The Greatest Male Players in Challenge History: #20- Mike Mizanin

Michael Alvey
3 min readFeb 5, 2019

--

5 Seasons: Battle of the Seasons (Win), The Gauntlet (Final), The Inferno (Final), Battle of the Sexes 2, Inferno II (Win)

Final Efficiency: 4/5 (80%)

Win Efficiency: 2/5 (40%)

29 Mission Wins, 2–0 Elimination Record

Individual Missions: 4/28 (14.3%)

Partner Missions: 1/14 (7.1%)

Combined: 5/42 (11.9 %)

Average Times Voted In Per Season: .67

Seasons Making Final Going Into Minimum Amount of Elims: 1

Everyone knows The Miz now for being a famous WWE wrestler, and he was clearly the face of The Challenge in its early years, but I don’t know if he gets proper credit as a player.

His dynamic personality made him a leader of every team he was on, and he had the athletic chops to back up his bark.

Mike first appeared on Battle of the Seasons with his Real World castmate Coral, and the duo stayed in the inner circle the entire season. Mike and Coral finished second in the final Real World rankings (behind Sean and Elka), and The Miz came up big in the final puzzle to beat Road Rules.

After his first victory, Mike became a bit snake-bitten (no pun intended, Coral). He defeated Abram in the first real heavyweight elimination of all-time on The Gauntlet, volunteering after not performing up to his own standards. But Coral’s snake bite in the finals prevented the Real World team from winning.

The Miz again reached the finals on The Inferno and was the second-best guy on the Real World team behind CT, picking up an elimination win over Jeremy along the way. But again, the Real World team fell short to Road Rules in the final.

An early disqualification on Battle of the Sexes II caused Mike to go home early, as his alliance with Mark, Eric, Dan and Theo couldn’t save him because he had the lowest amount of points for the guys.

But he was able to ride off into the sunset after Inferno II, as his last season was arguably his best. Despite being thrown in by the Bad Asses three times, Mike won three lifesavers and was saved by Landon once to reach the finals. The Good Guys beat the bickering Bad Asses in the final, allowing the Miz to retire with his second victory.

The Miz didn’t play a subtle political game — he was too brash of a personality for that — but he was always friends with the top dogs and made it to the end all but one time.

Mike is another guy who’s really tough to rank. He was one of the best competitors of his era, but wasn’t elite like Alton, Theo Von, Mark or Dan Setzler. Politically he’s tough to judge because he only really played in one season where politics was a big factor (The Gauntlet).

Had he continued doing the show, there’s not much doubt in my mind that he would have remained one of the top alpha males, both politically and competitively, and be one of the top players of all time.

Rankings

30. Turbo Çamkıran

29. Rogan O’Connor

28. Kyle Christie

27. Paulie Calafiore

26. Tyler Duckworth

25. Timmy Beggy

24. Dan Setzler

23. Cory Wharton

22. Devin Walker

21. Frank Sweeney

20. Mike Mizanin

19. Hunter Barfield

18. Theo Campbell

17. Faysal Shafaat

16. Leroy Garrett

15. Alton Williams

14. Zach Nichols

13. Abram Boise

12. Theo Vonkurnatowski

11. Derrick Kosinski

10. Brad Fiorenza

9. Darrell Taylor

8. Kenny Santucci

7. Mark Long

6. Wes Bergmann

5. Evan Starkman

4. Landon Lueck

3. Jordan Wiseley

2. Johnny Devenanzio

1. CT Tamburello

--

--