10 WWE Matches That Changed Your Mind About Wrestlers You Hated
2. DOLPH ZIGGLER Vs. The Miz - No Mercy 2016
Hate is an admitted stretch, really, but "resent" was an adequate verb for the Show-Off - and, prior to this classic match, few thought him capable of wrestling one. Ziggler had spent the preceding couple of years mired in the midcard, doing very little to convince anybody that he deserved more than his lot despite constant protests to the contrary.
At No Mercy, he was every bit as good as he said he was - well, not the "greatest in-ring performer in history," but that's surely a rib. What brings its triumph into stark focus is the stipulation; bluntly, you'd have to have been an idiot to expect Ziggler to lose, or at least and lose and never return; the stipulation had long since been rendered an absolute joke, and Ziggler was bound to a contract. Still, he performed with such fire and desperation on the night that it was impossible not to suspend disbelief. This was such pure escapist fiction, brilliantly performed, that the reality of the situation hardly mattered. Ziggler emphasised his selling, toning down the exaggerated bumping, in order to substitute spectacle for pathos.
The welcome interference of the Spirit Squad - but one book in library of career call-backs - lent this a sense of continuity. Ziggler was a real person with a real history in there, facing the final chapter of his career.