No matter how hard he tries, Dolph Ziggler just can’t get away from WWE.
After flirting with a comedy career for many years, as well as a possible wrestling career elsewhere, Ziggler finally re-signed with WWE recently. The company gave him a new character, one where he ended up walking away from the company for about four weeks before returning after a new U.S. champion was crowned.
Videos by PopCulture.com
According to Ziggler, he wanted to be gone much longer than just four weeks. Ziggler appeared on the All Things Wrestling Radio podcast and talked about the storyline.
“I will say that I really begged and pleaded for a couple months off the television show because no matter how good I am or what I’m up to, it seems that 99 times out of 100 I would lose,” Ziggler told host Isaac Wenzel about his time away and return. “I didn’t think that I deserved to be on the TV show if I was someone that was losing every night, so I asked to be taken off. I was hoping for maybe six months or a year and it ended up being four weeks.”
A lot of what Ziggler says rings true here. Despite being an immensely talented wrestler, Ziggler has always been booked as sort of an underperformer. Yes, he has won the world heavyweight title in the past, but Ziggler’s ability has always warranted a higher position on the card on a more consistent basis than where he has been booked. It would seem that the time to strike while the iron was hot was years ago, though Ziggler is once again trying to revive interest in his character.
Following his walking away, Ziggler returned to find a new U.S. champion who had been crowned in his absence: Bobby Roode. That didn’t seem to have much impact on his own direction, though, as Ziggler finds himself in the WWE championship Six-Pack Challenge match this Sunday at WWE Fastlane.
