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The WWE commentary team has seen many wrestlers come and go from the booth in the last several decades.
But one name that the company wanted in that position that never came to be was The Miz, who had greater aspirations to be a WWE Superstar on RAW or SmackDown instead.
The Miz was the latest guest on Off The Beat with Brian Baumgartner to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about his early days as part of Tough Enough, the A-Lister revealed that the company was more interested in him being a commentator than a professional wrestler.
"I'll never forget, they were like, 'You impressed us so much that maybe there is something for you here.' They brought me up to Connecticut to commentate," The Miz revealed. "Joey Styles brought me up with Todd Grisham and Michael Cole, they brought me up and I had to do a take of commentating. They told me, 'we might bring you in as a commentator or interviewer.'" [H/T: Fightful]
The former WWE Champion continued:
"It was the first time I said, 'but I want to be a WWE Superstar.' They didn't look at me like a WWE Superstar, they looked at me as a personality. I saw something different, 'I love what you guys do and you do a great job, but I want to be bigger than The Rock and bigger than [Hulk] Hogan. I want to be a superstar.' 'Alright, okay.'" [H/T: Fightful]
The Miz accepted a WWE developmental deal for less money than he was making as a reality TV star
Eventually, the company would give The Miz a developmental deal but seemingly didn't expect much from him.
Despite the pay cut he was required to take in jumping from the world of reality TV to professional wrestling, The Miz took the deal and made the most of the situation.
"They gave me a developmental deal to go down and they didn't think I was going to be much of anything, to be honest, you could kind of tell, 'let's see what we got here.' They gave me this developmental contract and I was like, 'I'm making more than this doing Real World and The Challenge. I'm not taking a paycut to do this.' I had to think about that," The Miz admitted. "Are we looking at this as a career move? Sometimes, you have to take less because you see the big picture. That's what I did. I took less money to go there, train, and prove everyone wrong." [H/T: Fightful]
What do you make of The Miz's comments? Do you think he would have thrived as a commentator in WWE? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
