The Miz says ‘Hannibal’ should be banned forever over ref stabbing

The Miz says the wrestler who repeatedly stabbed a ref in the head with an iron spike should NEVER be hired again … telling TMZ Sports the dude should be perma-banned from the squared circle.

“You don’t do that stuff,” the WWE superstar told us out at LAX on Tuesday … “That didn’t look like a mistake.”

If you missed it … Devon Nicholson — aka “Hannibal” — badly injured a ref during a match at an independent event in Irving, Texas on Saturday.

In footage from the event, you can see Nicholson pounded on the guy’s forehead with a stake over and over and over again — ‘causing the man to bleed severely in the ring.

The ref, Lando Deltoro, was eventually hospitalized over the incident … though, thankfully, he’s expected to make a full recovery.

When we asked The Miz about it all in Los Angeles just three days after the incident … he said he’d be in favor of a lifetime ban for the wrestler.

“Accidents happen,” The Miz said, “but I don’t get stabbed with like a knife or whatever the hell the guy had.”

For his part, Nicholson says he wasn’t aware that he was injuring the ref … saying Deltoro never gave him any indication that he was being hurt in the show.

As for Deltoro, he claimed he had no way of telling Nicholson to stop … saying the wrestler was too big and too powerful to get any words out before he eventually slipped out of consciousness.

As we previously reported, World Class Pro Wrestling — which put on the event — has barred Nicholson from all of its future events.