Miro Didn’t Know Who Billy Mitchell Was Before AEW Segment, Didn’t Believe King of Kong Was a Real Documentary

Miro had a guest appearance from controversial video game champion Billy Mitchell on AEW Dynamite, but he didn’t know who Mitchell was at first. Miro discussed Mitchell’s appearance on last week’s AEW Dynamite in his segment and how he was completely unfamiliar with Mitchell, who became a part of the pop culture lexicon with his records in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Mitchell’s reputation was tarnished over allegations that he falsified his scores by use of an emulator, claims which are documented in the documentary The King of Kong. His world records were invalidated by the Guinness Book of World Records and arcade recordkeeper Twin Galaxies and while Guinness eventually reinstated the records, Twin Galaxies has not. You can check out highlights from Miro’s comments below:

On not being familiar with Mitchell: “Is it Billy Mitchell you want to talk about? Let’s talk about Billy Mitchell. Why are you sorry that I support Billy Mitchell? So the the director of the video sends me, and he says that Billy Mitchell is going to be appearing on our vignettes. To which, I took no consideration because I had no idea who Billy Mitchell was. No idea. Even [when] he gave me a quick snippet of the documentary [King of Kong] to watch it. And I opened to watch it, and I see — I thought he was trying to rip off a character from The Office. I thought it was just a, he’s trying to rip off Michael Scott and trying to be like him into like, he’s like a comedian guy. I’m like, ‘Oh, okay cool. We got a comedian in our backstage. That’s fantastic.’ Took nothing to it. One day, eventually told me he’s the Pac-Man world record [holder] and Donkey Kong, and all that. Again, I took nothing into be like, ‘Oh my gosh! Super cool. He got all the world records. That’s super cool.’

And then [Chris] Jericho sees the pre-tape. He texts me, he’s like, ‘Oh my gosh! You guys had Billy Mitchell. Why didn’t you tell me?’ And I’m like, ‘I didn’t know anyone would care.’ I thought he was just a guy, I had no idea that Billy Mitchell was like the biggest thing since hot water. But maybe I should have taken a sign. Because when we were at the axe throwing place, a random lady ran to him and asked him for an autograph and a picture. But again, I took nothing in consideration.”

On his friend making him believe Mitchell was a big deal: “Somebody else — Nick, my friend Nick, saw my vignette. He texts me, he’s like ‘You are the man. You had Billy Mitchell.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, really? It’s that big a deal?’ He was like, ‘You have no idea. You have to watch it [King of Kong]. He said, ‘It’s like Pumping Iron but for video games. And I was like, ‘Whoa, I have to watch it.'”

On not believing the documentary was real: “I sat down and really, really enjoyed the video. But I just couldn’t — I still thought I was worked the whole time. I don’t think that was an actual documentary, I thought it some kind of a docudrama where it’s like, it’s a work. I thought it was like a show, it’s meant to look like it’s real but it wasn’t. But I still can’t believe this was a real thing.”

On the hatred toward Mitchell: “I still don’t understand why everyone hates him. But first of all, let’s all agree to one thing — that Donkey Kong, it’s hard as s**t. Let’s agree to that, first and foremost. Second of all, I mean Pac-Man perfect score, I just — and when he was there. When Billy was there, when we were filming the thing … he started playing Pac-Man, because we had a giant Pac-Man machine. And he showed us, he said it’s all about patterns. It’s about knowing the patterns. And he knows exactly where to stay, and he knows where the bad guys are gonna go. Like, he knows all that.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Miro with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.