WWE Raw: Will Dolph Ziggler Keep Costing Drew McIntyre?

The tag team between Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre is one of the best things about WWE Raw, but just how long will this partnership last if Dolph can’t hold up his end of the bargain?

When Dolph Ziggler joined WWE Raw in the Superstar Shakeup this year, he didn’t come alone. Normally, Dolph is the first wrestler on the main roster that new call-ups from NXT feud with if they are switched to that brand, as was the case for Bobby Roode and Shinsuke Nakamura. Though the matches Ziggler had with these men were solid, the crowd couldn’t really buy into Dolph beating either of them.

So it appears WWE decided to throw in a little twist when they called up Drew McIntyre to the Raw brand. The former NXT Champion was a bad-ass babyface in “developmental”, but he immediately became a vicious heel when paired up with Ziggler on the main roster. The two have taken Raw by a storm, and they are by far the most exciting tag team in the division, with all respect to “The B Team” and “The Woken Warriors”.

Ziggler and McIntyre are two of the best wrestlers in the world, and they are more than capable of cutting promos, as evidenced by most of their mic work in the months since being branded a tag team.

Last night on Raw, McIntyre and Ziggler had their first chance at qualifying for a Raw Tag Team Championship opportunity. In kayfabe, they were the favorites, though basic logic dictated that Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas would indeed win, but they came up empty. Ziggler was eliminated by Tyler Breeze, and neither McIntyre nor Ziggler took the loss well (as you’d expect).

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What’s more important than the post-elimination beatdown, however, is the promo Ziggler cut with McIntyre backstage to Renee Young. For the duration of the interview, McIntyre simply stared a hole into the camera, breathing heavily with his eyes bulging. He was absolutely pissed off at the lost, but when Young put the camera to his mouth, he didn’t speak. So it’s hard to tell just how much McIntyre is pissed at Ziggler and how much he holds Ziggler responsible for the loss.

The rhetoric from Ziggler backs up the notion that McIntyre was perhaps mostly upset with his tag team partner for being eliminated by Breeze so early in the match. Ziggler was apologetic, to the point where he seemed fearful. Of course, Ziggler was mostly angry and determined, but you could kind of tell that he fears what McIntyre might do to him if he keeps failing.

It’s pretty obvious that Ziggler and McIntyre could do special things as a tag team. Not only are they incredibly talented, but the have great chemistry in the ring together. The Claymore/Zig-Zag combination is tremendous, and the two were booked strongly in kayfabe, having defeated the duo of Braun Strowman and Finn Balor due to their savviness as veteran competitors and their familiarity with each other as tag team partners.

That said, even though McIntyre and Ziggler could easily run the Raw Tag Team Division together with the Authors of Pain as their chief competition, it’s also clear that McIntyre needs to be on his own. He’s far too talented both in the ring and on the mic as a singles star to remain in a tag team for long, and the only question is, just how successful will this tag team be before McIntyre eventually splits for a world title program?

McIntyre and Ziggler will get their match one day, but I wonder if the split will stem from Ziggler consistently letting his team down in big matches. I wonder if McIntyre will get so fed up with Ziggler making fatal mistakes and preventing them from reaching their potential as a tag team that their run together will end in neither of them winning the Raw Tag Team Championships.

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That seemed to be a big takeaway from their Battle Royal lost last night, especially if you look at McIntyre’s backstage reaction to what happened. I’d love to see these two hold the tag titles together, but if it means we’re headed for an interesting story and a big world title program from McIntyre after a feud with Ziggler, then I’m in favor of an alternate route.