Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizanin’s larger-than-life enthusiasm is taking over the MLB All-Star Celebrity Softball Game

A packed crowd of fans is pressed up against a fence watching celebrities and athletes take batting practice in advance of the goofiest and loosest part of the All-Star Break: the Celebrity Softball Game. But even with famous figures like Wale, Josh Norman, and Jennie Finch milling about, the crowd is screaming at the top of its lungs for one person and one person only.

Mike “The Miz” Mizanin.

A WWE star who got his start on The Real World and then The Challenge, The Miz’s fanbase crosses generations, as evidenced by the wide range of baseball fans shouting “Miz! Miz! Miz!” while he takes batting practice and jokes around with his celebrity teammates. Like any great performer — especially one who needs the lines between stage and real life to seem as blurry as possible — Miz knows he’s always on the clock, and he owns it. That should come as no surprise for anyone who follows him in WWE, but to see the effortless way he maintains his in-ring character in public is impressive up close.

Miz is all energy all the time, a coiled ball of excitement and self assuredness. He’s missing a WWE Pay-Per-View to play in this softball game, yet instead of being worried he’s not showing off in the ring with his fellow wrestlers, he crows, “when I get out on the field it’s a show.”

The situation is all part of WWE’s plan leading up to SummerSlam, of course, but in talking to Miz he almost convinces you that he told WWE he wouldn’t be needed at Extreme Rules, and not the other way around.

“I didn’t have a match. If I don’t have a match I need to be shown,” Miz tells a scrum of reporters. “I need to be highlighted. I need to be the main attraction of entertainment. So if WWE doesn’t want me at Extreme Rules then I’m going to make Major League Baseball the most must-see show of all time.”

Then he pulls off the mask for a moment and gets sincere about what being a part of the All-Star festivities means to him, saying, “When I heard it was in DC I was like I have to be there. I love baseball so much, ever since I was a child playing during the summers. To go out there and be on the field where the major league players play, it’s an honor.” His eyes light up talking about playing alongside Jamie Foxx and Andre Dawson and Tim Raines.

But it’s just for an instant, and then he’s back to the persona his life requires, sucking you back in with an intensity that would seem exhausting to maintain if it weren’t Miz doing it.

No matter the questions lobbed at him — about work, life, or unexpected twists like Hulk Hogan being reinstated to the WWE Hall of Fame after he was kicked out due to racist comments — Miz pivots without a sweat. It’s the type of flexibility the savviest of politicians strive for, yet with him you can barely see the seams.

The Hogan question throws him for a moment, but only because no one gave him the heads up about the news. As soon as he realizes what happened, he’s back on his game. As much as he says he adored Hogan growing up (“When I was a kid growing up I ate my vitamins, worked out because Hulk Hogan told me to. I said you know what I’m eating my vitamins mom. She was like “Wait you want to eat vitamins?” Yeah. because Hulk Hogan told me to.”) he doesn’t seem overjoyed at the possibility Hogan being be back on the canvas anytime soon, saying “if he wants to stand in my corner he can stand in my corner. Just stay out of my WWE ring.”

Whether that statement is closer to Miz’s sincere side than performance side is impossible to tell. One planned storyline he makes sure to push forward is the long-simmering feud between him and Daniel Bryan. Miz insists he only has Bryan on his mind because someone put him there, rattling off a rat-a-tat answer that should keep the gears moving towards a future tussle.

“They’re not going to be talking about Daniel Bryan tonight,” Miz says. “What they’re going to be talking about is Miz at the All-Star Celebrity Softball Game. Hitting home runs, taking people yard. Striking people out. That’s what they’ll be talking about. Daniel Bryan is going to be imaginary. People are going to be going ‘What did he do tonight?’ Nothing. He did nothing. No one cares. All they care about is the Miz.”

That’s just about all the kayfabe he has time for though, other than giving away that the B-Team of Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel will win the Tag Team Championship later in the night. In a blink he’s back to working the crowd of reporters and riling up his softball competitors.

He jokingly gets in Wale’s face about the rapper’s line of Intercontinental Championship shoes that weren’t sent to Miz, even though he was the Intercontinental Champion at the time. Then he rails against his position assignment of shortstop even though he’s left handed, expressing his frustration loudly while doing squats like he’s trying to intimidate a ring opponent.

He expertly evades a question about Brock Lesnar’s wrestling status and just starts bragging again. This time, it’s to promise everyone that he’ll “knock [the ball] out of the entire stadium. I’m going to be the first to knock it out of the stadium, people are going to be going for the ball, the ball’s going to sell for millions of dollars.”

In the midst of all of that he takes 30 seconds to go full WWE and cut a wrestling promo for an imagined match with Yankees star Aaron Judge.

Miz’s penchant for over-the-top self promotion feeds his teammates and opponents alike. Jessica Mendoza doesn’t call him her team’s MVP (that would be Bernie Williams) but laughingly acknowledges that he thinks he’s the MVP. After Miz says he wants Olympic-gold medalist Jennie Finch’s fastest pitch, and that he’s excited to hit a home run off of it, Finch laughs says she thinks “he needs to be humbled, I think his ego needs to be busted.”

Mendoza and Finch’s appreciation of what Miz does — two objectively normal people who aren’t constantly immersed in the world of wrestling — is as good an example as any of how Miz’s larger-than-life enthusiasm can infect everyone around him. The fans still screaming for photos (which he will soon oblige with group selfies) seal the notion.

As teammates and wrestling partners come and go, the one thing that stays true is that it is all about The Miz. Because at the end of the day, he has to be his own biggest fan to keep the performance genuine. The veneer is the foundation of the acting somersaults he can’t stop doing. If The Miz loses faith in The Miz, he would slip away.

But he won’t anytime soon. When asked which of the present or former Challenge stars he thinks could follow him into the wrestling ring, Miz barely skips a beat. He looks directly into the camera, and growls his answer.

“Probably the most must-see superstar of all time The Miz. THAT’S IT.”