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Six Feet Under with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
