The entire wrestling world was in total shock when it was announced that Dolph Ziggler was released from WWE.
It feels like Dolph Ziggler has been with WWE throughout his entire life. He began his run in the Stamford-based promotion back in 2004. Since then he has had multiple rivalries and as a result, he has had the opportunity to put on some incredible show-stealing performances against some of the top talents in the professional wrestling business.
Paying tribute to his illustrious career, let’s look at some of his greatest WWE matches.
Champion vs. Champion
The Showoff has won every title in WWE. In 2010, he had one of his most memorable runs as the Intercontinental Champion. He was managed by Vickie Guerrero at that time.
One of the matches that gave confidence in WWE management that he could hang with the big guns was his one-on-one match against Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson). It was the opening match at the 2010 Bragging Rights Premium Live Event. It was an event which was basically a battle of the brands.
As mentioned earlier, Ziggler was the Intercontinental Champion representing SmackDown and Bryan was the United States Champion representing Raw.
Both wrestlers battled each other for more than 15 minutes. This turned out to be one of the best matches of the night. Finally, The American Dragon managed to pick up the victory.
Dolph Ziggler vs. Drew McIntyre
When Drew McIntyre returned to WWE, he was competing in NXT. When he was called up, he showed up on the main roster as the tag team partner of Ziggler.
The two had a great run as a tag team, they even managed to capture the Raw Tag Team Championships. When the duo lost the titles, a rift between their friendship occurred. One thing led to another and the two ended up battling each other inside a Steel Cage.
Despite his efforts, Dolph was unable to defeat the Scottish Warrior. Finally, McIntyre hit the Claymore for the win. For the majority of the match, the crowd was chanting ‘This is awesome’.
Ziggler vs. Rollins
People say that the quality of a match can turn from ‘good’ to ‘awesome’ because of the live crowd. Very rarely an extremely good match can be one of the worst matches due to the crowd.
The main event of the 2018 Extreme Rules Premium Live Event was one such occasion. It was a 30-minute Iron Man Match between Seth Rollins and The Showoff for the Intercontinental Championship. Both wrestlers did everything in their power to put on a hell of a show.
But, it being an Iron Man match, there was a timer running down on the Titantron. The WWE Universe continued to count down every ten seconds just like how they would count down the final ten seconds before an entrant comes out during the 30-person Royal Rumble match.
Thus the crowd killed the mood and thus the match does not get the credit it deserves. Dolph Ziggler and Rollins went the distance with four falls a piece as the time ran out. In the end, the two went to Sudden Death and The Showoff picked up his fifth fall to retain his title.
Dolph Ziggler is the Sole Survivor
In the 2014 edition of the Survivor Series PLE, the main event was between The Authority and John Cena’s team in a traditional Survivor Series Elimination Match.
The Authority’s team comprised of Seth Rollins, Kane, Luke Harper (Brodie Lee), Rusev (Miro), and Mark Henry. Whereas, John Cena managed to team up with Ryback, The Big Show, Erick Rowan, and Dolph Ziggler.
The Authority seemed to have the match in the bag as they had three of their members still in the match while Team Cena was left with Ziggler alone.
But to everyone’s surprise, the Showoff managed to eliminate two stars back-to-back. The rest of the Authority did everything in its power to put an end to Ziggler but the Showoff received some unexpected help. The Icon Sting made his WWE debut and attacked both Triple H and Rollins.
He then placed Ziggler on top of Rollins and ensured the referee pinned the three count.
Title vs. Career
Dolph Ziggler’s best rivalry should be the one in 2016 against The Miz. The A-Lister had also recently revealed that Ziggler managed to bring out the best version of him when they wrestled each other.
In 2016, the heated rivalry reached a boiling point where Ziggler put his career on the line at the No Mercy PLE. Both wrestlers put on an absolute clinic. This is a match that is still talked about by members of the wrestling world. Ziggler picked up the win and had another run as the Intercontinental Champion.
Multiple wrestlers including John Cena have been highly appreciative of Dolph’s run in WWE.
What is your favorite Dolph Ziggler match? Let us know in the comments section below.
