Back in 2013, Dolph Ziggler cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Alberto Del Rio the night after WrestleMania 29, and he won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
Unfortunately for Ziggler he got a concussion shortly after, and his title reign only lasted a few weeks.
During an interview with talkSPORT, Ziggler was asked if the concussion derailed plans for a longer title run, but he confirmed that he was never supposed to be more than a transitional champion.
“I’ll elaborate on this in the book next year, but I knew that wasn’t long term. I was blatantly told to my face ‘this is not long term, it is just to get to this point’. So everyone, a lot of times, are like ‘Ah, well, if you didn’t get concussed, who knows!’ – No, no, no. I was there to be in that position for another month and then it was going to be for someone else. It was a transitional moment, sadly. No matter what I did. When I was told that, I said ‘I will do everything in my power for the next four weeks to change your damn mind’. So hadn’t I gotten kicked the next week, it would have been the same situation, sadly. But that moment, I’ll never forget. I love being bitter, snarky and zinging everybody, but that accumulation of noise based on ‘This is a guy we know they’re not going to let become world champion, we want him to become world champion, he’s a bad guy but we know he’s good and there’s something special here’ – for all that to happen on that night when the music hit… and it hit me like needles on my body, I went ‘Oh my god, this is fantastic.'”
Ziggler went on to say that he pushed for plans for his cash in to be changed, because he wanted the crowd to buy into the idea of him losing.
“The best part was, I was supposed to come down there, smack him with the briefcase and one, two, three. I said ‘that’s not what Dolph Ziggler would do. Dolph Ziggler would almost lose that cash-in a couple of times’ and we made it special because [Alberto] Del Rio is a real pro, him and I had some awesome matches and he was fun to work with, but he knew it too and he said ‘They’re all going to buy you losing’. Ah man, when he had you in the armbar I was like ‘noooooo!’ Yes! I said ‘They’re all going to buy it!’ So I tried to get it in there a couple of times. Little teases.”
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