5 Huge Dolph Ziggler WWE Moments That Never Went Anywhere

4. Dolph Ziggler Defeats John Cena At TLC - 2012

Ziggler started proving himself as one of the company's best talents during a series with CM Punk toward the end of 2011, and as such, 2012 proved to be a career-making year for him. He won the Smackdown Money in the Bank ladder match, then began a feud with John Cena over the briefcase as 2012 came to a close. The two faced off in a ladder match in the main event of the TLC Pay-Per-View, and Dolph came out on top - with some help from the ultra-popular AJ Lee, who became even more popular by turning on Cena and aligning with "The Showoff" in front of a Brooklyn crowd. The following night, debuting NXT Champion Big E Langston joined Dolph and AJ, forming a red-hot stable that was poised to take over WWE. Instead, Ziggler was hamstrung again. He lost a high-profile steel cage rematch to Cena on Raw, then was unceremoniously eliminated from the Royal Rumble after promising to go coast to coast. At WrestleMania, he and Langston failed to win the WWE Tag Team Titles from Daniel Bryan and Kane.