In pro wrestling these days, the veil has been lifted more than ever, as various programs the WWE produces give insight into what goes into creating a wrestling persona and storyline and show the superstars in their daily life, letting us see in-ring bitter enemies as the actual friends they are.
All of which makes this Sunday’s WrestleMania 33 match between John Cena and his real life girlfriend, Nikki Bella, versus the Miz and his real life wife, Maryse, all the more intriguing. On SmackDown, the two duos have had some notably vicious promos lobbied at one another, ones that bring in a lot of issues and insults that work great as drama and certainly feel real (which the best wrestling angles often do, of course) – added to because Maryse’s accusations about Nikki and her sister, Brie, were first said on Total Divas.
While this match is a storyline aimed towards a WrestleMania match, is it fueled by actual animosity? When I spoke to Miz and Maryse a couple of days before WrestleMania at a press event, they certainly weren’t hinting it was anything but genuine, in stark contrast to other wrestlers that day who weren't nearly as fired up about their opponents or seemingly in-character in this more low key setting. So are Miz and Maryse just committed to their in-ring personas or is it something else? Read on to make your call...
IGN: I will admit, this match you guys have snuck up on me as far as how dramatic things have gotten and how invested I am at this point.
Miz: I know what people were saying. Miz and Maryse versus John Cena and Nikki Bella? A lot of people were complaining that, you know, Cena should be wrestling the Undertaker - the Miz should be going for a WWE Championship. They should get bigger platforms, if anything. In my mind, I was like, okay, watch. Watch and learn what we can do. This turned out to be one of the moments that I'm most looking forward to in my entire career. I get to share the stage, the biggest, grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania 33, with my wife, and I get to be on a team with her, and wrestle with her. This is the first time we've ever done that. This is gonna be amazing.
IGN: Maryse, this is your first match since you've returned to the WWE. Is that a lot of pressure, a lot of excitement, or a little mixture of both?
Maryse: A mixture of both. I can't wait to put my hands on Nikki Bella, finally.
Miz: It's been a long time in the making, I'll tell you.
Maryse: A long time in the making, and it's happening.
IGN: Let me ask about that. We have Total Divas too, and it's an interesting time in wrestling where real life and storyline can kind of cross over.
Maryse: Let's just put it this way. Everything that we've done and everything we've said on SmackDown, I tried put on the first episode Total Divas this season. If you're a fan, if you've watched, it's complete truth, it's complete truth. I exposed people for what they really are. And, you know, they were not really happy about that. They were trying to keep that on the DL. You know, how do you say...?
IGN: On the down low?
Maryse: Down low. That didn't really work well, because, you know, I believe in karma. When you do something like that, karma's gonna come back and bite you in the butt, and it kind of did. Like, really badly. Right now she's in the position where everyone knows how she really is, how they really are, and we just exposed them. Everything we've said is the truth. If you watched SmackDown last week, everything John Cena said is a complete lie. You're a fan, you know the facts.
Miz: I love her. He knows how to spin everything to where the fans will go, yes, you're right, you're right.
Maryse: John Cena is a liar. A liar will discredit his opponent, and that is exactly what he does, because of his charisma and his personality and he gets the crowd involved, and he will spin everything around. But if you go on there, on the [WWE] network, and you punch in Maryse, you will see twenty matches popping up of me kicking his girlfriend's butt, you know?
Miz: But he said there's zero.
Maryse: He talked about my husband, he talked about, "What has he accomplished?" Well John Cena is saying you haven't accomplished anything, and just craps on an entire generation of women, because I've defeated all of those women. I was one of the longest reigning Divas Champions. And one of them [Beth Phoenix] is getting inducted in the Hall of Fame this weekend. So if I haven't accomplished everything, what has she accomplished?
Miz: He was doing a whole, hoo-rah-rah, Divas revolution thing, and it was like, wait a second.
Maryse: Oh, and he's doing that.
Miz: He's crapped on a whole generation. People were like, “Why didn't you say anything?” He's just digging a hole. Like, how do you not see that?
Maryse: Absolutely. And you know what the worse part was? It’s the fact that he wouldn't let her talk. If in this women’s revolution, if Nikki Bella has accomplished so much, why is she not talking right now? Why is she not saying what you're saying to me? Because she could barely even look at me in the eye when she was sitting there. And I know why, I know, she knows I am telling the truth, and she feels embarrassed, she feels like she has been exposed and she's scared. Because she's been in the ring before. And we're not gonna be messing around. Don't mess around with me.
Miz: Who are you rooting for?
IGN: I'm rooting for you guys!
Miz: Okay, okay.
Maryse: He's like, “Jesus, don't punch me in the face.”
IGN: [Laughs] I am team Miz and Maryse.
Maryse: It's all great, I am having a blast right now working with my husband. I can't believe we'll be tagging together. Five years ago if you would have asked me if this, you know, you would have told me you're gonna have a tag with your husband, I would have laughed in your face. This is happening, biggest moment in my career for sure.
Miz: Mine too.
Maryse: Women's Diva Championship was huge, but this is just a different feel.
IGN: How fun was it for you guys to do those Total Bellas parodies?
Miz: You know, I've taken many acting classes in my day. One of the things that I've taken away was when I was doing impressions, I wanted to do it exactly like the person, I had to sound exactly like them. I was so adamant about being exactly the way they are, that my teacher would be like, “Are you having fun?” And I go, “Honestly, no. It's freaking exhausting, I can't get this down.” And he goes, “The idea of an impersonation doesn't mean that a person has to do it exactly like the person. It's having fun with it, and if you're having fun, everyone will realize you're having fun, and if there's an ounce of truth to it, that makes it that much better.” And then he's like, “Watch SNL. Those guys aren't exactly like it. Alec Baldwin, he does a couple things where you literally go, ‘Oh, okay, ha-ha-ha.’” Someone, I think it was Darrell Hammond, was talking about Jay Pharoah, and he said he would watch him trying to get every beat, listening on a phone to the way the guy said and pronounced everything. And he was like, “Man, I don't do that! You know, I kind of just have fun with it, and do my own thing.” So, that's kind of what we did. We literally just said let's have fun with it.
Maryse: And we didn't really rehearse anything we were saying, we kind of just did it.
Miz: A lot of it, most of it, was improv. They were like, can you come out the door? And I'd go, yeah. And then when I came out the door, I don't think they expected me to come out the way I did. And were like, “Just start doing your thing.” So then I went down the stairs and I did all these stupid things, like, here we go! And running two steps. That was probably one of my favorite parts to the scene, because I thought it was so stupid and it made me laugh. But when I watched it back, and just all the edits and everything the music... She asked, “What did you think?” And I go, “You stole the show. You are the star of this whole thing. Without you, this thing would just not generate and not be funny.” She had everything down to a T. I was dying when she was doing some of this stuff. When I first saw her in the outfit, I went, “Oh my God.”
Maryse: At some point at the kitchen table he was speaking and I can't remember exactly what I did but he just went, “We need to do this again, I can't concentrate.”
Miz: I'm sitting there and she's making faces at me. And I'm like, “Can you not?” Have you noticed I'm not looking at her because I will start cracking up? I feel like Jimmy Fallon on SNL, you know what I mean? Just cracking up the entire time. I'm ruining these spots! It was annoying.
WrestleMania 33 airs live on the WWE Network on Sunday, April 2nd.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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