WWE Superstar "The Miz" is not ready to give up hopes of the Cleveland Browns eventually winning a Super Bowl.
But, last season, the play of the Detroit Lions caught the attention of the Cleveland native.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell has helped to change the culture of the organization, and the camaraderie among the team is noticeable to all NFL fans, including The Miz. Similar to Cleveland, when the sports teams in town are winning, Detroit as a city thrives.
While the Miz hopes Detroit does not defeat Cleveland in the Super Bowl, he recognized how the players respond to Campbell and the impact the popular coach has on the team's success.
After playing in the Area 313 Celebrity Golf Scramble at the Rocket Mortgage Classic Tuesday, the WWE Superstar spoke to All Lions about the recent success of two NFL teams that have struggled recently and the growing popularity of WWE under the creative control of Paul 'Triple H' Levesque.
*Questions and answers are edited for length and clarity.
How does it feel for your hometown of Cleveland to be hosting a WWE SummerSlam event this year?
Miz: “Oh, man. Coming home. The hard part is I’m not sure what I’m doing at SummerSlam. Everyone says, ‘Are you excited?’ It’s like, I get excited when I kind of have a feeling of, ‘Oh, here’s the match I have. Okay, how do I want to make sure that I make a moment and make a staple that’s something that stands the test of time.’ Those are very difficult moments to do. But, coming in my back yard, I think whenever SummerSlam comes to a city, the city thrives.”
Both the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns took steps forward in 2023. What do you think both teams need to do to reach the ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl?
Miz: “Not go for it on fourth down for the Detroit Lions. But honestly, I kinda liked the mentality. It’s something that they’d done each and every time. A lot of times it was successful, and a couple of times it wasn’t. They’re gonna die on the sword. Sometimes you don’t, sometimes you do. I think it’s one of those things where I think they have everything it takes, now they know what it takes to actually make it to a Super Bowl. I think they have all the talent they need, they have the coach that they want. And, I think Cleveland is the same way. So, it’s all a matter of who can be better on that day.”
If you could choose two players from the Lions to be on your fantasy team, who would they be?
Miz: “I will take Amon-Ra (St. Brown), of course. And I’ll take (Jahmyr) Gibbs.”
How did you feel you played during the Pro-Am event?
Miz: “Decent enough to where I held my own. Poor enough to know that I am not a PGA Tour professional.”
With Triple-H taking over as the head of creative and as chief content officer, how do you feel about the direction of the WWE?
Miz: “I always enjoy change and evolution in our industry, because that’s what the industry needs. The industry needs to just be ever-evolving. My character has been around for 20 years, because I’m always able to evolve and build myself up. Right now, WWE is hotter than ever. It’s never been bigger than it is right now. The reason I know that is sometimes when we were in live events 10 years ago, you’d be like, ‘Oh man, there’s only 2,000-3,000 people here.’ Now they’re sold out. We don’t even get, it’s like, ‘Hey, can we give some comps? No, we don’t have any comps'. There’s not enough seats for you to have people here. It’s like, 'Man this is awesome.' There’s something brewing with professional wrestling, and it seems like it’s not just a niche anymore. It is pop-culture. It is the thing that people talk about at a water cooler or at work, and it feels like it’s getting more and more popular as days go on.”
