While its true that Dolph Ziggler still has plenty of time to ascend to the top of WWE, its tough to deny that he has seen multiple pushes stunted for one reason or another. Sometimes, he seems to put his foot in his mouth. But the biggest brick wall Ziggler ran into came in the form of a concussion. At the end of 2012, Ziggler won arguably the biggest match of his career at that point, beating John Cena in a ladder match to retain his Money in the Bank briefcase. He also gained a girlfriend, AJ Lee, who brought along an enforcer in Big E. Langston. Although Dolph would lose matches here and there, having a mini-stable helped establish Ziggler more as a serious competitor. On the Raw after WrestleMania XXIX, Ziggler cashed in his MITB briefcase to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Alberto Del Rio to a massive crowd reaction. It looked like Ziggler had finally arrived. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKqtFqpRLEk Just a few weeks later, Jack Swagger inadvertently kicked Dolph in the head, causing a concussion that knocked him out of action for more than a month. When he returned, he lost the WHC to Del Rio and would be shuttled down the card. By the end of 2013, Ziggler was losing to the likes of Curtis Axel, Damien Sandow and Fandango. Although Dolph closed 2014 strong, he has not fully returned to where he was right after WrestleMania XXIX.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
