The Miz Talks About His Success in WWE, Elevating the Intercontinental Championship

WWE Intercontinental Champion The Miz was recently a guest on WWE Hall of Famer Booker T's Heated Conversations Podcast.

Reason For His Success In WWE:

"I think it is the ability to evolve. I mean, when you look at your career (Booker T), you went from the five-time, five-time, five-time World Champion to King Booker, which was arguably one of my favorite characters of all-time. It was so much fun to watch. I think the first time, William Regal had to say, 'All Hail King Booker' for like ten minutes, and you were eating it up. Watching it, I was like, 'Oh my God, he is eating it up.' I knew you were laughing the entire time. It was so much fun to watch."

What He Attributes His Success To:

"My success, I think it is due to the Mizanan family. Everyone in my family is a hard worker. I was the guy that whenever someone would say, oh man, it's media day, I don't have time. I have X,Y, & Z, I would say, give it to me. I will do every media day because I looked at it as an opportunity. Not only was it an opportunity for me to go out there in front of the media all around the world, but also to practice promos. To captivate people and to have them understand exactly who I was. I think hard work, dedication and anytime someone didn't want to do something, I would always raise my hand. I think that is where my success lies - for whatever I lack in talent, I make up for in hard work."

Wanting the Intercontinental Title to Mean Something Again:

"When my wife [Maryse] first came to WWE, it was like the day after WrestleMania and she had came back and actually helped me to defeat Zack Ryder for the Intercontinental title. At that moment, I was like, 'Never again will I ever be looked as anything other than a main eventer. Everything I do will be at an elite level; the boss level.' I will tell you what, I looked at that Intercontinental Title - when I was a kid, my heroes had that title; Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Mr. Perfect. I was watching this title get dug and dug into the grave, because anytime you have the title it is more like, 'oh, that guy is going to lose.' Anytime there was a non-title match that person was going to lose who had the title.

"I didn't want that anymore. I was sick of it, and I will never forget where I went off on Daniel Bryan. That day, I went through so much on my mind, I was so aggravated. Here I was trying to make the title as prestigious as I can in WWE but I wasn't even on the show. They told me that I was involved in a dark match to open the show. It is not that I didn't want to do it and perform for the audience, it was more like, this title deserves better than this. We are bringing out new Tag-Team titles, new Women's title, so we don't have time for your title. I told them to put me on Talking Smack. They were wondering why I wanted to be on Talking Smack, and I said, 'what do you mean why do I want to be on Talking Smack? It will be the ability to showcase what I can do so you can see exactly the abilities that I have and showcase my talent.' I told them that it was going to break the internet if they put me on Talking Smack, and they agreed to put me on the show. Then, when I went on there, Daniel Bryan and I kind of went off. I literally thought he was going to punch me, but he just walked off. Honestly, it was the best thing that could have happened because it allowed me to be center stage and just let off all of my frustration and everything that I was feeling at that moment, and I remember feeling inside my head reminding myself to not lose it. I then said, you know what, lose it. People tell me it was the best promo I had ever done, but here I was flubbing words because I was so mad."