Dolph Ziggler is a talented WWE Superstar, but recently he’s been best known for a very random Tag Team Championship run with Robert Roode, playing a particularly whiny character in a feud with Kofi Kingston, and getting the crap beat out of him by Goldberg at SummerSlam. He’s also seemed to have a habit for the last couple years of making a big deal about whether or not he’s going to sign a new WWE contract, and then signing, and then making a thing out of it again.
On a recent episode of the Grilling JR podcast, AEW Announcer and WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross was talking about the Hell in a Cell 2009 feud between Ziggler and John Morrison. (Thanks to 411Mania for the transcript.)
I love both those guys. I really do. If I had a territory, if I was Tony Khan or Vince McMahon, I would be happy to have either of them and both — preferably both guys, Morrison and Ziggler, on my roster.
JR then went on to talk at length about Ziggler’s talent and WWE’s misuse of him:
I cannot begin to tell you or outline the hideous booking that Dolph Ziggler has encountered over his career in WWE. If you go back and look at it with any diligence, the chronological accuracy of his career in WWE, you will begin to shake your head, and you will say as I have, “How is he still even remotely relevant?” The only answer to that is the fact is that Dolph Ziggler is a supreme athlete. And if given the opportunity to become the star that his ability said he could, we’d be talking about him in the same sacred tones we talk about a Shawn Michaels. Athletically, charismatic, but he was never was given the oomph from the company to put him over the top to where, loo, we’re not going to do this for you for now, we’re going to do this for you forever.
JR makes a good point about how badly WWE has used Ziggler, and how Dolph manages to stay somewhat relevant anyway. Maybe the next time Ziggler’s contract is up, he can find his way to AEW instead, where JR can joyfully extol the virtues of Nick Nemeth as he feuds with Shawn Spears or Jon Moxley.
