The Miz: I Will Never Get The Respect I Deserve

Over the last couple of years, few male superstars in the WWE have risen through the ranks quite like The Miz.

Though Miz did hold the WWE Championship nearly a decade ago, it has been his recent heel run that has garnered him much acclaim. Many members of the wrestling media and fans alike have long been calling him one of the top, if not the top, heels in the company.

Even so, Miz still feels as if he does not get the acclaim that he deserves. Speaking to The Mirror recently, Miz let his feelings on this subject among others be known.

"I will never get the respect I deserve, because I was on a reality show," Miz said. "Whenever you're on a reality show, you're the scum of the earth. You have no talent, you're a nothing and you deserve nothing. That's the way I've been brought up and how I feel people look at reality [television]. Do I look at it that way? Absolutely not; I thank my lucky stars I was on a show like The Real World on MTV and I thank them for putting me on that show because it gave me the ability to say 'I can do anything I want with my life.'"

It's true that for many years, Miz did have to overcome the stigma among fans that he was just some kind of reality television star versus a real, credentialed pro wrestling star. However, in recent years, it seems that Miz has turned the tables and sold the majority of people on his talent. It sounds like he still gets some push back from those in the wrestling business, though, when it comes to garnering the respect that he deserves.

"Are my peers starting to respect me? I think they're starting to see my value and that they see I work hard," Miz continued. "How many other people are doing this media interview for the UK? Probably not many. And I've problem spoken to you all. It's just the thing that I am always doing media, always working and always going non stop, because I believe that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard enough."