WWE: Dolph Ziggler Is in Danger of Getting Lost in the Shuffle

Dolph Ziggler can really work, but being a great wrestler doesn’t guarantee a great spot on the card. 

Just ask someone like Shelton Benjamin, or even Tyson Kidd.  Well, now, I guess you can ask Ziggler himself. 

Even though “The Showoff” has developed a reputation as one of the best in-ring workers in the WWE, he’s become nothing more than just another guy—not because of his own doing, but because of the WWE’s. 

After rising up the card in dramatic fashion in 2011, 2012 hasn’t been kind to Ziggler. He is now a victim of the classic “creative has nothing for you” curse that’s turned main eventers into mid-carders and mid-carders into lower-card workers so many times in the past. 

While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where everything went wrong, we’ll start off with Ziggler’s short WWE Championship feud with CM Punk.

After dropping the United States Championship to Zack Ryder at WWE TLC last December, Ziggler was almost immediately thrust into his spot as the No. 1 contender for the WWE title. 

So far, so good…until everything went so bad. 

Although you would think that a rising star and No. 1 contender to the WWE Championship like Ziggler would be pushed as a legitimate threat to the titleholder, he wasn’t.

He was nothing more than a pawn in the game of chess that was going on at the time between Punk and interim Raw general manager John Laurinaitis. 

Ziggler was there, sure. But would anyone in WWE have noticed if he wasn’t? I highly doubt it.

The real beef was between Punk and Laurinaitis, and that was evident both on Raw each week and at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, when the story wasn’t “Can Ziggler beat Punk?” but rather “Will Laurinaitis (the special guest referee) count Punk’s pin?” 

Ziggler became an afterthought when he should have been the focus. Things didn’t get any better later that night. 

After losing his WWE title match to Punk, Ziggler was thrust into the 30-Man Royal Rumble match, and although he had a few eliminations, he was unceremoniously eliminated by The Big Show as “The World’s Largest Athlete” got rid of four up-and-coming superstars in a span that literally lasted 21 seconds.

The decision to book Big Show like that was absolutely ridiculous, largely because it played a part in destroying everything that Ziggler had built up over the prior several months. 

In the span of less than a month, Ziggler went from United States Champion to No. 1 contender for the WWE Championship to Royal Rumble loser (twice). The only place left for him to go was back to the mid-card, and unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what happened. 

Since the Royal Rumble, Ziggler has slowly but surely seen his role on Monday Night Raw diminish. He was inserted into the WWE title Elimination Chamber Match in February, but he—along with Kofi Kingston—was one of the guys added to the match to improve its quality, not to be a real threat to the only two legitimate contenders, Punk and Chris Jericho. 

Ziggler performed incredibly well at Elimination Chamber, but once that pay-per-view concluded, the WWE began the final stretch of the road to WrestleMania.

The three major Mania feuds—HHH/Undertaker, Punk/Jericho and Cena/Rock—are taking up a majority of Raw every week, and Ziggler is likely going to be relegated to being a participant in the 6-on-6 match between Team Long and Team Laurinaitis. 

Yes, the same Ziggler that was an absolute workhorse in 2011 is being shoved into a lame match with 11 other participants. I know this is WrestleMania time and not everyone can be in the main event, but this is borderline ridiculous. 

Ziggler did everything that was asked of him in 2011—developed a gimmick, improved on the mic, performed great in the ring, etc.—and his reward has been a spot in No Man’s Land. He’s on Raw (and sometimes on Smackdown), but he’s just a great worker who’s used to put on fantastic matches. 

He’s being lost in the shuffle, when he should be the one dealing the cards.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions on Formspring.