The Story of McIntyre and Ziggler: Spring and Summer 2018
Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre pose with the confidence of two individuals who know they are destined for greatness.
By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)
This Sunday, at Extreme Rules the Horror Show, the WWE is going to experiment with a few horrifying segments for your viewing pleasure:
Test what Seth Rollins looks like with only one eyeball
See if Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt can keep their feud afloat
While these oddities will surely be unforgettable, talked about, and cause nausea (much like a night-long diarrhea spell), one match has me writhing and rolling with excitement rather than pain!
Dolph Ziggler vs Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship.
This match, by my estimation, has one of the longest, slow-burning feuds that WWE was lucky enough to stumble into. You can’t ignore the Braun Strowman vs Bray Wyatt feud when it comes to slow burns, but we also can’t forget that their connection and battles have already come and gone while both entertainers have gone through major changes of character.
For Ziggler and McIntyre, it feels bigger to me. It feels bigger because these characters are almost exactly the same as they were two years ago at the Superstar Shake-Up (despite leanings towards ‘Face’ or ‘Heel’ changing, which doesn’t inherently change the actual character but works as a measure of growth in one’s depth). It feels bigger because it always felt like it would come to this.
It feels bigger because these two climbed to the top of the (kayfabe) corporate ladder as a team. It feels bigger because McIntyre’s current title run would not have made sense without his main roster resurgence with Ziggler. It’s bigger because McIntyre’s story with Ziggler needs to come full circle. It feels bigger than the rest of the match card and bigger than Extreme Rules because it actually is!
Am I a huge Drew McIntyre stan? Absolutely! But you would be hard-pressed to find someone who is not enjoying McIntyre’s title run and flawless execution of being the champ.
The bigger question is: Am I a Ziggler stan? Probably bigger than McIntyre. This was the wrestler that got me to watch wrestling on a weekly (whoops! I mean nightly) basis. I may or may not own all of his t-shirts and I couldn’t be more excited to wear the Ultra Rare Ziggler/McIntyre shirt that was created 2 years ago.
Basically, I’m coming in HOT with a lot of ‘furious fandom’ and I know that could be clouding my judgment.
I’ve made it no secret that I am returning to the wrestling blog space and I figured what would be more appropriate than returning with a quick story on why you should be excited for Ziggler vs McIntyre this Sunday.
Why? Because I meticulously covered their original team up and acquired a lot of wrestling friends based on the articles I put together. Friends who shared in the belief that McIntyre would one day take down Brock Lesnar. Friends who see the true talent held by a Dolph Ziggler. Friends who believed there was potential in a ‘years-long’ story between two of the best talents the WWE has to offer.
These friendships helped this blog grow into a strong podcast space and now has a bustling conversation group on Facebook and Twitter.
I’m actually quite proud of what that content turned into and even more proud...THAT I WAS RIGHT! Right about McIntyre. Right about the team-up. And Right about how this feud had to come to head with championship implications. And folks...that day is upon us!
Drew McIntyre Returns to RAW
Back in April 2018, I was preparing for a huge summer. I was about to graduate with my MBA. My wife and I were preparing for our wedding. Oh right! AND DOLPH ZIGGLER BROUGHT DREW MCINTYRE BACK TO RAW TO CREATE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE CALLED: THE SHOW!
It’s hard to figure out which was the biggest part of my summer.
At that time, I dubbed Dolph and Drew the most underrated Superstar Shakeup Acquisition. While I love where the story has been taken to this day, I actually spoke about the poetic origination of this tag team.
It was two guys who had once been given the opportunity to succeed only for the company to lose faith in their abilities over time. Drew being released after years as a member of 3MB and Dolph being fodder to larger competitors. For Drew, it was a call to action to get better and prove himself personally and for his character. For Dolph, his character saw McIntyre as a coattail opportunity he could latch on to. For Nick Nemeth, it was a chance to help Drew grow into the champion we see today.
This tag team that meant more than championships to me. I saw two human beings who pop on the screen, have immense loads of talent and were probably due for a real ‘shot’. It meant so much to me that I went on a weekly tirade of how important it was that they never fail and avoid the same losing streaks that the Club, the Ascension, and the Revival saw at the opening of their main roster careers.
Thankfully, the WWE made the right choice.
McIntyre and Ziggler’s 2018 Summer
Only a couple weeks after making his triumphant debut on RAW, Drew McIntyre found himself teaming up with Dolph Ziggler and taking on two of the main competitors in the upcoming Money in the Bank match, Finn Balor and Braun Strowman.
One would assume that this match would serve as an opportunity to build superstars in the marquee matchup at the upcoming Pay Per View, but instead, it was a chance for the creative team to reveal Ziggler and McIntyre could steal the show AND a victory on any night.
If they had lost here, it would have defined the team as a cute tag team who just can’t seem to get it right. Win one night to build of the fan’s confidence in their ability to win, but lose the next night once given an opportunity to show off.
The next week the talent level of their competition fell (of course I am speaking of the kayfabe level of talent). Dolph Ziggler was up against Chad Gable. And as Chad was also looking to climb a few rungs of the WWE ladder (the imaginary one, not of the Money in the Bank) this could have spelled doom had Dolph been rolled up for a pin.
Ziggler snagged the win despite an impressive showing from Gable, but in my own writing, I kept warning of the consequences of any sort of loss. To my delight, as the summer rolled on, so too did the winning streak of Ziggler and McIntyre.
Ziggler wins the Intercontinental Title
To think that this team was only two months into their existence is mind-boggling. But as you can tell by the heading here, Dolph Ziggler actually took down Seth Rollins (with an assist from Drew McIntyre) to win the Intercontinental Championship.
While I pleaded each week for the WWE to keep Dolph and McIntyre in higher standing I never would’ve imagined a result like this so early into their team-up. The reign didn’t last long, but it showed what this team was capable of and helped throw Drew and Dolph into a conversation with the top stable in the company: the Shield.
It was later in the summer that Ziggler and McIntyre decided to take their feud with the Shield a step further when they easily took out the Big Dog, Roman Reigns. The Big Dog was the biggest name in the company and it would have made only too much sense for Dolph and Drew to be taught a lesson by Roman. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the WWE let ‘The Show’ walk away from their slain competitors with toothy grins attached to their chins.
It was finally time for the wheels to fall off once SummerSlam rolled around. It was the reintroduction of Dean Ambrose and a reuniting of Ambrose and Rollins as a tag team. I predicted heel turns and broken up tag teams, but what we got was a clean victory by Seth Rollins and two sulking losers having lost their momentum. WWE saw ‘main-event’ potential in Ambrose and knew where the priorities lied.
As a huge fan of this tag team, I questioned the decision making Ad nauseam, but I shouldn’t have. Dolph and McIntyre were meant for bigger things and holding that IC strap does them no favors.
Heading into the Fall of 2018
The next blog will discuss the literal fall of the Show which occurred in the later months of 2018 and led to the eventual first feud of McIntyre and Ziggler. Before that fall, there was one more major rise for the tag team as they battled The SHIELD well into October and November.
I really do love this story and am hopeful I’m going to bring in some new believers as to how important this Sunday’s match truly is AND what a great job the WWE did with the slow burn.
So stay tuned to our Social Media for the next post so you don’t miss the rest of the McIntyre and Ziggler Timeline.
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