Mr. Miz reveals iconic WrestleMania 35 moment with Shane McMahon was improvised

Image courtesy WWE.com
Image courtesy WWE.com /
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George Mizanin putting his dukes up against Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 35 was not part of the plan, Mizanin revealed on Friday.

One of the most enduring images from WrestleMania 35, the Miz’s dad George Mizanin squaring up with Miz’s opponent Shane McMahon, was a completely improvised moment, Mr. Miz revealed on Friday’s episode of the Jobbing Out podcast.

The in-ring moment, which spawned hundred of memes and has helped get the elder Mizanin a bit of fame of his own all stemmed from a way to buy time while The Miz was being attended to for an injury suffered during his falls-count-anywhere match with McMahon.

Mizanin told Jobbing Out that, “I wasn’t supposed to get in the ring, but [Shane McMahon] said ‘whatever happens, follow my lead.’ And he was calling me in the ring and I thought, ‘what’s gonig on, I’m not supposed to get in the ring?'” Once he faced off with McMahon, things got a little real, as well, with Mizanin saying that McMahon’s knee to his midsection ending up breaking a rib and that he had given McMahon a black eye.

The in-ring portion of the Mizanin-McMahon confrontation came about because McMahon had hit The Miz in the head on accident, resulting in The Miz ultimately needing three staples. “The thing that [McMahon] hit Michael over the head with wasn’t supposed to go into his head, he wasn’t supposed to have stitches or staples in his head. That wasn’t part of the show.”

The initial plan, per Mizanin, was “I was supposed to stop [McMahon] from jumping on [The Miz] from the top rope, but I wasn’t supposed to go into the ring” and described the night’s events as “some of it was rehearsed, most of it wasn’t,” particularly the fists that launched Mizanin into accidental icon status.

“McMahon told me to put my fists up and when I put them up, then he came over and grabbed my hands and put them up the right way, a little bit higher … then he kinda danced around and he kinda led me into it,” said Mizanin.

Fans weren’t the only ones to respond positively to the Mizanin-McMahon moment; Mizanin said that after the show, WWE President Vince McMahon “came up to me and said that it was his favorite part of the whole WrestleMania.” While the event had its fair share of iconic moments, Mizanin’s dukes-up pose deserves to be named among them.

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Mizanin’s involvement with his son’s rivalry with the younger McMahon (and his newly-formed feud with Bobby Lashley) will likely continue, with both of Miz’s protagonists using Miz’s father as their continued target of insult. The Miz faces Shane McMahon in a steel cage match at WWE’s Money in the Bank on May 19.