Dolph Ziggler recently spoke with NBC Sports while promoting tonight’s WWE Tribute To The Troops special event; you can read a few highlights below:
Dolph Ziggler comments on being misunderstood about his ‘unhappiness’ with WWE on a recent episode of Edge and Christian’s podcast:
“That was a sentence in an hour and a half discussion. I know it makes for a great click-bait article where I’m like ‘yeah it sucks!’ But they left out the part where I talk about how I want to be better and here’s why everyone should be working to be better. That’s the part people leave out, which is fine.
If you’re … you’re at NBC Sports right? OK if you’re doing great work for the last 10 years and you want to be in the top position at your job and you’re scratching and clawing, wouldn’t you be unhappy if there was no movement? You would go ‘Sure, yeah I want to be on top!’ But not everyone gets to be on top at once. Of course I hate not being the champion and not having the show revolve around me, but I love it. That chip on my shoulder drives me to keep going and keep proving how good I am, until somebody somehow shows me some instance where I wasn’t great at my job.”
Ziggler comments on ‘start-stop’ pushes, if he thinks the double turn after winning the World Heavyweight Championship started a downward spiral of his career:
“I could see how you would think that, but what was I going to do? It’s pretty clear that there wasn’t long-term plans with me as champion.
I’m so proud of that match with Del Rio because it was … if I was an artist, that was a masterpiece I painted. I always enjoyed being in the ring with him because he brought it every time and we beat the hell out of each other and we got to do something special that night by switching things around.
When everyone says how much better the attitude era was just because more teenagers watched it then and I say well we did something special here, when I was someone who wasn’t in the championship picture until basically a couple weeks before that. I was always in the middle of the card … losing and all of a sudden it changed in one night.
It’s hard because you either go with it or you don’t and sometimes you deal with the cards your dealt and you go ‘OK, well if they’re not going with me as the champion, this top guy, how do I make another opportunity down the line?’
You can switch around any one day and it really doesn’t change 12 years.”
