The Detroit Lions’ six-time Super Bowl champion, who was playing against the Browns, recently passed away in a plane crash.

WWE Superstar “The Miz” is not ready to give up hopes of the Cleveland Browns eventually winning a Super Bowl.

But, last season, the play of the Detroit Lions caught the attention of the Cleveland native.

Lions head coach Dan Campbell has helped to change the culture of the organization, and the camaraderie among the team is noticeable to all NFL fans, including The Miz. Similar to Cleveland, when the sports teams in town are winning, Detroit as a city thrives.

While the Miz hopes Detroit does not defeat Cleveland in the Super Bowl, he recognized how the players respond to Campbell and the impact the popular coach has on the team’s success.

After playing in the Area 313 Celebrity Golf Scramble at the Rocket Mortgage Classic Tuesday, the WWE Superstar spoke to All Lions about the recent success of two NFL teams that have struggled recently and the growing popularity of WWE under the creative control of Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.

*Questions and answers are edited for length and clarity.

How does it feel for your hometown of Cleveland to be hosting a WWE SummerSlam event this year?

Miz: “Oh, man. Coming home. The hard part is I’m not sure what I’m doing at SummerSlam. Everyone says, ‘Are you excited?’ It’s like, I get excited when I kind of have a feeling of, ‘Oh, here’s the match I have. Okay, how do I want to make sure that I make a moment and make a staple that’s something that stands the test of time.’ Those are very difficult moments to do. But, coming in my back yard, I think whenever SummerSlam comes to a city, the city thrives.”

Both the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns took steps forward in 2023. What do you think both teams need to do to reach the ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl?

Miz: “Not go for it on fourth down for the Detroit Lions. But honestly, I kinda liked the mentality. It’s something that they’d done each and every time. A lot of times it was successful, and a couple of times it wasn’t. They’re gonna die on the sword. Sometimes you don’t, sometimes you do. I think it’s one of those things where I think they have everything it takes, now they know what it takes to actually make it to a Super Bowl. I think they have all the talent they need, they have the coach that they want. And, I think Cleveland is the same way. So, it’s all a matter of who can be better on that day.”

If you could choose two players from the Lions to be on your fantasy team, who would they be?

Miz: “I will take Amon-Ra (St. Brown), of course. And I’ll take (Jahmyr) Gibbs.”