Q&A: Mizdow’s recipe for success


Damien Mizdow answers Jan Murphy’s questions on Friday. Photo by Mike Mastrandrea, SLAM! Wrestling


Many see WrestleMania 31 as the long-awaited opportunity for Damien Mizdow to break away from The Miz and re-establish an identity of his own. He talked with Sun Media’s Jan Murphy about his current run at Friday’s WWE Media Day.

MIZDOW (joined in progress): Reality is sometimes the path is not the one you choose, and you have take twists and turns, and sometimes some steps backwards to go around stuff. When you live in the moment and you just do the best you can, no matter what, and really, honestly, give 100 per cent, and just dive into your character, and understand that the reason that we do what we do is for the fans in the WWE Universe, then life becomes a lot easier, it becomes more simple. That’s pretty much the only recipe for success that I could give anybody as far as succeeding here.

JAN MURPHY: Is that difficult to do sometimes?

MIZDOW: At first, yep. But once you get in it, once you get into that mindset, life becomes easier.

JAN MURPHY: Is it nice to hear the outpouring from the fans…

MIZDOW: It means everything in the world.

JAN MURPHY: … do something better with Mizdow, or …

MIZDOW: That is nice, yes, but the reactions I get, to me sentimentally. I can speak from the heart when I say this, mean more to me than any honour or any title anyone could ever bestow on me. That’s genuine and that’s something, it’s not kind of forced down their throat, no one’s forcing them to cheer for me, or they’re not preconditioned to; they just do it because they want to. I cannot be grateful enough for that.

JAN MURPHY: You’ve had a lot of comedic gimmicks over the years; was there one you enjoyed more than others?

MIZDOW: The interpretive dancer was fun.

JAN MURPHY: How are you enjoying this current role? You’ve done some really funny stuff.

MIZDOW: It’s great. I love it. I love it. It’s awesome. The cool thing is it can go from funny to serious at the drop of a hat, which is something I think is unique that a lot of people haven’t been able to do, where fans want to see something go on. Who knows if we’ll ever get there or not, but it’s just good to be able to.

JAN MURPHY: I’m feeling a slow build with this


JAN MURPHY: WrestleMania. Talk about what this means to you.

MIZDOW: It means everything. It’s the reason you work hard all year. Everyone kind of sets their sights on WrestleMania. To actually be a part of it, it’s just huge. It’s huge and it’s a great feeling.

JAN MURPHY: What is the feeling with the crowd? Surreal?

MIZDOW: You can’t put it into words, you know what I mean? You cannot articulate it. Unless you’re actually there and you feel it, trying to describe it is just completely futile.