Don’t be fooled: WWE still don’t see Dolph Ziggler as a main event player
Dolph Ziggler’s recent return to relevance may have you thinking that he’s finally on the cusp of greatness, but instead, he’s just the latest flavor of the month for Kofi Kingston to beat.
If Dolph Ziggler returning for a surprise ambush on Kofi Kingston on last week’s SmackDown Live felt random to you, that’s because it was.
Dolph Ziggler hasn’t been an active member of the roster since losing to Drew McIntyre in a Steel Cage match on the New Year’s Eve episode of Raw. Aside from a one-off appearance at January’s Royal Rumble event, he has largely been missing from WWE TV.
His heinous attack on the WWE Champion came completely out of nowhere and likely wasn’t planned ahead of time. It’s safe to assume that Kingston’s rivalry with Kevin Owens would have continued had Owens agreed to work the upcoming Super ShowDown pay-per-view in Saudi Arabia.
With Owens out of the picture, Daniel Bryan busy in the tag team division, and Randy Orton already scheduled to face Triple H at the event, WWE didn’t have much choice other than to bring Ziggler back into the fold when they did.
Ziggler’s justification for targeting Kingston is that “it should have been [him],” claiming that he deserved the opportunity that Kingston received at WrestleMania 35. Although there was plenty of passion in his promo, none of what he said made sense given how long he’s been away from WWE programming.
Most fans agree that Ziggler at one point could have been a main event player, but that ship sailed long ago. While he’ll be contending for the prestigious prize at Super ShowDown, that doesn’t mean the company now views him any differently than they did before.
There have been a handful of Superstars in the last decade who everyone is well aware could have been bigger with stronger booking and Ziggler will have to lead that list. To his credit, he is a former two-time World Heavyweight champion, but neither of those reigns were particularly memorable.
He has been toiling away in midcard purgatory for the better part of the past six years, though he did experience a brief career resurgence alongside McIntyre in 2018. Once that alliance ran its course and WWE didn’t have anything else for him to do creatively, Ziggler fell by the wayside.
Suddenly, fans are expected to take him seriously as a threat to the top title on SmackDown. He and Kingston have excellent in-ring chemistry and are therefore bound to rip it up in Jeddah, but there’s virtually no chance he walks out with the gold in his grasp (nor should he).
If WWE wasn’t going to have Owens beat Kingston for the belt at Money in the Bank, there’s no reason for him to lose it to Ziggler of all people at Super ShowDown. Rather, this is merely a filler feud for Kingston before he focus on higher-profile challengers.
After Super ShowDown has come and gone, there’s no telling where Ziggler will end up on the card. It’s possible WWE extends the feud to Stomping Grounds at the end of June, but beyond that, it’ll be downhill from there for him.
The Showoff never ceases to make his competition look better than they probably are and his promos are almost always on point, but with there being so many other notable names on the roster waiting for their chance to break through the proverbial glass ceiling, he shouldn’t be considered as important of a priority as he has been lately.
To be fair, it took Kingston 11 years to reach the mountaintop of WWE and win the WWE Title at WrestleMania, so who’s to say the same won’t happen for Dolph Ziggler eventually?
It should be noted that “KofiMania” was not a part of WWE’s original plans and that his rise to super stardom was completely organic. While WWE wisely capitalized on Kingston’s popularity earlier this year, Ziggler, on the other hand, was never fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. By this stage of his career, it’s too late for him to be salvaged.
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The Kingston vs. Ziggler feud has fallen flat so far because it couldn’t be more apparent that it’s temporary. Ziggler’s time in the limelight will once again be short-lived and until he decides to take his talents elsewhere, he will continue to play second fiddle to everyone else.