The Miz Had Serious Backstage Heat | WrestleTalk News

The Miz Had Serious Backstage Heat | WrestleTalk News

Long before we had Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker or John Cena coming back to be slotted right at the top of the card, we had John Cena complain it was happening to him.

WWE’s Part Timer Era officially began with Rock ‘The Dwayne’ Johnson returning to the company in February 2011 – a decade ago this month, back when The Miz was WWE Champion, remember those days? – to announce himself as the host of WrestleMania 27. He would go onto challenge Cena at the following year’s WrestleMania 28 for the WWE Championship in a Once In a Lifetime match. And then again the year after that to make it twice.


BREAKING NEWS – BIG SHOW HAS SIGNED WITH AEW


Both Rock and Cena have revealed in the years since there was genuine dislike between them, with Johnson once telling Jimmy Kimmel “We had real issues with each other.” And now former longtime referee Mike Chioda, who was released by WWE after 31 year with the company last April, is claiming the two seemed to be actually shooting on each other in their WrestleMania match.

Chioda officiated the match at The Rock’s request, and talking on his Monday Mailbag podcast on AdFreeShows.com, he revealed how Cena was genuinely unhappy about having to lose.

“I think Cena had a little bit of a problem doing the job because here’s Cena carrying the torch for the last 10 years at that time. He was busting his ass, day in and day out. Here comes the Rock back after so many years of being in Hollywood and he’s got to job out to the Rock? …There was a little heat there. I think there was a little dissension, but, you have to go where the money goes.”

Cena appears to have used these real feelings in his promos, where he repeatedly called out Rock for being a part-timer who now cares more about movies than WWE. Completely unrelated, you can next see John Cena in Fast & Furious 9 or The Suicide Squad, in cinemas hopefully this year.

You’d think that as soon as the match began, though, the two professionals would put their differences aside and do a wrestle. Not so according to Chioda, with him claiming they seemed to actually hit each other for real:

“They were really shooting. And I definitely felt, because when we were going over in the practice ring with certain things, before that match, I felt there was definitely some tension, and of course, it was coming from John because he has been busting his ass for this company. Top guy. Top merch, selling all the merch and everything, and I’ve got to job out to Dewey? to Dwayne?’ I felt the tension. I don’t blame him because he was busting his ass for ten years, and Rock comes back, and you know, and this is how we’re going to do it, kid… I’m sure John was pissed at Vince.”

Cena has since revealed he apologised to the Rock for the tension between them during their Mania feud.

It’s interesting to note that for their rematch for WrestleMania 29, Cena chose Chad Patton to officiate because he was going over. Chioda said he didn’t want to have to count for Rock doing the job.

The Miz Backstage Heat In 2011

Back to Rock and Cena’s real life heat, it wasn’t just them who were upset by the match. Apparently the majority of the roster were too, and they aimed it mostly at the then WWE Champion, The Miz.

Arn Anderson has now revealed on his podcast that “there was a lot of talent at that WrestleMania that were pissed that Miz was in that spot. During that period there was a lot of animosity around and a lot of people that were trying to get over and get in position. When Miz was wrestling Cena I just know that there were a lot of guys that felt that they’ve been in that spot [and] should have been in that spot. If you didn’t want to be in that spot something’s wrong with you. I remember there was some tension here or there.”

Chief amongst the disgruntled wrestlers was apparently CM Punk, who was already feuding with Cena heading into that WrestleMania, going down to the final two in the Raw Elimination Chamber. Punk would cut his infamous pipebomb promo just a few months after, and then have his championship run cut short by Rock just before Mania 29. Perhaps that was the closest Punk ever came to that WrestleMania main event he so desperately wanted.

Vince McMahon Doesn’t Want Pro Wrestling

Ten years later, Vince McMahon is still all about that sports entertainment. So much so that he apparently told Shayna Baszler he doesn’t want any of that pro wrestling stuff.

Speaking on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast – giggity – Shayna revealed how initially intimidated she was by Vince McMahon, but she soon learned “he’s always so nice and critiques me really well.”

Critiques that included: “I don’t want you to do any pro wrestling” on the weekly TV. You save that for the pay-per-views.

On Shayna’s proper main roster run at the start of the pandemic, Vince would apparently “love” her vicious style in the ring. First week, great. Second week, loves it even more. But then on the third – the classic three week push – Shayna and Natalya decided to do an MMA style match together, as they had both previously trained together in the more realistic shooting style. 

“We do it. He hates it. I went in the back and he said, ‘It looks like you are just fighting each other.’ He makes us do it again.”

‘It looks like you are just fighting each other’. That’s the last thing you want in wrestling.

As this was in the first weeks of the Performance Center shows, Vince made them both go out and re-record the match, with Nattie walking Shayna through the basic template “headlock, takeover, dropdown, leapfrog.” Baszler said she later settled into a groove – that Randy Orton told her “don’t worry about the fans saying it’s boring” and she does her best to juggle the WWE style with her own more “old school” realism. 

Maria Kanellis has shared a similar story about Vince growing bored to the Dropkick podcast. She returned to the company in 2017 along with her WWE debuting husband Mike. Apparently “The plan was to build Mike as a singles wrestler and somewhere along the way… that second week, we were dead in the water.”

She also revealed “Kevin was fighting for us to come into WWE and he still apologizes.”

Retribution have somehow lasted way longer than any of us thought possible. So of course WWE seems to be breaking them up too.

Retribution Breaking Up

Following their quick loss to the New Day on Monday’s Raw, Ali berated T-Bar, Mace, Slapjack, Reckoning, Spunk and all your other favourite Biker Mice from Farts about losing, that they’re embarrassing him, and he doesn’t no how much longer he can put up with this.

WWE leaned into the idea of a breakup, tweeting: “Is there trouble brewing within #RETRIBUTION? Eyes”

And now Retribution’s own members are kayfabe expressing their frustration on Twitter, with Reckoning tweeting: “How much longer do WE have to deal with this crap…”

While T-Bar posted: “Seems like a pretty good tag team to me.”

Ali himself rather forebodingly tweeted a clock emoji, and then the cryptic message “There’s a difference between a bad driver and bad directions” – which sounds like he’s shooting on WWE creative rather than his kayfabe faction breaking up.

WWE Raw Notes

That, Randy Orton vomiting black liquid and the fallout to Miz becoming the WWE Champion at Elimination Chamber caused a massive 80,000 extra viewers from last week’s Raw. Monday’s episode only drew 1.89 million. I’m being facetious when I say ‘massive’. Just four years ago, the average viewership of Raw was over 3 million.

Elsewhere on the episode, Drew McIntyre was backstage for the taping, but the decision was made not to use him. Asuka did indeed lose a tooth in a botched kick from Shayna Baszler. Sportskeeda is reporting Ric Flair asked WWE to use him more on TV, which is one of the reasons he was recently brought back for the Lacey Evans storyline. And it appears WWE have changed the name of Damian Priest’s finishing move from The Reckoning to Hit The Lights. 

Down in NXT, PWInsider is reporting former IMPACT Knockouts Champion and new WWE signee Taya Valkyrie has now officially started with the company, joining the latest class of Performance Center recruits. 

But current QuizzleMania champion Melina won’t be joining her. It was reported she was in talks to sign with NXT around September last year, but she’s now told WrestleTalk.com’s Louis Dangoor, she “never signed a contract, there was nothing going on. Just ‘hey would you consider, would you be open?’. I’m like ‘hell yeah’. Well it turned out I have like a bad knee, and I can’t wrestle.” 

Melina made a cameo appearance on the January 4th Legends Night Raw, but otherwise, hasn’t been with the company full time since 2011. Make WrestleTalk.com your homepage for all the latest breaking wrestling news!

Also, Melina to AEW confirmed.

Tony Khan Teases Big AEW Surprises

With AEW’s next pay-per-view Revolution under two weeks away, the company president Tony KHAAAAN has teased to Bryan Alvarez there would be old and new faces turning up on Dynamite very soon, which will shake up the landscape of All Elite Wrestling. One of these could be the sixth participant in the Face of the Revolution ladder match to crown the AEW title’s No. 1 contender – who will be revealed on the pay-per-view.

Khan also spoke on AEW’s working relationship with New Japan, saying that it’s only travel restrictions that are preventing more talent exchanges. But as soon as those are lifted, we should get ready for even more surprises.

What are your thoughts on the above story? Let us know in the comments on Twitter or Facebook.

3 years ago by Oli Davis

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