10 Worst WWE Gimmicks Of 2017
9. "Wily Old Veteran" Dolph Ziggler
Yet another retread over on the SmackDown brand, which stuttered badly this year, Dolph Ziggler's arc as the main roster gatekeeper proved woefully ineffective - and borrowed wholesale from John Cena's latter-day "You need to go through me!" bit.
A victory over John Cena means something, at least. Kevin Owens arrived as a major player by virtue of beating John Cena precisely because Cena was majorly credible. Dolph Ziggler, serial loser and disappointment, possessed nothing in the way of credibility - in storylines, nor among the wrestling fandom, a huge portion of which felt he had been surpassed by the next generation of talent.
His series with Shinsuke Nakamura did little for the rechristened 'Artist', whose weird, conflated Prince update on his Michael Jackson bit warrants a dishonourable mention. The matches suffered because Ziggler's over-the-top domination was as hard to believe as it was hard to muster much enthusiasm for. WWE, presumably, didn't go the exciting back-and-forth route for fear of telegraphing the outcome. It was already telegraphed. As a result of the layout, it was also boring.
Blue brand creative didn't even bother to have Ziggler go over the one man who gets over by narrowly losing - Tye Dillinger - before returning to the dry well upon Bobby Roode's inglorious promotion.