History YMMV / DolphZiggler

* RomanceOnTheSet: Rumor has it that Ziggler and Wrestling/DanaBrooke have been an item since the latter was still in NXT. Even as far as some under-the-table WWE relationships go, it's been kept ''very'' low-key, which is ironic considering Dolph's [[MrFanservice onscreen character and reputation.]]

* BaseBreaker: He's still very popular, but recent frustrations with his booking and, in some cases, his divisive in-ring ability and mic skills have inspired a growing number of detractors.
* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Alexander Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see "Draco in Leather Pants" below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring. Though Rusev's character was blatantly misogynistic in his treatment of Lana and Summer and therefore not blameless, it doesn't excuse the fact that Dolph spent weeks taunting Rusev about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the former undefeated juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood, this despite the fact he knew full well Lana was just using him to get back at Rusev at first although they did apparently come to care for each other on some level in time. Then, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana… only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Even when admitting that Rusev's beef with him was not without reason, he justified all of this by citing Rusev's Anti-American rhetoric… all the while dating the woman who was the main driving force behind said rhetoric, a fact that never gets brought up through the entirety of this storyline because maintaining suspension of disbelief about any of this required that it be ignored altogether. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ. Then in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her. His main focus of late has been a storyline with John Cena, [[Wrestling/BigELangston The]] [[Wrestling/KofiKingston New]] [[Wrestling/XavierWoods Day]], and the United States Championship—however in his open challenge match for Cena's US title he did resort to cheating in one sequence, plus it's been suggested that the situation of him wanting to get back together with [[Wrestling/BellaTwins Nikki Bella]] on ''Series/TotalDivas'' may be used to launch a Dolph-Cena feud in the near future, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred or ends up turning back heel soon. And now, he's currently in a feud with Tyler Breeze that started with Tyler assaulting him, so this may mark his turn back into being sympathetic.

* WTHCostumingDepartment: For a brief period after his move to RAW, Ziggler went from his bleach-blond slicked hair to a [[http://wrestling-match.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/dolph-ziggler-hair_display_image.jpg well-combed dark brown.]] Apparently, this was an effort to make him look more serious. It backfired so horribly (it didn't do him any favors as well that he looked like a bigger version of Wrestling/EvanBourne with it), in fact, that Ziggler's hair was back to blond (although they couldn't undo cutting it) within the month. Eventually, his hair grew back. [[WordofGod According to Dolph]], it needed to be done because his hair was fried but he HATED it

** Many have considered it a {{headscratcher|s}} as to why AJ Lee would turn against John Cena and then hook up with Dolph after the way he told her off on November 19, 2012. But here's where it all makes sense. Ziggler telling her off about her clingy tendencies over the smallest bit of attention given to her, likely sprinkled that seed of doubt in AJ's mind as to what her worth is to Cena, which may have caused Cena's hot-and-cold approach to dealing with her to gradually backfire. Furthermore, if she turned on Cena for toying with her heart, it only makes sense ([[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} …okay, about as much as anything that AJ does even can]]) that on some subconscious level she would gravitate emotionally to someone like Dolph, who told her the brutal truth she didn't want to hear and without using her [[BerserkButton favorite buzzword]] to boot. Ziggler basically stole Cena's would-be girlfriend away from him in one night, arguably without even trying, just by being honest with her about how erratic she was. And ironically enough, this is the most stable she's been since [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] dumped her and proceeded to BreakTheCutie.

* DracoInLeatherPants: As a heel in 2012, Ziggler's pops were getting bigger than some of the faces he wrestled from week to week. Even in matches against guys like Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} and Wrestling/CMPunk, "LET'S GO ZIGGLER!" chants from the audience (yes, a lot of guys, too) became something of a regular occurrence.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Ziggler's pops are getting bigger than some of the faces he's wrestling from week to week. Even in matches against guys like Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} and Wrestling/CMPunk, "LET'S GO ZIGGLER!" chants from the audience (yes, a lot of guys, too) became something of a regular occurrence.

* DesignatedVillain: He works his ass off whenever he's in the ring, routinely putting on some of the best performances on any given night. He's even done double duty a couple of times without complaining when defending one title and trying to go after another. He's repeatedly stood up for any girlfriend he's had when others have tried to get under said girlfriend's skin for kicks and giggles. He's called out the disingenuous behavior of the DesignatedHero with the biggest BrokenBase in [[strike:WWE]] pro wrestling history as well as said "hero's" would-be girlfriend, who despite her initial outrage appreciated his honesty enough to turn against the "hero" and come to his side. His path to his World Heavyweight Championship run was mainly a 4½-year-long {{level grind|ing}} where "AlwaysSomeoneBetter" seemed to be the word of the day. The crowds have clearly gravitated to him positively as a performer and are very hard-pressed to hate him as a character. And after all that, an injury of all things changed this, finally establishing him as a crowd-favored face.

* BadassDecay: In just a few months, he's gone from the darling of the IWC and arguably the most over performer on the roster to a horrendously misused [[{{Jobber}} jobber to the stars]] stuck in weak angle after weak angle losing to whichever heels management decides to push. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually started to tune out his '''SCRATCH AND CRAWL''' rants. His forced, chemistry-less romance with Lana isn't helping, either. Change the record, guys.

* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Alexander Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see Draco below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring. Though Rusev's character was blatantly misogynistic in his treatment of Lana and Summer and therefore not blameless, it doesn't excuse the fact that Dolph spent weeks taunting Rusev about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the [[Wrestling/JohnCena former]] undefeated juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood, this despite the fact he knew full well Lana was just using him to get back at Rusev at first although they did apparently come to care for each other on some level in time. Then, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana… only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Even when admitting that Rusev's beef with him was not without reason, he justified all of this by citing Rusev's Anti-American rhetoric… all the while dating the woman who was the main driving force behind said rhetoric, a fact that never gets brought up through the entirety of this storyline because maintaining suspension of disbelief about any of this required that it be ignored altogether. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ.
** Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her. His main focus of late has been a storyline with John Cena, [[Wrestling/BigELangston The]] [[Wrestling/KofiKingston New]] [[Wrestling/XavierWoods Day]], and the United States Championship—however in his open challenge match for Cena's US title he did resort to cheating in one sequence, plus it's been suggested that the situation of him wanting to get back together with [[Wrestling/BellaTwins Nikki Bella]] on ''Series/TotalDivas'' may be used to launch a Dolph-Cena feud in the near future, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred or ends up turning back heel soon. And now, he's currently in a feud with Tyler Breeze that started with Tyler assaulting him, so this may mark his turn back into being sympathetic.

** DesignatedVillain: He works his ass off whenever he's in the ring, routinely putting on some of the best performances on any given night. He's even done double duty a couple of times without complaining when defending one title and trying to go after another. He's repeatedly stood up for any girlfriend he's had when others have tried to get under said girlfriend's skin for kicks and giggles. He's called out the disingenuous behavior of the DesignatedHero with the biggest BrokenBase in [[strike:WWE]] pro wrestling history as well as said "hero's" would-be girlfriend, who despite her initial outrage appreciated his honesty enough to turn against the "hero" and come to his side. His path to his current (as of spring/summer 2013) World Heavyweight Championship run was mainly a 4½-year-long {{level grind|ing}} where "AlwaysSomeoneBetter" seemed to be the word of the day. The crowds have clearly gravitated to him positively as a performer and are very hard-pressed to hate him as a character. Yet he's still saddled up with the DirtyCoward "baddies" instead of being booked on the way to top facedom.
*** After all that, an injury of all things seems to have changed this, establishing him as (at worst) a crowd-favored tweener.
* '''EnsembleDarkhorse''': Is he ever.
** Especially at Survivor series, where he went from former intercontinental champion to becoming the sole survivor and taking 80% of the opposing team.
* EvilIsSexy: Good enough for Wrestling/VickieGuerrero. And now Wrestling/AJLee as well.
* FoeYay: Tons of it with AJ, finally transforming into an actual on-screen romance.

** After Wrestling/JerryLawler's near fatal heart attack, Lawler has joked on-air about Dolph's multiple elbow drop move being lethal.
*** In WWE 2K15, said multiple elbow drop is called the Heartstopper.

* WTHCostumingDepartment: For a brief period after his move to RAW, Ziggler went from his bleach-blond slicked hair to a [[http://wrestling-match.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/dolph-ziggler-hair_display_image.jpg well-combed dark brown.]] Apparently, this was an effort to make him look more serious. It backfired - so horribly, in fact, that Ziggler's hair was back to blond (although they couldn't undo cutting it) within the month. Eventually, his hair grew back.
** [[WordofGod According to Dolph]], it needed to be done because his hair was fried but he HATED it.
*** It didn't do him any favors as well that he looked like a bigger version of Wrestling/EvanBourne with the brown cut.

** Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her. His main focus of late has been a storyline with John Cena, [[Wrestling/BigELangston The]] [[Wrestling/KofiKingston New]] [[Wrestling/XavierWoods Day]], and the United States Championship—however in his open challenge match for Cena's US title he did resort to cheating in one sequence, plus it's been suggested that the situation of him wanting to get back together with [[Wrestling/BellaTwins Nikki Bella]] on ''Series/TotalDivas'' may be used to launch a Dolph-Cena feud in the near future, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred or ends up turning back heel soon. And now, he's currently in a feud with Tyler Breeze that started with Tyler

* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Alexander Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see Draco below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring. He spent weeks taunting Rusev about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the [[Wrestling/JohnCena former]] undefeated juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood, this despite the fact he knew full well Lana was just using him to get back at Rusev at first although they did apparently come to care for each other on some level in time. Then, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana…only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Even when admitting that Rusev's beef with him was not without reason, he justified all of this by citing Rusev's Anti-American rhetoric…all the while dating the woman who was the main driving force behind said rhetoric, a fact that never gets brought up through the entirety of this storyline because maintaining suspension of disbelief about any of this required that it be ignored altogether. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ.
** Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her. His main focus of late has been a storyline with John Cena, [[Wrestling/BigELangston The]] [[Wrestling/KofiKingston New]] [[Wrestling/XavierWoods Day]], and the United States Championship—however in his open challenge match for Cena's US title he did resort to cheating in one sequence, plus it's been suggested that the situation of him wanting to get back together with [[Wrestling/BellaTwins Nikki Bella]] on ''Series/TotalDivas'' may be used to launch a Dolph-Cena feud in the near future, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred or ends up turning back heel soon.

** Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her. His main focus since has been a storyline with John Cena, New Day, and the United States Championship—however in his open challenge match for Cena's US title he did resort to cheating in one sequence, plus it's been suggested that the situation of him wanting to get back together with [[Wrestling/BellaTwins Nikki Bella]] on ''Series/TotalDivas'' may be used to launch a Dolph-Cena feud in the near future, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred or ends up turning back heel soon.

* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Alexander Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see Draco below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring. He spent weeks taunting Rusev about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the [[Wrestling/JohnCena former]] undefeated juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood, this despite the fact he knew full well Lana was just using him to get back at Rusev at first although they did apparently come to care for each other on some level in time. Then, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana…only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Even when admitting that Rusev's beef with him was not without reason, he justified all of this by citing Rusev's Anti-American rhetoric…all the while dating the woman who was the main driving force behind said rhetoric, a fact that never gets brought up through the entirety of this storyline because maintaining suspension of disbelief about any of this required that it be ignored altogether. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ. Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred.

* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Alexander Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see Draco below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring. He spent weeks taunting Rusev about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the [[Wrestling/JohnCena former]] undefeated juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood. Then, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana…only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Even when admitting that Rusev's beef with him was not without reason, he justified all of this by citing Rusev's Anti-American rhetoric…all the while dating the woman who was the main driving force behind said rhetoric, a fact that never gets brought up through the entirety of this storyline because maintaining suspension of disbelief about any of this required that it be ignored altogether. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ. Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred.

* DesignatedHero: Aside from contributing to his BadassDecay as seen above, Ziggler's storyline romance with Lana and feud with Rusev has also effectively neutered years of babyface credibility that Ziggler's career had built up for him even going back to before he'd ever actually turned face (see Draco below for more details on that). He's gone from the resilient hero who took down Wrestling/TheAuthority, defended the Intercontinental Championship in brutal quality matches with Wrestling/LukeHarper, believes himself to be the best performer in the company and works his ass off not to be outshined, to a borderline playboy jerkass protagonist whose main joy in 2015 has been taking advantage of Alexander Rusev's romantic woes to completely fuck the man over in the ring, taunting him about stealing his girlfriend and denigrating the former undefeat juggernaut's already [[VillainousBreakdown increasingly fragile]] manhood. To make matters worse, when Wrestling/SummerRae was caught on TV following him into his locker room to sexually harass him and subsequently employed BlatantLies that he'd tried to seduce her, he first dutifully tried to explain his side of the story to Lana…only to turn around and further tease Summer with an extravagant "peace offering" as soon as Lana found herself out with a wrist injury just to continue screwing with Rusev. Between Dolph and Summer's antics and Lana's wrist injury, the reconciliation of Rusev and Lana makes total sense in kayfabe despite being thrown in after their real life engagement got put all over TMZ. Speaking of which, in his next match with Rusev following that turn of events Dolph would have no qualms about taking advantage of Summer's blatant bias on his side as the referee. However, he may have thankfully ended his role in this character-derailing angle by telling Summer in no uncertain terms after the match that he was not down with letting her continue to use him on Rusev like Lana did before her, so the jury's still out on whether he can recover his babyface cred.

* MemeticSexGod: In universe, he's managed to pull Wrestling/VickieGuerrero, Maria, Kaitlyn (or at least a tease with her) and Wrestling/AJLee. Outside, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/amy-schumer-wwe-dolph-ziggler-sex-too-athletic_n_1825039.html it's become known across the internet that he's had at least one girlfriend leave him due to sex with him being too athletic for her to take]].

* StopHelpingMe: Seems to feel this way toward AJ and Big E since his face turn as they are rarely seen accompanying him to the ring now. [[spoiler: AJ didn't listen, and it cost Dolph a world title.]]

* BaseBreaker: He's still very popular, but recent frustrations with his booking and, in some cases, his in-ring ability and mic skills have inspired a growing number of detractors.

* BadassDecay: From the darling of the IWC and the Next Big Thing in sports entertainment, to ....whatever this is. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually started to tune out his '''SCRATCH AND CRAWL''' rants. Change the record, guys.

* BadassDecay: From the Next Big Thing in sports entertainment, to a midcard joke disowned by the OWC. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually started to tune out his pathetic '''SCRATCH AND CRAWL''' rants. Change the record, guys.

* BadassDecay: From the Next Big Thing in sports entertainment, to a midcard joke disowned by the OWC. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually started to tune out his pathetic '''SCRAPE AND CRAWL''' rants. Change the record, guys.

* BadassDecay: From the Next Big Thing in sports entertainment, to a midcard joke disowned by the OWC. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually learned to tune out his pathetic '''SCRAPE AND CRAWL''' rants. Change the record, guys.

* BadassDecay: From the Next Big Thing in sports entertainment, to a midcard joke disowned by the OWC. People sensed WWE didn't care about him and eventually learned to tune out his pathetic '''SCRAPE AND CRAWL''' rant. Change the record, guys. Dolph's not going anywhere.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Ziggler's pops are getting bigger than some of the faces he's wrestling from week to week. Even in matches against guys like Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} and Wrestling/CMPunk, "LET'S GO ZIGGLER!" chants from the audience (yes, a lot of guys, too) are becoming something of a regular occurrence.

* EnsembleDarkhorse

** Especially at Survivor series, where he went from former intercontinental champion to becoming the sole survivor.