He’s not one of the first people I think of as a famous John Cena rival, but The Miz and Cena definitely have a lot of history (and once someone reminds me of their rivalry and storylines over the past
15 or so years, I immediately go, “oh yeah!” and remember how much I actually loved the Awesome Truth feud in the build to the first Once In A Lifetime match, and the build for their mixed tag match at WrestleMania 33).
But we didn’t get a Miz vs. Cena match in the run-up for John’s retirement match tomorrow night, Dec. 12, at Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C. The A-Lister spoke about that with Jimmy Traina on the SI Media podcast:
“Literally, two years ago, I was in the ring — I believe it was at Barclays [Center, in Brooklyn] — and actually tagging with him which kind of came full circle with everything. I didn’t think that would be [my] last match with John Cena, but I guess it will be.
“It’s a little upsetting… I remember when he first started this whole ‘The Time is Now’ tour, where it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m retiring in one year,’ I was the first person — literally the first person to put my name in the hat and go, ‘I wanna go up against John Cena. I want to take on John Cena one last time. The Miz versus Cena,’ and it never came to fruition.
“And I could sit there and say it’s this, it’s that, it’s the other thing. I don’t know what it is. Could it be the fans did not literally ask for it? And because I mean, when I saw A.J. Styles tweet, and then Cena tweet back, and it’s like, ‘That’s how this could have happened. All I had to do was tweet and all I had to have was the fans have my back, and say that they truly want this, and be vocal about it? That’s all I needed?‘
“Well, I guess my fans don’t do that, and so, I blame them. Shocking, isn’t it?”
Miz never revealed what really happened, if he even knows. When Traina asked if he went to WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque about wanting one more Cena match, and Miz replied:
“I went to everyone… It’s not even like it was shot down. There was instances where it could have happened, and things happen in this industry that nobody really knows about and you don’t need to know about, right? There was a moment where it could have happened, and then that moment went away because of certain circumstances, and it never came back.”
But he knows that’s just life in WWE, which is why Miz says he isn’t even mad:
”I could be angry, right? I could sit there and say, oh, I’m so mad, I’m so angry… I’ve been in WWE long enough that I know things happen, domino effects happen. If something changes, one thing here goes this way and the other thing goes that way, this thing can’t happen. I’ve been here long enough to know, so I don’t get mad. I get more or less like, okay, how can I make the best of a situation? And what can I do to bring out the best? And that’s all I can control.”
Determining what you can control and focusing on that is the key to most situations, I find. As for Miz… Cena’s is probably different, but most wrestling retirements don’t stick, so… maybe next time?
Listen to The Miz’s entire appearance on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast here.
