WWE SmackDown 5 Predictions: Can Dolph Ziggler Score An Upset?

3. Dolph Ziggler Ain’t Winning

Since the WWE likes having popular hometown stars suffer shock losses, Dolph Ziggler won a random SmackDown Live match a few months ago against AJ Styles in an effort to hype the “Show-off” up for Money in the Bank. Otherwise, Ziggler unsurprisingly loses everything, making every feud he’s involved in with promising NXT call-ups deflatingly predictable.

I’ve seen a couple of people predict a shock win for Ziggler on tonight’s episode, but you can save yourself the false hope. Although the match between Ziggler and Roode at Hell in a Cell was very competitive and actually would have been well-received if Jinder bleeping Mahal didn’t kill the crowd beforehand, there’s no point in expecting a different outcome.

The WWE has big plans for Roode, who is a former NXT Champion and was consistently one of the best wrestlers in the world in TNA. Roode is a crisp in-ring worker, and while his style is boring (go watch his selling of the Jumping DDT at Hell in a Cell for an example of blandness), his entrance and mic work are anything but. The man needs to turn heel to fulfill his potential, and after winning by roll-up, the WWE will obviously send him on that path.

To prove that Roode can be as competitive as anyone on the main roster, the WWE needs to build him up with wins. Why have him lose to a guy who is booked so poorly that he was eliminated before a bunch of jobbers in the Independence Day Battle Royale? I know that Dolph Ziggler deserves much better, but it isn’t happening.

All we can hope for is that this will be a great match, because, remember, Ziggler and Shinsuke Nakamura pulled out a much better match on SmackDown after the PPV than they did at Backlash.