10 Live Observations From WWE SmackDown In St. Paul

3. Ziggler Will Never Recover

Apollo Crews Dolph Ziggler
WWE.com

I saw Bragging Rights 2010 in Minneapolis, MN and the first match on the main card featured Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler. They delivered a great opener, and despite not having a lot of character depth behind them at that point, they were able to win the crowd over and made the absolute most of their 16 minutes.

At the time, if felt like there was a lot of excitement over the two, and that we were witnessing a pair of main-eventers in the making. While Bryan was getting over with the casual fans, there were plenty of “smart” fans rooting for Ziggler. Times have changed.

Bryan didn’t come out in front of the live crowd on SmackDown, yet he still received a pretty big pop when shown on the video screen. When Ziggler returned to the same state in 2017 where he’d had that Bragging Rights match, it was like watching a totally different person. Seeing him live was more tiring than exciting, and there was no passion from the crowd anymore.

Apollo Crews picked up a fair share of boos, and Ziggler wasn’t cheered over by the hardcore crowd like he had been in other stages of his career. It seems the damage done to him now has finally solidified him as a midcard talent for the rest of his wrestling days.

Advertisement
Contributor

As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com