The Miz explains why winning ‘really does matter’ in WWE
Despite what others may think, The Miz believes wins and losses are crucially important in professional wrestling.
Miz addressed the topic during a guest appearance on the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet. Explaining why his character works so much better as a heel, Miz said he’s able to lose and then cut a promo moving on from what happened. But when you’re a babyface, fans want to see you win. The audience loses their faith in you when you fail to make that happen.
“My character doesn’t really work as a babyface, if I’m being honest,” Miz said. “It’s a person that can lose and then the next day you’ll forget about that loss, because I’ll just cut a promo and make you believe.
“But with the babyface, babyfaces can’t really lose a lot. If a babyface loses too much — everyone always says, like, ‘Winning doesn’t matter. Winning doesn’t matter.’ It matters. It really does matter. Especially if you’re a babyface. Because in my opinion, if you’re a babyface and I’m a kid out there — my kids always ask me, ‘Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?’ And I always have to go, ‘Ahh, daddy didn’t win this week, but I’ll get them next week.’ You can only say that so many times to a kid where they’re just like, ‘I want a winner. I want a winner. I want to cheer a winner.’ People like winners. People like first place. They don’t like second place. They don’t like third place. They want the guy, their guy. They want their guy to win.”
Miz said the past year has been “weird” for him with the reactions he’s getting. His usual heel tactics aren’t receiving boos, but fans aren’t completely cheering him either. While Miz can feel the increased respect people have for him, he thinks the reaction of ‘Ahh, he’s so good’ is death for a wrestler when fans aren’t fully behind or against them.
This Friday on SmackDown, Miz will be in action against Randy Orton. It’s a qualifying match where the winner earns a spot in the fatal four-way number one contender’s bout that’s taking place on January 24 at Saturday Night’s Main Event. The winner of that match advances to the Royal Rumble to challenge WWE Champion Drew McIntyre.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.