Awesome / Dolph Ziggler

• In one particular backstage segment November 19, 2012, Dolph Ziggler got to not only call the resident Girl Next Door-turned-Yandere AJ Lee out on her erratic behaviors when she tried to berate him for attacking and injuring John Cena, but when Cena tried to get involved Ziggler was able to beat him down, tackling him into a breakaway stall and then kicking at his injury to the point a referee and Titus O'Neil had to restrain Ziggler. To see one of the top ineffectual sympathetic villains that many smart marks feel the heels of WWE have been turned into get over big time on two of the biggest faces perceived as Designated Hero characters, the crazy chick and the golden boy, was honestly the highlight of the night for many fans and even won a few over who were a bit more indifferent towards Ziggler. To those who disliked AJ's onscreen character, this could also have been considered an awesome Take That, Scrappy! to her.
  • Hell, this whole feud has been a CMOA for Ziggler, mainly because it's been very high profile and Ziggler's gotten the chance to shine and show how far he's come, especially on the mic. Appropriately enough for a ladder match where his Money In The Bank briefcase is at stake, he seems to be channeling Edge a tiny bit in some of his promos recently.
  • He 'won'. Albeit with help from AJ, but Dolph Ziggler just went over John freakin Cena in the main event. The rise and dominance of "the biggest star of 2013" has begun.
• He won the World Heavyweight Championship on the April 8th post-WrestleMania Raw! What's worth noting is the way he won it and the place he won it. The crowd, which was absolutely electric and hot the entire night, went into the loudest pop heard since CM Punk won the WWE Title at Money in the Bank 2011. They were even chanting for him constantly during the previous match in which Alberto Del Rio got the injury that allowed Dolph Ziggler to cash in. For a man who has come from the lowest levels of the company and the worst gimmicks, constantly grinding year after year, multiple setbacks abound after many pushes, to finally reach the mountaintop with an utterly supportive and amazing crowd and two great friends beside him to celebrate his victory...he even said it himself. It may have been the night after Wrestlemania but this was his Wrestlemania moment. And keep in mind Ziggler was a heel...
• At Elimination Chamber 2013, in an impromptu match with Kofi Kingston, Ziggler takes a monkey flip which makes him do several rotations in the air.
• At Payback 2013, Ziggler, who had came back from a concussion, lost the title (to the cries of most of the IWC) against Alberto Del Rio (to the booing of most of the IWC) after getting hit in the head too many times, resulting in him barely able to stand. But that's only the beginning as not only was this Del Rio's heel turn due to targeting Ziggler's head, this, along with his gutsy performance, resulted in Ziggler turning face, the first direct Face/Heel Double-Turn in WWE since WrestleMania 13 (Same town and arena too— the Allstate Arena in Chicago). So the next night, after Del Rio bailed out of a non title match against the also-recently-turned CM Punk, the newly babyface Ziggler made his presence known by ambushing Del Rio, enough to have security try to break them up.
• Most of his WWE app promos are gold. His WWE app interview following his loss to Antonio Cesaro on the 1/31/14 episode of Smackdown is possibly the most heartfelt promo the man has ever cut.
• Beating The Miz & winning his second Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam 2014!
• The November 14, 2014 Smackdown saw Ziggler defending his Intercontinental Title in a Triple Threat elimination match against Cesaro and Tyson Kidd. Three of WWE's most gifted (and many would argue, most underutilized) technical workers got about 15-20 minutes of ring time. One spot saw Ziggler catching a springboarding Tyson Kidd with a devastating superkick right out of midair, evoking memories of the Shawn Michaels/Shelton Benjamin match from several years back.
• Being the Sole Survivor during the Team Cena vs Team Authority by eliminating ^{80 percent of Team Authority}  Rusev (via Countout), Luke Harper, Kane and Seth Rollins with some help from Sting - technically speaking. He had Rollins beat until Triple H went off the rails a bit and started punching out refs to keep them from calling a three-count, and it all went downhill from there. And keep in mind, this victory was after taking a brutal beating from Rusev.
  • This cannot be overstated enough. Luke Harper, Kane, Seth Rollins and Rusev all laid a brutal beating on Dolph Ziggler, including multiple Finishing Moves. He was the designated Ricky Morton in this match, i.e the smaller guy who gets beaten up for drama before barely tagging out to let his teammates avenge him. But he didn't do that. With a show of defiance and endurance to go through all that and come out on top, Dolph Ziggler showed himself to be a stand out Determinator even for the world of WWE. To put this in perspective, all month, anyone who even thought of rejoining Team Cena was punished by The Authority, and Dolph had gotten the absolute worst of it. He was forced to fight Kane twice in one week, got put into constant title matches, having J&J security beat him up and Seth Rollins hit him with the Money In The Bank briefcase, lost his title to Luke Harper, and FINALLY was part of the brutal assault on Team Cena from The Authority. Not to mention what happened during the match, where he was indirectly responsible for the elimination of Rusev, by rolling out of the way from Rusev's table to table splash, and he was directly responsible for the elimination of 3 members of Team Authority.
  • Not to mention that those were the REMAINING three members, and Triple H tried everything in his short-lived power to stop him, including taking out the referees and hitting him with cheap shots while the ref's were KO'd. Let's just say if it weren't for Dolph, Team Cena would be saying goodbye to their careers.
  • Let's also remember he was the legal man when Rusev was counted out. He took the beating from Rusev and got into the ring to avoid the same count. Ziggler eliminated four, the final four, members of The Authority. Cena didn't land a single pinfall.
  • Let's put it this way: Ziggler put the final nail in the Authority's coffin. Not Cena. Not the other big names on Team Cena. Ziggler. That is freaking awesome.
  • Another factor is that due to the aforementioned beatings by The Authority combined with John Cena apparently never coming to his team mates' aid, a lot of people were expecting a misguided Face–Heel Turn for Dolph. Instead, he takes out The Authority almost alone, which for a lot of fans was a rare and welcome surprise.
    • Still awesome, if slightly less so? The first person Cena asked to join his team? Ziggler. Not anyone with a bigger name, not any of the power houses, he asks ZIGGLER. And it paid off.
  • Also, let's remember that after Triple H screwed Daniel Bryan over at SummerSlam '13 to get Randy Orton the WWE Championship, which kickstarted the Authority angle in the first place, Ziggler was one if not the first person to get interviewed for WWE.com about it and openly criticize Hunter's actions, saying outright that he never trusted Triple H's integrity as the man in control. This made Ziggler the next best guy to finish off the Authority and preserve the angle's Book Ends after Bryan and Orton themselves, who were both out of action at the time (Bryan due to legit injuries, Orton turning face and then being taken out by Rollins in kayfabe so he could go shoot a movie). And that statement is actually consistent with kayfabe, because the two month period between Dolph's face turn and Hunter's heel turn is the only time the two have been on the same side of the face-heel scale. He not only got to feel the final brunt of Triple H's tyranny, he got to put it to an end.
    • What makes this particular statement relevant is that when John Cena was inserted into the angle as the main man against the Authority, there was fear that the storyline would become nothing more than another opportunity for Character Shilling in favor of Cena, something Ziggler has been critical of in the past both in and out of kayfabe—especially with the Authority's repeated insistence on offering Cena the spot as their centerpiece. Hunter even lampshaded this in his attempts to weaken Dolph's trust for Cena, telling him that Cena would get all the credit if the team won but none of the blame or fallout if they lost. Ziggler being the one to survive impossible odds and come away with the victory completely negated that notion, with Dolph even being explicitly referred to as The Hero for Team Cena in subsequent Raw episodes. Whatever of the angle was hijacked for Cena, Dolph Ziggler brought it back to the talent.
    • It’s a shame, then, that all of this was undone five weeks later due to Rollins forcing Cena to reinstate the Authority anyway. Small wonder fans hated them.
• TLC 2014: Taking what was probably THE most brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of his entire career in his IC Title Ladder match with Luke Harper...and still somehow pulled off the win and claimed his fourth Intercontinental Championship. Dolph's body was literally pock-marked with bruises and scrapes, and his head had to be stitched and glued up after getting legit busted opened following a Decapitator-like rope spot...with a ladder sandwiched in-between. Not to mention how he eventually won the belt back, by super-kicking Harper off a ladder without losing his balance. Both men put their bodies on the line and stole the show from the get-go, and in what many considered an overall lackluster PPV, this was widely agreed to be Match of the Night.
  • Their rematch for the IC belt on Raw started out much like how the feud kicked off, with Ziggler getting ambushed before the bell, and Ziggler accepting to start out the match rather than walk away. Harper hit Dolph with everything in his arsenal, powerbombs, superkicks, big boots...Dolph would not stay down. Even when Dolph countered his Discus Clothesline with a superkick, Harper still hit it, the move that's put every opponent down...and Dolph still kicked out! Dolph would come back in tremendous fashion, hitting back-to-back superkicks and a Zig-Zag to pin Luke Harper clean and cap off his rise in the second half of 2014 in epic fashion.
• May 18th, 2015: Dolph cuts a "bruised but not beaten" promo after his loss to Sheamus at Payback the night before. Dolph starts Tempting Fate big time by claiming that he's ready for anything that comes his way........ cue Lana of all people coming out, making eyes at Dolph, and then kissing him. Twice. That subversion gets double subverted when Rusev comes out and kicks him to the ground, but then Lana slaps the taste out of Rusev's mouth, allowing Ziggler to hit him with the Zig-Zag, and then leave with Lana like a boss. That's right: Dolph Ziggler just literally zig-zagged the Tempting Fate trope.
• At Elimination Chamber 2015, the Intercontinental Chamber match went Off the Rails when Wade Barrett threw Ziggler into Mark Henry's pod, causing the plexiglass to fall out. This wasn't planned and led to Mark Henry standing around awkwardly or trying to fit into a match he wasn't supposed to be in yet. Ziggler stepped up to try and salvage the match, reworking it in the ring with the wrestlers and ref even as they wrestled. The match wasn't highly thought of, but Ziggler took charge to keep it somewhat on track.
• No Mercy 2016. Ziggler put his career on the line against The Miz in a Career vs Title match for the Miz's Intercontinental championship. At the time, Ziggler had been on a lengthy losing streak at pay-per-views for both title matches and non-title matches alike, and his contract was set to be expiring soon, so many fans expected this would indeed be Ziggler's final match. In an absolute barnburner of a match, Ziggler managed to overcome two Skull-Crushing Finales and interference from both Maryse and former Spirit Squad stablemates Kenny and Mikey to pin Miz with a Superkick and become Intercontinental champion for a 5th time.
  • It also helped tremendously that the stipulation started off from what could very well be the most passionate promo in Ziggler's life, allowing him to go toe-to-toe on the mic with the Miz, one of the top promo guys in WWE who just recently got praise for his Talking Smack promo against Daniel Bryan.
  • Beyond the match, the two have done so much to revitalize the long-tarnished Intercontinental championship that many people truly felt that it was the most important championship at that time.
• Jim Cornette has high praise of Dolph when he battled the Miz for the umpteenth time on Raw, saying he was the closest modern wrestler we have to Mr. Perfect and he was able to get a good match even out of a "goofy-looking, frog-faced" Reality Show star. He ends by saying he didn't see one flaw in the match on Dolph's part when all is said and done and that Ziggler belongs in the main event picture.
• His brief run in NXT in early 2022 where he feuded with young upstart Bron Breakker and actually WON the latter's NXT Championship, winning his first world title in nearly 9 years!
• After getting released by WWE and becoming known by his real name Nic Nemeth, he makes his post-WWE appearance by debuting in NJPW at Wrestle Kingdom 18, sitting in attendance with his brother Ryan. He later gets into a brawl with the newly-crowned inaugural IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion David Finlay and, after heading backstage, makes his intentions clear by challenging Finlay for said title.
• He makes his TNA debut at the end of Hard To Kill 2024, superkicking newly-crowned TNA World Champion Moose and hitting him with a Zig-Zag (which is soon renamed the Danger Zone) as the crowd goes nuts.