10 Times WWE Dropped The Ball With Dolph Ziggler
3. Beating John Cena At TLC 2012
As noted, Ziggler's hot momentum coming off his huge win against Chris Jericho in August 2012 was briefly derailed during his meaningless feud with Randy Orton, but he got back on track by emerging as the sole survivor in the traditional five-on-five elimination tag team match at Survivor Series.
From there, he took another step toward super stardom by entering a rivalry with John Cena, who he was set to do battle with in the main event of the TLC pay-per-view where Ziggler's Money in the Bank briefcase was up for grabs. It was outlandish to think Cena would win the contract, but at the same time, the odds of Ziggler overcoming Cena on his own were slim to none.
Although Cena came close to securing the contract, it was AJ Lee who cost him the win when she pushed over the ladder he was climbing on, allowing Ziggler to capitalize and emerge victorious by pulling down the opportunistic briefcase. Beating the face of the company in the main event of a pay-per-view was undoubtedly the grandest accomplishment in Ziggler's career up to that point, but WWE failed to follow up on it accordingly.
Two weeks later on Raw, Cena won the rivalry by trumping the bleached blonde Superstar in a Steel Cage match, rendering his TLC win irrelevant.