10 Radical Ideas To Save Dolph Ziggler

No, not like that, you perverts. Shawn Michaels is one of Nemeth’s wrestling mentors - but it's been mentioned before (by Michaels himself, amongst others) that his in-ring efforts to emulate him with the Dolph Ziggler character have only meant that he’s lost a certain amount of his own identity as a performer.

There’s one way in which he probably should follow Michaels’ example, however: and that’s with his approach to the character itself. In the mid-nineties, the Heartbreak Kid was playing a babyface in the WWF. The problem was that in the mid-nineties, Shawn Michaels was an obnoxious heel in real life. It didn’t really matter what he was scripted to do or say: Michaels was a douche back in those days, and it came across in the ring and on the mic.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Nemeth is a backstage a**hole to that degree, or indeed at all… but he’s really, really bad at being a babyface. He has a reputation as a player, which has carried over to his in-ring character: in storyline, Dolph Ziggler has been linked, usually in a negative manner, with Maria, AJ Lee, Kaitlyn, Vickie Guerrero, Summer Rae, Layla and Lana.

He also has that whole smart alec thing going on, the guy who’s just a little too full of himself and who can’t keep his trap shut. Combine that with the arrogant show-off gimmick, one he’s more or less retained as a good guy, and you can see how the 'heel' setting on the alignment dial seems to suit him a whole lot more.

That’s something that Michaels eventually found: yet when he kicked the substance abuse and found God, for the most part the Heartbreak Kid lost that element to his persona that made you want to slap him, and so became able to play a babyface with conviction. 

Ziggler doesn’t have that particular monkey on his back, but it might be worth considering whether Nick Nemeth’s natural personality - carelessly sarcastic, overconfident and brash - is spilling through too much into Dolph Ziggler’s in-ring act.

Perhaps, if he was able to scale that back, or even nip it in the bud altogether, he could be the babyface hero that he needs to be to finally, properly get over. It’s pretty obvious that, as it stands right now, the WWE don’t have the confidence in him to give him a consistent push as a babyface contender.