Despite his reservations, The Miz eventually made his way into WWE through “Tough Enough.” The journey began when he got a call from WWE personally to do a tryout for the show with 50 people, which he still had reservations about. He reached out to WWE star and longtime industry veteran Simon Dean.

“I was like: ‘Would you do this? Like, I want respect in the business,” he said. “I don’t want people to look at me as ‘the Tough Enough Guy’ … Because if you watch the Tough Enough people back then? They got it!” he recalled.

The Miz added that other names from Tough Enough were not respected in WWE and when the locker room wanted them out, they were eventually ousted.

“So I knew I needed people to teach me inside the ring, and I knew I needed the respect, and if I went on ‘Tough Enough,’ I wouldn’t get that.” he added. However, Dean reminded him that the opportunity was for a million dollars, and Miz’ previous experiences trying out for WWE outside of reality TV hadn’t worked.

Recalling the first ever day of ‘Tough Enough,'” The Miz claimed he had to take around 500 bumps on the first day, and that one of the other would-be competitors (a military veteran) quit immediately afterward. On top of this, he survived an 18-person firing.

“They put us through the ringer on Tough Enough; but you had to earn it, right?” he added. “You had to see who wanted to be there.”

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.