Wrestling: Dolph Ziggler's Heel Turn was Long Overdue

Plus, The Miz loses his title (and his cool), Braun Strowman gets taken down, Cage gets a power glove, and more.

By Matt Fowler

Hello, 2017. Please try your best not to suck so monumentally hard. I think we'd all appreciate it. Sincerely, everyone you mercilessly crapped on.

It's January, the Rumble's on the way, it's extra beefy this year, so let's get to it!

If you missed my 2016 Wrestling Year in Review last week, here it be. Go ahead and knife n' fork through that. We'll wait.

Of course, we all know Dolph Ziggler's been heel before. The (awesome, overdue) heel turn that happened on SmackDown this week wasn't the first time he's dabbled in the dark side. In fact, he was at Peak Zig as a heel, back when he cashed in his MITB case to that giant pop in front of a heel-loving, Ziggler-appreicating post-Mania crowd. That was the time to give him the "ball" and let him "run with it" hashtag sports. And they were going to, but he got hurt - and then hurt again.

Ziggler would get a prime opening/opportunity once more as a babyface back in 2014 when he was the sole survivor of Team Cena at Survivor Series and got the Authority booted out. This time though, he was just left high and dry. Everyone was, really, since the Authority returned to power within a few weeks.

So Ziggler in 2016 was sort of a sad thing. We tend to appreciate losing heels more than losing babyfaces. Heels, by design, are supposed to lose. But then there are also jobber faces. Some of them, over the course of the business, came to be beloved like Koko B. Ware and Outback Jack. But, over a long enough timespan, our sympathies will dwindle. Bad guys can lose and we understand. We can also rationalize why they're bad guys. But for a babyface to keep losing and keep smiling? That's rough. We just sit and wonder "Why haven't they snapped by now? Why don't they cheat?"

It became harder to watch Ziggler lose and lose because of this. Because he was a good guy. Also, because there were rumors that he wanted out of WWE two summers back. He wasn't expected to re-sign, but he did. Naturally, this made it easy to assume he was promised certain things and some of us, like me, made dumb mental leaps about pushes and titles and whatnot. I sort of lump Ziggler and Kofi together as part of the forgotten Aughts class that seemed, at times, to be poised to overtake the main event scene - but then never did. Fortunately, Kofi was able to stumble into a surprising second act as part of New Day. Ziggler hasn't really been able to find/pull off that next chapter. He's been locked into this pattern of "each new promo is going to feel like my last promo" win or die intensity.

Maybe it's his name, which has been a problem since the start. Maybe it's the "Showoff" gimmick which worked best as a heel but still, no matter what, made him seem dumb since the gimmick was "winning isn't my priority." Then elements of Zig's love for '80s hair metal began to creep in, but it only worked to muddy his packaging. Besides, unless you go full tilt with it, hair metal is heel. All the way. Girls, drugs, pompous preening? Total villain stuff.

Dolph is an amazing talent and, yes, you are almost always guaranteed a great match, but we've been watching him wrestle the same losing match for years. The brand split most certainly helped cut down on this. Especially since, at the time, he was locked in an unbearable losing feud with miserable walking Halloween Store entrance witch Baron Corbin...

...who is growing on me. Over the past two weeks, this guy's gotten a bit better on the stick. In fact, I was going to write about him last week if I'd done a regular Wrap. His SmackDown match with Ziggler and Styles was great. I'll also say this - Corbin is exactly who he needs to be as a grindcore guy who wears ill-fitting pants and BlackCraft shirts. He's a dismal bowl of dystopian protein paste. He's basically who Roman Reigns SHOULD be. But this is about Ziggler's heel turn, not the heel turn Roman should have had over a year ago.

Punisher War Journal Entry #177: Speaking of BlackCraft, this is, unintentionally, the funniest shirt I've probably ever seen.

Okay, back to the Zigster. He did it. He snapped. After an exciting feud with Miz in the fall months, he was given another world title shot. He was going to lose. We understood this. But then was he just going to be put back into a feud with Corbin? This would not stand. Fortunately, after his first loss to "What if Voltron Got Ebola?" Ziggler broke down and super kicked Kalisto's face off. Then, backstage, the tantrum continued. Chairs, bags, and Apollo Crews' noggin were not safe from Ziggler's crankiness.

The best part about this heel turn was that it was built in. Ever since Ziggler lost to Ambrose at SummerSlam, and then put his career on the line to the Miz, there's been a meta-ness to how much he's been losing. So much so, that it makes each new loss more painful. When you call out how much you lose, or when others do, it becomes your story. They weren't running an awful "losing streak" angle with Ziggler, but it was close. That's why he HAD to turn heel. He couldn't continue on the same path. Being a heel also affords guys the chance to ambush. To sneak attack. To get themselves disqualified. These are all ways to get over that don't involve a win in the ring. Heroes can't do this. They need the wins.

Continue on for more SmackDown and RAW...

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