Dolph Ziggler: Victim of Crappy Circumstance

Ziggler
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I wrote that Dolph Ziggler got emasculated in my DVR report over the weekend. To be fair, I was frustrated. Yeah, Ziggler was run raw, but at the same time, he's a heel getting comeuppance. Yes, they failed him, but it was a logical end to the angle. Heat is elastic, and Ziggler is talented enough to get it back. However, the context behind everything going on was just supremely infuriating. It did Ziggler no favors, and continued to sabotage the WWE's ham-handed attempts at replacing outgoing stars.

It was a perfect storm of miscast chickenshit heel booking for a guy who's better fit in another role, the overplayed corrupt authority figure, the glib treatment of "you're fired" stipulations and most importantly, the continued devaluation of a top-level Championship coming together to make Smackdown look like a middling episode of Impact, which on the Wrestling Quality Scale, is on the level of a terrible episode of any other televised show. For everything the WWE does right, it seems they have two things they're doing wrong, and it's so frustrating to watch, especially since all they'd have to have done was tweak things a little bit to make things so much better.

For one, there was no need to have Ziggler be crowned Champion only to be nullified and then beaten in a shortish match. There's no need to have authority figures to have the power to ban moves. The angle would have been more effective if Ziggler had gotten a few non-title wins over Edge in tag matches and such, been handed opportunities by Vickie despite not deserving them and then in the end, being taken out in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber after being revealed as the party who took out Teddy Long. Then, you move him away from Edge and perhaps into a program with Vickie against Drew McIntyre and Kelly Kelly for WrestleMania, like my blogging peer Jason Mann of Wrestlespective Radio suggested for his ideal WMXXVII card.

But no, we still get titles treated like trinkets instead of the grandest prize of them all. Hopefully, Kevin Dunn and all the other failed TV writers at Titan Towers stood up and took notice at how that Oakland crowd was deflated with Jerry Lawler losing the WWE Championship match and the ovation he got afterwards. People still care about Championships, and devaluing those titles is devaluing the crowd reactions and buyrates that come with building PPVs around said titles. People still want to believe.

When you take that intrigue off the table, you ruin the product. When you take challengers off the table as serious contenders, you ruin the product. When you fake the product up as much as possible by having heel commissioners make ridiculous restrictions on moves, you ruin the product. The Smackdown main event has been terrible ever since Kane started feuding with Edge over the World Championship, and it's no coincidence that it's coincided with the World Championship being a well-defended title to being background for kidnappings, blackmail, betrayal and sabotage.

Emasculated was a strong word to use, but make no mistake about it, Dolph Ziggler was damaged pretty badly over the last month or so. At a time when there's an extinction level event looming on the main event horizon, they can't afford to be destroying possible future main eventers the way they've done in Ziggler.

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