On May 12th, 2021, ‘The Redeemer’ Miro emphatically defeated Darby Allin on Dynamite to capture the TNT Championship. Miro would go on to hold the title for 140 days, before eventually dropping it to Sammy Guevara in September later that year.
Miro recently reflected upon his reign as TNT Champion during an interview with WhatCulture. The former champion revealed that he believes his hard work was key in elevating the title to a new level during his reign, and then goes on to accept some of the blame regarding the current lacklustre status of the championship due to the lofty standards he set for the division.
“Well, it’s the man that creates the title, not the title that creates the man. I think everything I did with that title [TNT Championship] was the fruits of my labor. The title didn’t come with all this heaviness. I mean, it came from Darby [Allin] which is a great competitor but, you know, it was — we’re just such different people, such a different style and then everybody that came after that, they tried to take it but that’s just not possible. When I hang onto something, it’s mine and unfortunately, the Sammy Guevara thing came in, he landed on my balls, let’s not forget about that. The finish [of our TNT Title match], he did the four-70,000-do-whatever-the-thing is. I was preparing to protect myself, he landed right on my balls and you can’t kick out of that, nobody can. So I don’t even take fault of that but I take fault — I take a fault of maybe being too good of a champion because ever since I lost that title, that title has gone to sh*ts and that’s nothing but to blame Sammy Guevara for that, so he’s got to bear the cross for that.”
-Miro
Miro re-signed with All Elite Wrestling earlier this year. Whilst discussing the development of his ‘Redeemer’ character, Miro noted that his decision to sign a multi-year deal with the promotion came down to Tony Khan giving him the ball and letting him run with it.
“It wasn’t planned for years, it wasn’t planned at all [The Redeemer character]. It was just thinking, ‘What do we do? Who am I?’ That’s what I was thinking, ‘Who am I?’ I know Tony [Khan] brought me as the gamer guy, as the Twitch guy but I know that’s not me and I know that wasn’t matching the work I do. I’m a vicious animal. I’m going out there, I’m gonna rip your heart out and I understand… I gave it a go, you know? I did the — I was brought with a purpose to be ‘The Best Man’, to be the best man of their wedding [Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford], which okay, I had two weddings. I’ve been married on TV, off TV, I was able to do that. But then soon after that, when everything started going downhill with Kip, especially I wanted to keep that streak alive. You know, I started professional wrestling in WWE with a hot streak of a year. I wanted to do that same thing here. But after Kip kind of screwed me over, he lost that Arcade Anarchy match. You know, it was clear that his goal was somewhere else. He was focused on his wife and I can’t blame him, I was young before. I used to care about my wife more but now it’s not about that. It’s about where you wanna go and I wanna be the champion, I wanted to be the TNT Champion, now All-Atlantic Champion, I wanna be world champion and I can’t do that by putting my wife always first. I have to be focused on my career and I started doing what I know what I do. I had to disconnect myself from Kip, that’s why I had to kind of punish him if you will, broke his little arm. Literally, broke his little arm on that door and I just told Tony now, ‘This is what we do. I’m gonna be me’ and because he’s a great boss, he let me run with the ball. He gave me the ball, he said, ‘Do what you gotta do’ and I’m doing exactly that. He’s not there — he’s not telling me not to smile, not to look at the people, not to do this and that. He’s giving me a clean go and that’s what I’m doing, that’s why I signed a multi-year deal because he let me do all these opportunities. If it was like [a] situation like before, that would have never happened.”
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This past Sunday at the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door event, Miro competed in a four-way to crown the inaugural AEW All Atlantic Championship, although ‘The Redeemer’ ultimately emerged unsuccessful, with PAC leaving with the gold.
H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
