Former WWE Champion The Miz was a recent guest on the Gorilla Position podcast and among other topics, discussed his relationship with storyline nemesis Daniel Bryan. Here were the eight-time WWE Intercontinental Champion’s initial comments on D-Bry:
“[He is] one of the most talented in-ring performers that WWE has ever seen behind me. He is incredible in the ring and he was credible on the mic, he creates sympathy. I also think that, how do you put this? Daniel Bryan looks like he doesn’t want the attention but he does. He acts like he doesn’t want the notoriety but he does. If he didn’t want — I say it through and through — I want notoriety I want people to look and see what I want, you know what I mean? I want people to say ‘wow The Miz is doing this, this, and this.’ Daniel Bryan kinda pushes it off and says: ‘no, no, no.’ But he really does. Because if he didn’t then he would have left WWE but he liked the attention.”
Bryan and Miz’s feud stems all the way back to NXT Season One in 2010. The ‘A-Lister’ was named as Bryan’s “pro”, but the two instantly disliked each other and didn’t get along.
The former Smackdown Live General Manager was released and re-hired following the Nexus’ debut on Raw, and John Cena had assembled a team to stop the rookies at SummerSlam 2010 in an Elimination Tag Team Match.
Team WWE was one man down and Miz had inserted himself into that position, only to be overthrown by a returning Bryan.
The two had a match at WWE Night of Champions 2010 a month later, in which Bryan defeated the ‘Chick Magnet’ for the WWE United States Championship. That was the only singles bout the pair has ever had.
Back in 2016 when Daniel Bryan was co-host of Talking Smack alongside Renee Young, he criticized the ‘Awesome One’ for his “soft” in-ring style. This prompted The Miz to respond with one of the most famous promos in recent memory:
“People always sit there and talk about Talking Smack. They always bring up the incident of Talking Smack. What did I do on there that was so terrible? Because if you do remember and nobody does remember exactly what happened just talks about Talking Smack, Talking Smack, Talking Smack but they don’t really look into it and see exactly what happened. I came in there and Daniel Bryan came at me. He called me a coward which wasn’t the worst part about it. It was him saying I have a soft style of wrestling which really kinda triggered everything. That’s when it really just clicked and I kinda went off on him all the frustrations I was going through in my life was just taken out on Daniel Bryan. I was expecting to get hit. I was expecting something to happen. Then he walked away. So I had to literally turn to the camera and show focus where focus was due and that Intercontinental Championship and myself.”
The rivalry has continued simmering to the present-day and it is heavily reported that the two are set for a match at some point in the near future. This has been bolstered by The Miz eliminating Bryan from a recent WWE Championship number one contender’s Gauntlet Match on SmackDown Live.
The co-star of Miz and Mrs. added:
“I think there’s some jealousy if I’m really being honest of the fact that I was able to do what he couldn’t. I was still able to do what he couldn’t, but now he’s able to do that. But I don’t think he’s at the level that he was four years ago. He’s not, and people are always saying Miz vs Daniel Bryan, Daniel Bryan vs The Miz but he’s not at the caliber that I’m at right now. Has he showcased anything since he’s been back that he is a main event-level talent beside the audience doing the, ‘yes, yes, yes’ that was cool four years ago? Has he had a match where you go, ‘wow he’s back. He’s showcasing all the stuff that Daniel Bryan knows how to do. Granted he was very long in the Greatest Royal Rumble but that’s the Greatest Royal Rumble Match. You can sit there and take somebody’s finisher and not get thrown over the top rope and just lay there for an hour. Granted, did he lay there for an hour? No. But that is not a singles match. He is not at the talent that he was four years ago and it takes a lot of time. This isn’t like riding a bike.”
Of course, we know The Miz is a very good talker, and also an expert at switching in and out of character. It is therefore likely that some (if not all) of his comments were a “work” to build further anticipation for their inevitable match.
You can check out the full interview here:
Do you think Miz meant what he said? Who do you think will win when they do clash? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter here. You can also join us on Discord to chat with Oli, Luke, the magazine team, the website writers and each other here!
6 years ago by Liam Winnard
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