WWE Superstar Dolph Ziggler recently spent some time talking to The Mirror UK about a variety of topics including why WWE would not let him troll fans when he was portraying the gimmicks of other superstars. Check out the highlights below.
On teaming with Robert Roode:
I can’t say we’re the greatest of all time because we’ve only really had a couple of weeks of working together. When Bobby Roode shows up from NXT, of course he fought me because that’s what you do when you show up from NXT, which I get. But immediately I recognized, he understands our style and what’s happening, he’s really smart and has a brain for this, I think this is going to be a blast, and it was. We became friends and started texting, and there’s only a handful of those people that on a regular basis I text.
On portraying other superstars’ entrances and if he had any input:
I think the whole point of that would be to, anytime during the two-three hour show, hear The Undertaker’s music and think ‘well, he’s not supposed to be here! Oh, it’s Dolph’ and I’d say ‘you idiots have based your whole life on an entrance theme that’s on you, you should be enjoying… and so on…’ That’s what I thought. I didn’t understand it and I fought against it a little bit and they told me ‘no’. Doing someone else’s entrance is fun to screw with fans or to prove a point, but I’m passed the point where I’m like ‘wouldn’t it be cool if I came out as Triple H, gee that would be cool’. No, I’m someone who has wanted to make their own mark for about 12 years in a row now, so I have no interest in going ‘wouldn’t that be neat’. Perhaps someone new and young, perhaps that could be a dream of theirs.
On if he feels like he was pivotal in NXT being where they are today:
I don’t look at it that way at all. It was a much different NXT. It would have become this thing without me anyway. It was fun to be on that show and what is that, eight years ago!? I don’t even know. But for the WWE to have the confidence in me to go and train someone else, to be a part of this new show, constantly be talking and doing things, it shows where a bunch of us stood with WWE. I mean it’s such a different animal now, they’re their own brand, a unique thing because they have their own stars. It was cool to be there at the beginning though.
On what he learned when he spent some time away from WWE recently:
I learned s***. I learned that I needed a vacation after 14 years! After about 11/12 years non-stop, and being one of the people like Kofi and Sheamus and Miz that did five days a week, every week for a couple of years in a row, and then were doing the rallies and PR. Miz gets a break to do a crappy movie. So I go ‘I have to go away’. For a year or two I kept getting told ‘sure’ and then right as I was getting ready to go, they said ‘we need you’. I’ve never heard ‘we need you’ more than anything from any other company my whole entire life, but it’s so great to hear, to know that I’ve made an entire career out of them needing me to be here.
You can read the entire interview here.
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