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.