The Miz

**Michael Gregory "Mike" Mizanin** (born October 8, 1980), better known by his ring name **The Miz**, is an American professional wrestler, reality television star and media personality currently working for WWE on their RAW brand.

Mizanin first gained fame as a cast member on MTV's The Real World: Back to New York, which first aired in 2001, and its spinoff series, Real World/Road Rules Challenge. He later entered the fourth season of Tough Enough, a televised competition which awarded the winner a WWE contract, and became the first runner-up. Mizanin has also made appearances on television shows including Battle of the Network Reality Stars, Fear Factor, Identity, Ghost Hunters, Dinner: Impossible, Psych and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. Mizanin trained and wrestled with Ultimate Pro Wrestling and Deep South Wrestling, where he became the first Deep South Heavyweight Champion. Mizanin was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), working in tag team matches and winning the tag team title, the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship, on one occasion.

Mike was recruited by WWE officials to become a WWE Superstar after accepting the offer WWE paid Mike 1000 dollars a day for training.Mizanin became host of the annual WWE Diva Search competition in 2006. Following his hosting duties, Mizanin made his wrestling debut in September 2006, as a villain who went undefeated. In 2007, was drafted from SmackDown to the ECW brand, where he formed a partnership with John Morrison, in which the two were the only tag team on the ECW brand to ever hold a tag team title, and were the only one to hold both Smackdown's WWE Tag Team Championship and Raw's World Tag Team Championship. He was later drafted to the Smackdown brand as part of the 2009 WWE Draft where he would go on to win the WWE Television Championship in December 2009. Miz would later go on to win the WWE Tag Team Championship with Ted DiBiase in January 2010, making him a double champion.

Not long after this Miz found himself moved to the Raw brand where he would go on to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship for the first time in June 2010, before winning it a second time in January 2011.

A year later in January 2012, Miz won his first WWE Championship at New Years Revolution winning in an Elimination Chamber match, he would later go on to hold the title for only three weeks. The Miz won the MiTB a second time only to fail once more. Since then the Miz hovered around before leaving the WWE for Hollywood in mid-2013. The Miz returned to the WWE in November of 2014 on Monday Night Raw.

## Early life

The Miz was born in Parma, Ohio. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he attended Normandy High School, where he was the captain of the basketball and cross country teams. He also participated in swimming, the student government and was the editor of his high school yearbook. He then attended Miami University, where he was a member of the Theta Chi Fraternity, and studied business at the Richard T. Farmer School of Business.

## Television career

Mizanin dropped out of college, where he was pursuing a degree in business in order to appear on the tenth season of MTV's reality television program The Real World in 2001. He went on to appear in multiple seasons of its spin-off series, Real World/Road Rules Challenge, along with contestants from both Road Rules and The Real World, including Battle of the Seasons, The Gauntlet, The Inferno, Battle of the Sexes 2, and The Inferno 2. Except for Battle of the Sexes 2, Mizanin made it to the end of all the Challenges on which he competed and won both Battle of the Seasons and The Inferno 2.

After a seven-year-long absence from The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, Mizanin returned to the reality show on April 4, 2012 as the host of The Battle of the Exes season finale Reunion special. It marked the first time The Miz appeared on the series since becoming a main event WWE superstar.

It was during an episode of The Real World that Mizanin first displayed an alter ego known as "The Miz". In contrast to Mizanin's usually placid demeanor, The Miz was angry, combative, and headstrong. Mizanin later realized that "The Miz" would make an excellent professional wrestling gimmick.

In 2004, he appeared on the Bravo reality show Battle of the Network Reality Stars, where his team finished second. Mizanin was also a contestant in the "Reality Stars" episode of Fear Factor. His partner was his former girlfriend and cast mate, Trishelle Cannatella, and the two won the competition. In April 2007, he appeared on the game show Identity, where he appeared as a stranger, and contestant John Kim correctly identified his identity as a professional wrestler by the odd way he added "Miz-" before most words. In 2008, Mizanin appeared on the Sci Fi reality series Ghost Hunters Live as a guest investigator. In 2009, Mizanin appeared on two episodes of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, which were both aired on September 29. He appeared on an episode of Destroy Build Destroy on March 3, 2010. On October 5, 2011, Miz starred in an episode of H8R. He also appeared as a guest star in a March 2012 episode of Psych. On March 31, Miz appeared in the first ever Slime Wrestling World Championship at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, losing to the Big Show which resulted in him being thrown into a tub of slime. In 2012 Miz appeared on Disney XD show Pair of Kings as a guest star.

## Professional wrestling career

### **Ultimate Pro Wrestling (2003)**

Pursuing the goal of becoming a professional wrestler which he had harbored from an early age, Mizanin joined Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW), where he trained in the Ultimate University. He made his in-ring debut in 2003 as The Miz. During his time with UPW, The Miz competed in UPW's Mat War's tournament, making it to the finals before losing to Tony Stradlin.

### **World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)**

#### ***Tough Enough*** **and training (2004–2006)**

In October 2004, Mizanin entered the fourth season of Tough Enough, a televised competition which awarded the winner a World Wrestling Entertainment contract and US$1,000,000. Despite coming last in an arm wrestling tournament on November 25, 2004, Mizanin outlasted six other wrestlers, and made it to the final round. At the pay-per-view event, Armageddon, Mizanin faced the other remaining entrant, Daniel Puder, in a three round "Dixie Dogfight" (boxing match). Neither man achieved a knockout, and the contest was awarded to Puder on the basis of crowd reaction. On the December 16, 2004 episode of SmackDown!, Puder was announced as the winner of Tough Enough by head trainer Al Snow.

Despite losing the Tough Enough contest, Mizanin had piqued the interest of WWE, and he was eventually offered a developmental contract. Mizanin was sent to Deep South Wrestling (DSW) to train under Bill DeMott, relocating to McDonough, Georgia in the process. In July 2005, he wrestled two dark matches for WWE, teaming with former Tough Enough champion Matt Cappotelli to face The Highlanders (Robbie and Rory McAllister). On December 1, 2005, Mizanin defeated Mike Knox in the finals of a tournament to determine the inaugural Deep South Heavyweight Champion.[4][25] He continued his partnership with Matt Cappotelli throughout the second half of 2005 in WWE dark matches and house shows until Cappotelli, nominally of Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), was diagnosed with a brain tumor after an injury at a taping in December 2005.

On January 3, 2006, it was reported that Mizanin had been transferred to OVW. On the January 18, 2006, OVW TV show, Mizanin made his debut as "Miz", with a Miz TV segment, where he was shown talking backstage. On the January 28, 2006 episode of the OVW television show, The Miz wrestled his first singles match against Rene Dupree, but lost by countout.

At the February 8, 2006 TV taping, Miz and Chris Cage captured the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship, defeating Chet the Jett and Seth Skyfire. In what was deemed a "disciplinary move", WWE released Cage over the weekend of March 18, 2006, making it necessary for Miz and Cage to drop the titles. On March 19, 2006, Deuce Shade defeated Miz in a singles contest to win the championship for his team The Untouchables (Deuce Shade and Domino).

#### **Return (2014 - Present)**

After a short full time run in Hollywood, The Miz resigned with the WWE on November 20th, 2014 after many months of rumors. The Miz would make his return a week later defeating AJ Styles. He would go into a short lived feud with rival WWE and Hollywood Superstar, The Rock before going into the Survivor Series PPV and participating in a Number Contenders Battle Royal to determine the Number One Contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championships. He would make it to the final five before being eliminated by AJ Styles. The following Monday Night Raw, The Miz would cut a promo announcing his desires to win the Royal Rumble and become the WWE Champion again. He would go on to defeat Prince Devitt later that night. On the final Raw of 2014, The Miz would cut a promo on his future and once again stating his desire to win the Royal Rumble before teaming with Daniel Bryan to defeat the team of Stone Cold and The Rock. At New Year's Revolution, The Miz would ambush the very man he first began to feud with when he returned, The Rock. The Miz left The Rock beaten backstage as he was escorted away by security. The Miz would come up short later that night in a Fatal Five Way Match against Sami Zayn, Adam Zole, Corey Graves, and Justin Gabriel to determine the Number One Contender for the WWE Intercontinental Championship that was won by Sami Zayn.

## Other media

Mizanin played a small role in the movie 'The Campaign'.On April 30, 2012, it was announced that The Miz would star in WWE Studios film The Marine 3: Homefront. Mizanin replaced fellow wrestler Randy Orton who was dropped of the role due to his past with the USMC. That day, it was also announced that Mizanin will be featured in the WWE Studios and Kare Prodproject Les reines du ring (Queens of the Ring) alongside Eve Torres and CM Punk. On October 26, 2012, it was announced that The Miz would star in a movie sponsored by WWE and ABC Family, titled Christmas Bounty.

Mizanin won Sirius XM's fantasy football league for 2011 and was also the runner-up in WWE magazine fantasy football league that year and also competed in both leagues in 2012, but failed to win both. Mizanin has hosted a fantasy football show called First & Awesome on Sirius XM since 2011.

Mizanin is featured in Mick Foley's children's Christmas book The Most Mizerable Christmas.

Mizanin had become a top media spokesman for WWE. He has been guest on several late-night talk shows. He has appeared on Conan 3 times. He has appeared in 1 episode each of Lopez Tonight, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Tom Green's House Tonight along with John Morrison, Attack of the Show!, Daybreak, Red Bull PLAY!, H8R and Rove LA. He has also appeared in 8 episodes of Clash Time. He appeared in a Brazilian talk show named Agoraetarede while doing promotional work in Brazil.

He has hosted roster-reveal programmes of WWE video games like WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, WWE All Stars, WWE '12 and WWE '13, being a part of the roster too. He also appeared on the 30th May 2011 edition of Tough Enough as a top-level superstar giving advice to the rookies.

He has also appeared in numerous television and radio shows in order to promote WWE programming and his movie The Marine 3: Homefront.

He has also done promotional work for WWE in countries like Russia, Brazil, UK, Poland, Germany, Australia and in many other countries. He flew a F/A-18 jet plane at USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) during doing promotional work for WWE's annual Tribute to the Troops special.

He has been special guest in San Diego Comic Con 2010 and Portland Comic Con 2013, where he hosted The Real World: Portland Panel.

Mizanin has been filming ABC Family and WWE Studios' Christmas Bounty, which will premiere during ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming event later in 2013.

## Personal life

He passionately roots for his hometown Cleveland Browns, Indians, and Cavs. Prior to the Indians vs. Angels game on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 Mizanin fulfilled one of his lifelong goals when he threw out the first pitch. When Mike was 11, his parents divorced. He has a step-father named Donnie and two step-siblings, Jimmy and Tonia. His father George Mizanin, owns several Mr. Hero sandwich shops in the Cleveland area. Mizanin was previously in a long-term relationship with WWE Diva Maryse Ouellet.

## In wrestling

* **Finishing moves**
	+ *Mizard of Oz* (Swinging inverted DDT) 2005-2007
	+ *Skull-Crushing Finale* (Full nelson facebuster) – 2009–present

* **Signature moves**
	+ *Awesome Clothesline* (Running corner clothesline)
	+ Big boot, sometimes to a seated opponent
	+ Discus punch
	+ Diving double axe handle
	+ Dropkick
	+ Half nelson facebuster – 2009
	+ Figure-four leglock, sometimes from a standing position – 2013–present; adopted from Ric Flair
	+ Flapjack
	+ Inverted facelock backbreaker followed by a neckbreaker
	+ *Reality Check* (Running knee lift followed into a neckbreaker)
	+ Running knee lift
	+ Sliding through opponent's feet followed with a rollup
	+ Snap DDT to a kneeling opponent
	+ Snapmare driver
	+ Springboard bulldog
	+ Turnbuckle bulldog

* **Nicknames**
	+ "Mr. Money in the Bank"
	+ **"The Awesome One"**
	+ "The Chick Magnet"
	+ **"The Money Maker"**
	+ **"The Most Must-See WWE Superstar** / Champion (as Champion)

* **Entrance themes**
	+ "Getting Away With Murder" by Papa Roach (2006–2007)
	+ "Reality" by Jim Johnston (2007–2009)
	+ **"I Came to Play"** by Downstait (January 4, 2010–present; used during singles competition)

## Championships and accomplishments

* **World Wrestling Entertainment**
	+ WWE Championship (1 time)
	+ WWE Intercontinental Championship (3 times)
	+ WWE Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Ted DiBiase & James Storm
	+ Money in the Bank (2007, 2012)
	+ Triple Crown Championship (11th)