10 Times WWE Dropped The Ball With Dolph Ziggler
8. Winning The Intercontinental Championship
After making some questionable remarks about Randy Orton in an interview over SummerSlam 2013 weekend, all plans to push Ziggler in any manner were instantly dropped. He did nothing of note in the remainder of the year and even lost on the TLC Kickoff show to Fandango just a year after beating John Cena in the main event of the same pay-per-view.
His lack of direction carried over into the new year, and through it all, the fans still rallied behind him. He came oh so close to capturing the Intercontinental Championship in the Battleground Battle Royal last July only to be eliminated by The Miz, but his chase for the championship was far from over. While it was strongly believed Miz would be successfully defending the gold at SummerSlam, Ziggler shocked the world when he pinned The Awesome One to take home the title for the first time in four years.
For too long had the Intercontinental Championship been neglected and treated like an afterthought, but as a workhorse for the company, Ziggler was the perfect Superstar to bring it back to prominence. Unfortunately, it ended up being a wasted opportunity.
In addition having three different reigns with the strap in four months, he lost more non-title matches than he won, making him no different than anyone who had held it before him.