Dolph Ziggler: WWE Championship Match vs. AJ Styles Must Lead to Character Shift

All of Dolph Ziggler's impassioned speeches and dismissals of naysayers ahead of his WWE Championship match against AJ Styles are going to sound awfully familiar.

Ziggler has been stuck in a revolving door of a narrative, forced to play the same desperate long shot against a variety of opponents. The Showoff nails his role each time, but his character is in desperate need of change.

En route to the Dec. 27 edition of WWE SmackDown, Ziggler must evolve.

The tale surrounding the former world heavyweight champ with the hair-metal fashion sense has become predictable. There is nowhere else to take it.

But he is replaying the same old song once more.

On Tuesday's SmackDown, WWE champ Styles sat back and watched as four men battled to become the No. 1 contender to his title—Dean Ambrose, The Miz, Luke Harper and Ziggler. The Showoff outlasted his foes, superkicked Ambrose out cold and scored the victory.

His prize is a shot at Styles' title in two weeks.

He won't win. The Phenomenal One has been one of WWE's hottest commodities this year. Ziggler is poised to fall just short.

Tuesday's bout echoed Ziggler's win in July, when he emerged the surprise winner of a Six-Pack Challenge. That night, his win assured him a title match against then-champ Ambrose.

And now he's poised to tell a story of his one last chance at glory. He will promise to give everything of himself and show that he can still win the big one.

That narrative has become Ziggler's specialty of late. 

Against Ambrose ahead of SummerSlam and in the fall against The Miz, Ziggler played a man on the edge. His losses had left him flustered and unsure of himself. He was a dark-horse title contender—a warrior out to prove he hadn't lost his ability to swing a sword.

The antagonists and the championships have changed, but the story has largely remained the same.

Ambrose needled Ziggler in August about the disappointing arc of his career. The Miz did the same to The Showoff months later.

In his rivalry with The Lunatic Fringe, Ziggler admitted to using his critics as fuel. Against The Miz, he talked of how driven he was, even when friends and family questioned whether he should remain in this business.

WWE can't go the same route again with Ziggler opposite Styles.

The audience can see the outcome coming. It can project the arc of the story. Ziggler will come close but let the gold slip away. 

As the pundits of the Tights and Fights podcast pointed out, something needs to change:

Yes, the match will be excellent, but it will be hard to invest in if it feels like another sequel to the desperate-Ziggler series. A shift in attitude or a new focus for the former intercontinental champ would refresh him.

Perhaps he returns to heel status. Maybe he finds something other than his failures to define him.

Either way, Ziggler would be far better off heading into 2017 with a tweak of his persona.

Sheamus returned from shoulder surgery in 2015 with a new look, donning a braided beard and mohawk. He soon had a new entrance theme and an obsession with taking down WWE's underdogs.

The changes energized him.

The Usos recently garnered ample momentum by adopting darker, angrier characters. Kane reinvented himself when he became a corporate crony in 2013.

Ziggler has been a babyface since June of that same year.

Alberto Del Rio and AJ Lee were still with the company then. Big E hadn't yet helped form The New Day. The Shield was still together. Much has changed since.

Ziggler needs to add himself to that list to go from tired act to the "in" thing.