What’s the story?
This past week on Talking Smack, The Miz shone once again, although this time the object of his vitriol was John Cena. The Hollywood A-Lister spared no quarter in tearing into the 16-time World Champion, calling out Cena’s hypocrisy in referring to The Miz’s personality and in-ring style as plagiarised.
The most vicious barbs zeroed in on Cena’s own tendency to steal things, the highlight of which was The Miz saying that Cena ’stole his girlfriend from Dolph Ziggler’. But is there any truth to this statement?
In case you didn’t know...
It seems inevitable that The Miz and his wife Maryse are going to take on John Cena and real-life girlfriend Nikki Bella in a mixed gender tag team match at WrestleMania 33.
The feud has been brewing for weeks and has kicked into overdrive in the weeks following Elimination Chamber, but Miz’s passionate promo on the post-SmackDown talkshow has added fuel to a fire that sorely needed it.
The heart of the matter
The Miz’s allegations of John Cena ‘stealing’ Nikki from Ziggler may not be exactly on the nose, but it is true that Ziggler and Nikki Bella were an item in the early days of their respective WWE careers. The timeline itself isn’t 100% known but the two were believed to be dating between 2008 and 2010 when they were both based in Tampa in WWE’s then-developmental program.
As such stating that Cena ‘stole’ Nikki isn’t exactly correct, as it wasn’t until late 2012 that the romantic relationship between John Cena and Nikki Bella began, not long after Cena’s marriage had ended.
A lot of the current attention given to Ziggler and Nikki’s feelings stems from a story on Total Divas back in 2015 when Dolph confessed that he still had feelings for Nikki and attempted to kiss his former girlfriend. Nikki rejected Dolph’s advances and immediately told Cena about The Showoff’s lecherous moves. Cena wasn’t exactly thrilled about the news, but ever the professional Cena has made little of it since.
Now it seems as though The Miz is eager to stir the Cena/Nikki pot by any means necessary.
What’s next?
Regardless of the truth of the statement, it is unlikely that The Miz is going to retract it anytime soon, as the dastardly former Intercontinental Champion will look to enrage Cena further ahead of their presumed-WrestleMania 33 clash. The general assumption is that the inter-gender match at WrestleMania 33 may well end with Cena on one knee in front of his girlfriend, although this is pure speculation for the time being.
Sportskeeda’s Take
Whilst saying that someone ‘stole’ a girl from another guy is inherently misogynistic, as Miz is the heel in this story we will let it slide. The promo that Miz gave on Talking Smack was up there with his famous tirade against Daniel Bryan following the brand split and gave new life to a story that had many fans rolling their eyes.
Cena/Nikki vs. Miz/Maryse isn’t going to be the best match at WrestleMania 33, it may well be the worst, but the promos in the build could well be the highlight of WWE TV over the next few weeks. And where does Dolph Ziggler fit into all of this? The Showoff surely won’t let his name be dragged into the dirt without a rebuttal. Things are about to get very interesting.
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