Royal Rumble 2012: Dolph Ziggler's Mediocre Fate Sealed at PPV

The Royal Rumble was supposed to be a breakout event for Dolph Ziggler. It was supposed to be the show where he moved away from being just another good worker held down by bad booking and circumstances. Instead, the creative team thought that it would be smart to make him look like a dork. 

When Ziggler first earned a WWE Championship Match against CM Punk for the Rumble, there was an air of excitement around the match itself and the future prospects for Ziggler as a main event star in WWE. 

The match was supposed to be great because Ziggler and Punk are two of the best workers in the company today. If they were given enough time, there is no reason that this match should have been worse than four stars on the five star rating scale. 

Ziggler's future was supposed to skyrocket after this match because he was wrestling in one of the most high profile matches on the second biggest pay-per-view of the year. There was no way that this could get screwed up. 

Yet, the WWE managed to screw it up by making Ziggler look inferior to Punk in every possible way. They gave John Laurinaitis more of a push than Ziggler and had him lose one match four different times. 

The first loss came when Punk locked in an Anaconda Vice, causing Ziggler to tap out, but the referee was knocked down and Laurinaitis had to tend to him. The second one came when Punk cradled Ziggler with the referee still down. The third one came after a GTS, and then another GTS finished Ziggler for the fourth time. 

There was a very simple way to make Ziggler look like a star in this match. However, WWE did the absolute worst thing in making him look like anything but that.

Ziggler is a great worker and will be put in nice spots as a result, but he is rapidly approaching Jack Swagger territory: Great in-ring ability, but after being buried so many times the fans never see you as more than a mid-card star. 

Ziggler is always going to be a favorite of the hardcore fans because he is so good in the ring. But the casual fans are not going to care enough about him to push up the ratings for his segments enough for WWE to give him a real push. 

That is too bad since he is one of the few young stars who has shown a lot of potential. Of course, wasting talent is nothing new for Vince McMahon at this point in his career. 

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