On Tuesday, on the first Smackdown Live following the latest WWE brand split, Commissioner Shane McMahon and GM Daniel Bryan announced a six-pack challenge match for the main event of the show to determine a new #1 contender for the WWE Championship.
The match featured John Cena, AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler. Eventually, Apollo Crews won a battle royal to become the sixth entrant. The match itself exposed one of Smackdown’s greatest flaws: its lack of depth in the main event.
The show has five legitimate main event guys (Cena, Styles, Wyatt, Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose). After that, there is a major dropoff in perceived star power and the need for new stars is likely why the match ended the way it did.
Corbin and Crews might get there someday, but aren’t ready yet. The Miz has been doing tremendous work in 2016, but he’ll likely never get back to that top spot he once held for a time. Ziggler and Zack Ryder are fan favorites who seemed like the company was just never going to get behind. Smart money would have said either Cena, Styles, or Wyatt was a shoo-in to win and go on to SummerSlam.
But then a funny thing happened. Ziggler won. He won with a superkick (!) and pinned AJ freaking Styles. It almost felt like a mistake at first, like someone botched a spot and was supposed to break up the pin. Dolph Ziggler getting a WWE Championship match at SummerSlam 2016? That can’t be right.
But it is, and to see just how unlikely that is, we have to rewind a little bit.
Despite being in WWE for over 10 years, Ziggler first came into real prominence as a singles wrestler in 2010 when he won the Intercontinental Championship for the first time and was paired with Vickie Guerrero.
For most of the next year and a half, Ziggler became one of the hottest young stars in the company, winning over the fans with his high work rate and willingness to bump his ass off. However, the trigger wasn’t pulled on him being a legitimate main eventer until 2012.
That was the year that he received a WWE Championship match with CM Punk at the Royal Rumble and eventually won the World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank briefcase. He even defeated John Cena at TLC that year to retain his contract.
After holding onto the MITB briefcase for an agonizing amount of time, Ziggler finally cashed in on Alberto Del Rio the night after WrestleMania 29 to win the World title, resulting in one of the loudest ovations you will ever hear (it was technically his second title reign, but his first lasted for less than a night and was more storyline fodder for Edge than a legitimate championship win).
Everything looked like it was set up for Ziggler to have a long and memorable title run. He continued to put in great work, had really grown into his character, and had an awesome stable of Big E and AJ Lee alongside him. But then something happened. Ziggler got hurt. Concussed, actually, and was forced to take a month off. By the time he came back, management had soured on him and he dropped the title at Payback to Del Rio in his first title defense (the match also featured a double-turn that resulted in Ziggler being a face, which he has been ever since).
From there, WWE seemed to have a series of stops and starts with Ziggler, and despite having a few more Intercontinental title reigns, he never got back to the main event. It looked like in late 2014, Ziggler was positioned to once again re-enter the title picture after he was the sole survivor for his team in the main event of Survivor Series, but he was immediately thrust into an IC title program with Luke Harper and by the time WrestleMania 31 came around, he was just another guy in the seven-man IC ladder match.
It was around this point that many fans (including myself) gave up on Dolph Ziggler ever being a main event guy. The company had failed so many times to pull the trigger, and now it felt like the moment had passed. His work was failing as well, he just didn’t seem as motivated anymore. He was still putting on good matches, but there was something missing, and his character became one of the least likable on the show despite still being a babyface.
This was emphasized by his ill-fated feud with Rusev last summer. Although the writing didn’t do him any favors, Ziggler didn’t come out of that looking in any way like a guy on the cusp of a big singles push anymore. He looked tired. Tired of being in the spot he was in and tired of meaningless feuds built to nothing.
When it came time for his contract to expire, there was much speculation that his time in WWE was ending. Maybe he would be able to reset himself on the indies or in another company like ROH or Lucha Underground. Maybe he would pursue other interests like acting and stand-up comedy. But that’s not what happened, despite looking visibly burnt out, Ziggler, somewhat surprisingly, re-signed a multi-year deal with WWE last July, and for most of the last 12 months, things have stayed the same as they were before.
Yes, he would have his moments here and there like his always good, but repetitive backstage WWE fallout promos and a few good matches along the way (including one with Triple H). But his long-standing feud with Baron Corbin was mostly uninspired, and heading into the draft, he felt like an afterthought.
And that brings us to Tuesday, where he got a shocking win and is all of a sudden receiving his first WWE Championship singles match in over four years despite having almost no momentum heading into the show. Ziggler hasn’t done anything different really to “deserve” this shot in the last few months except get drafted to the right show. If he was drafted to Raw, he would probably still be stuck in the mid-card and this opportunity could have gone to someone else. But it hasn’t, and now Dolph Ziggler has one more opportunity to revitalize his career when he will be in one of the three biggest matches on WWE’s second biggest PPV of the year.
If anything, Ziggler (and to a lesser extent Ryder, who finally won the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania this year) is a testament for sticking it out in WWE. No matter where you are on the card, there’s always a chance Vince McMahon wakes up one day and decides to push you to the top. If you stick around and keep doing your best, it could happen. It might not, but it could.
Ziggler’s story is in stark contrast to two other WWE stars who were in very similar situations to his, but unlike Dolph, ultimately decided to leave the company: Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes.
Like Ziggler, Barrett and Rhodes came to prominence in WWE around the same time (2010/2011) and like Ziggler, they never quite had the stars align to make them a top star. Despite that, they stuck around the company for several years in the mid-card, having several stop-and-go pushes and going through various gimmick changes.
Like Ziggler, Barrett and Rhodes won over a section of the fans for their top-level in-ring work and entertainment value, and like they did with Ziggler, fans eventually stopped caring when it appeared the company had no plans of elevating them.
Unlike Ziggler, though, Barrett and Rhodes decided to leave. It’s impossible to blame them for doing so. Who am I to tell someone who is unhappy with how they are being treated at their job to stay, when there are potentially better opportunities out there for them?
Still, it’s tough not to wonder what if. What if Barrett and Rhodes had stuck it out for just a few more months and made it to the brand split? The company is bringing back everyone from Jinder Mahal to Curt Hawkins to Shelton Benjamin to shore up the rosters; surely they could have used two former Intercontinental Champions who were once considered the future of the company.
Maybe, just maybe, Barrett and/or Rhodes would have been drafted to Smackdown. Maybe Barrett would have been able to drop the King Barrett schtick and become the charismatic character that he was in 2010 when he was leading the Nexus. Or maybe he would have been able to tell us some Bad News again.
Maybe Rhodes would have finally been allowed to drop the Stardust gimmick and embrace the Rhodes name for the first time since the passing of his father.
Maybe Rhodes or Barrett would have been in that six-pack challenge match instead of Dolph Ziggler, and maybe they would have gone on to co-main event SummerSlam.
Maybe not, but as Ziggler has proved, if you stick around just long enough, through the highs and lows, the frustration of not being used properly, the loss of fan support, the injuries, and all of the tough defeats, truly anything is possible. Even the WWE Championship and a SummerSlam main event.
