17 Most Brutal Hazing Horror Stories In Wrestling
3. The Miz Doesn't Chicken Out
Long before the likes of Logan Paul were welcomed in with open arms for the crossover exposure they could supply, WWE was a walled garden when it came to those that didn't enter the industry via one of the traditional routes. Poor Mike Mizanin then, who dared to get over by himself on MTV's Real World before chasing his WWE dream. Years removed from that reality show, he got in the back door via another one - Tough Enough.
2004's edition saw semi-trained wrestlers compete in a series of humiliation rituals dressed up as tasks on SmackDown, making it the hardest of all the years for guys to get on and get in. Winning the contest made no difference - he was loathed by default by locker room underbosses such as Bradshaw and Bob Holly, who put the squeeze on him in the hope that he'd walk before his career could run.
Famously, Miz was banned from the locker room for upwards of six months during his earliest days, all in service of punishment for eating chicken near or over Chris Benoit's bag. Corridors, toilets or storage closets were the only places in buildings the newcomer was welcome to get his gear on, until The Undertaker of all people waved him back in for sustaining what he believed to be enough suffering.