WWE: Midcard Madness Finals Pit 2 Rising Stars Against One Another

The Midcard Madness tournament has finally come to this. After the 40-man tournament began earlier this month, nearly 6,000 votes have been cast to decide the winner of this tournament.

It was a tournament that left out all men involved in main event-caliber matches at WrestleMania. It also did not involve any world champions from the last calendar year with two exceptions, which both made the semifinals.

Those two men, The Miz and Christian, had a chance to meet one another in the championship round. However, both men fell as the final match to determine the king of the midcard is between Dolph Ziggler and Cody Rhodes.

It seems only fitting that these two men are in the finals of this tournament since they have embodied the midcard in WWE over the last 12 months.

Ziggler was United States Champion for 182 days in the last year, making for just about half of the year. Neglecting his mere minutes as World Heavyweight Champion early in 2011, Ziggler is one of the more desirable young superstars to acquire a world championship.

The top of that list, of course, has Cody Rhodes on it. Rhodes revived his career with a great match at last year's WrestleMania and won his first-ever singles title in WWE in 2011 as well. His reign with the Intercontinental Championship is one that still exists today and will be in jeopardy at WrestleMania this Sunday.

Even if Rhodes falls to Big Show at WrestleMania and loses his title, it still will have been an all-time great reign with a belt that will have been given new life. As Rhodes walks to the ring in Miami on Sunday, that title reign will have stood at 236 days, which is the third-longest reign with the belt in the last two decades.

Only Shelton Benjamin and The Rock will have had longer reigns with the title in that time period. It will also have been longer than the reign of the original Intercontinental Champion, Pat Patterson.

Midcard champions, especially ones that reigned this long, are anticipated to be vaulted into the main event at some point. Until they are, Ziggler and Rhodes are the two biggest names in the midcard today.

The fact that they both beat perennial main eventers in Christian and The Miz says something about their power and popularity with the WWE fanbase. Here are the results from the voting:

[3] Christian: 45.6 percent

[5] Dolph Ziggler: 54.4 percent

Both were members of Team Johnny at WrestleMania until Christian was injured and replaced Monday night. Now, Christian will have to wait to have that "one more match" he has been touting for months.

Speaking of that, Ziggler now needs to win just one more match in order to win this tournament.

[2] Cody Rhodes: 65.8 percent

[4] The Miz: 34.2 percent

Rhodes has had a relatively easy time in this tournament, but did get a decent fight from The Awesome One. Hopefully, there won't be much of a reason to even include The Miz in this tournament next year. For that matter, the same can be said for Cody Rhodes.

So now we have our final matchup in this tournament. Dolph Ziggler and Cody Rhodes, with the winner being deemed the king of the midcard. Just the idea of these two in a match together has to be something rather exciting to see.

Ziggler has been a heel for his entire stint in WWE, while Rhodes has not been a face since he was in a tag team with Hardcore Holly. It just makes it all the more enticing to see these two face one another in a match.

The Slammy Awards gave us a slight taste last December. The two men were featured in a Fatal 4-Way match in order to see who could trend on Twitter faster. Seriously, that was the point of the match.

Ziggler would win the match itself, but the award went to Zack Ryder, who was still a huge Internet sensation and was still primed for his United States Championship reign.

Ziggler and Rhodes were both still midcard champions at the time of this clash and, while they steered away from one another, there were a few shots fired between these two.

Just seeing them stare each other down prompted Jerry Lawler to say that he would love to see them fight each other. It was all just a few basic punches to one another, but Rhodes did perform an Alabama Slam on Ziggler.

We have not seen an actual match between these two and, while not known by many, it subconsciously is one of those dream matches for many wrestling fans of today, especially due to the likelihood of it happening one day being so realistic.

Before it becomes a reality, we can think about it from a fantasy perspective. Who wins this match: Dolph Ziggler or Cody Rhodes?

In order to vote, you must go to the Bracketeers page for this tournament at the link here. Only votes cast on that site will count. No votes via comments on this article will count toward the tallying of votes.

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