WWE: Making a Case for a Dolph Ziggler Face Turn

In the wide expanse of WWE history, there are few stoically undeniable facts accepted by all (even Big Show), and one of them is that fleeting moments create or destroy stars. One good match, one amazing reaction or maybe just one screwjob is all it takes to swirl a superstar’s wrestling career around.

Triple H’s Madison Square Garden return suddenly felt huge thanks to the decibel level in the arena and that further, rather unknowingly and unintentionally, propelled The Game into a league of legends. Keyword: further.

Much more recently Internet’s darling Daniel Bryan fell victim to an 18 second nightmare of a Wrestlemania title match that enraged the ire of his followers, intensified their American Dragon fellowship and made them strengthen their efforts in elevating their favourite.

The only reason the "YES!" chants of today aren’t close to "WHAT?" is because Daniel Bryan, unlike Stone Cold, is a heel. And even though in present era faces get booed (ask Cena) and heels get cheered (ask Jericho), there is thankfully some minuscule semblance of understanding when it comes to cheering and jeering babyfaces and heels, which will hopefully live on.

In the same vein, Dolph Ziggler is a superstar who is probably one shining moment (and a name change) away from sports entertainment stardom. This golden shining moment could be anything—an unlikely clean win over John Cena (no, seriously) or, much more plausibly, a face turn well received.

Anyone who isn’t deaf would assent to the fact that Dolph Ziggler has the crowd behind him. For a face who gets bonked by Funkasaurus randomly, it’s quite a feat to have maintained faint "Let’s Go Ziggler!" chants till now. These chants, in fact, overpowered Christian’s popularity in this week’s Fatal Four Way match. Knowing Captain Charisma and his exemplary talent, that’s saying something.

A decent and long pop was heard when Dolph Ziggler pinned his heel partner Jack Swagger. This is something the crowd wants to see. They want Ziggler to be there on top, and that isn’t happening as long as he stays put as heel in today’s heel infestation.

If done well, and done in front of a smart crowd, Ziggler’s face turn might receive a thunderous reaction—thunderous enough to validate his promotion into the echelon of eliteness. His gimmick doesn’t need to be swapped for another—it isn’t necessary for a bad guy to suddenly become noble and holy just to be liked. Randy Orton, CM Punk and Stone Cold are among the notable few who strutted around as self-proclaimed badasses yet still evoked babyface reactions.

They could do that because they were extremely good at what they did. Ergo, Dolph Ziggler can do that too. It’s a simple case of him now chasing and ZigZaging the bad guys instead of the good ones.

Consequently, this would lead to a Vickie Guerrero and Jack Swagger dumping, which furthers his path to promotion. Add in a possible Ric Flair return (and a synced Strut walk, drooling yet?), who will be extremely hard to boo unless he starts wrestling again, and you have the best possible combo and one interesting segment or good match in every week’s Raw.

Dolph Ziggler needs relevancy, and Raw needs babyfaces that can control the show in John Cena’s absence. Like a beautiful chain of life, it’s all linked. This also opens up possibilities for fresh face-heel matches against Cody Rhodes, Chris Jericho, Daniel Bryan (roles reversed) and maybe even Brock Lesnar.

Sounds like a win-win to me. We get awesome matches every week so we’re satisfied, and the ladies get to watch the booty-shake in his entrance every week, so they’re happy too.

I’m joking, don’t kill me.

Shalaj Lawania is now virtually old enough on the Internet for you to recognize him, but still miraculously n00by enough for you to keep being mean to him (at least there's some progress, however minimal). He is also a contributor for WrestleEnigma.com, so do check it out if you love him and his works and are very sweet. For more love, you can follow him on Twitter if you have a good annoying tweets threshold. For the rest, use Wikipedia.

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