10 Wrestlers Who Got A WrestleMania Singles Match Before Dolph Ziggler
"I'M HERE TO SHOW THE WORLD, I'M HERE TO SHOW THE WORLD...come on!"
This article is, at its heart, a celebration.
Dolph Ziggler has gone from internet darling to dividing the discourse over his long WWE career, but it'd be needlessly cruel to not toast an overdue singles match for 'The Show Off' on the 'Grandest Stage'. This year in particular.
His feud with Heavy Machinery crowd favourite Otis over the courtship of Mandy Rose was a highlight of some deathly dull editions of SmackDown in early-2020, to the point where the trio actually gained significant buzz when Ziggler stole a Valentines Day date between the unlikely duo a little over a month ago.
But it's been a long month.
The world has changed in such a way that WrestleMania will now take place in front of none of the punters that pined for Otis to get his revenge at Elimination Chamber. It's a story with stakes, but the reception has been robbed.
Ziggler had, objectively, been grafting for that. He's had his efforts axed before showtime, put his body through hell in Ladder Matches and stood on the apron awaiting tags both red hot and freezing cold during an undulating decade. He's been overlooked for so many others in that time too. WrestleMania 36 could at long last afford him a solo "moment", but surely a few of these shouldn't have made it there first?
10. Michael Cole
This year will mark the end of one of the easiest jabs to take at Dolph Ziggler's relatively fruitful WWE tenure.
Noting that Michael Cole had wrestled more WrestleMania singles matches than the 'Show Off' was a fun way to classify the commentator as a bonafide superstar and throw a bit of shade towards a man that, on reflection, was getting enough sent his way by his employers.
As insufferable as the Cole heel gimmick became, there was a certain justification to this broad slice of Sports Entertainment making it onto the 'Grandest Stage'. The "voice of WWE" was loathed for being that very thing (a typical self-own from the organisation - he was a company messenger but absorbed the shots because they didn't want to), and it felt fairly natural to boo him for traditional heel reasons when he ramped up the rage towards his partner.
Not that he could go it alone of course...