Alas, Dolph Zigger. There’s been talk of him thinking about leaving WWE for years. It was rumored in 2015, and again in 2016 when he put his career on the line against The Miz at No Mercy. He’s acknowledged that he’s been thinking about it for a long time, but he keeps sticking around.
For this year’s annual “Is Dolph leaving yet?” story, however, he’s gone way more in-depth about his problems with his WWE career, and they happen to line up with what a lot of fans say about him on the internet. On Edge and Christian’s Pod of Awesomeness, as covered extensively over at Wrestling Inc, Dolph has plenty to say about why his career isn’t going so well.
First, he’s well aware that it’s hard for anybody to care about him when he never wins. While he understands that somebody’s got to lose and it’s not necessarily personal, he points out that there is a point when it becomes a problem.
“You’re passed over a handful of times over a couple of years then you start to have more of a cult following and it gets hot. But after a couple of years of not having the trigger pulled, and the eight year-old kids know you’re in that role, I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, even my live event matches, it’s harder for me to do my job because when I come out the 10 year-old kid goes, ‘I know you’re losing’ and I go, ‘oh crap.” Because it’s one thing to have 40 year-old guys going, ‘I know what’s going to happen — that’s fine. I’m here — they put on a show and we still have fun,’ but when you get in that role and you miss, like, years of not going with it, it becomes a burden.”
Dolph also acknowledges that this is an even worse problem — for his opponents as much as him — when he’s constantly called upon to put over the new guys.
“Now, my job of making somebody that should be ready for a world title picture becomes harder and it’s not as much of a shove and if you see the last six months, a year of TV, basically, I’m a gatekeeper to the guys from NXT coming up that they have high expectations for, but if I lose for eight consecutive months before they show up, they are no longer getting that pat on the back to go up a notch, so I almost feel like it’s taking back from my role.”
Whether you like Dolph or not, you have to acknowledge that everything he’s saying here is spot-on. The question is, as it has been in years past, whether this will actually lead him to part ways with the company, or whether he’ll re-sign once again when his contract comes up. As always, Dolph is thinking about it, and says that a decision is coming very soon.
“It’s a show business thing where I love it and in a very short time, I will have to decide if I need to go away and do my own thing or if I need to find a different role here.”
Whatever Dolph ends up deciding, we wish him the best of luck.
