Despite being with WWE for nearly 15 years now, the Miz says neither fans nor the WWE Universe respects him. Many felt Miz’s days without respect were over after he won over even his harshest critics with his work ethic the last few years.

According to Miz, however, he still doesn’t get the respect he feels he deserves. Miz made comments to this effect during a recent interview with the Mirror in the UK.

“I will never get the respect I deserve because I was on a reality show. Whenever you’re on a reality show, you’re the scum of the earth. You have no talent, you’re a nothing and you deserve nothing,” Miz described his reputation.

Miz’s career has come first circle in the sense that he’s back on another reality TV show. In 2001, Miz dropped out of college in order to appear on MTV’s “the Real World”. Now Miz is the star of “Miz and Mrs.”

“That’s the way I’ve been brought up and how I feel people look at reality [television]. Do I look at it that way? Absolutely not; I thank my lucky stars I was on a show like The Real World on MTV and I thank them for putting me on that show because it gave me the ability to say ‘I can do anything I want with my life’.”

Speaking of Miz and Mrs, Miz explained he doesn’t consider it a reality show. Rather, Miz thinks of the show as a docu-series.

“I like to think it’s a different type of show, but now that I have that, it puts even more ammo against me. But, maybe now, people will look at me and say ‘this guy can lead a show’.”