WWE superstar Dolph Ziggler spoke to TalkSport to hype his WWE championship match with Drew McIntyre at Sunday’s Horror Show at Extreme Rules and to talk all things pro-wrestling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says he didn’t get a world title push due to his blonde hair:
One time a long time ago, I was told the reason I’m not credible for world championships – this is 10 years ago, maybe longer, whatever – the reason I’m not credible enough to be winning world championships is because of my hair. Not because I get beat up, not that I lose every match, not that I don’t talk. It was because of my blonde hair. So it got cut short and dyed black and I was serious, I went out there and beat the hell out of Santino, and it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t want to do it. I said, ‘This isn’t me, we can find a way to introduce more of my shooting background and things’. Nope.
Reveals that WWE admitted they made a mistake:
That’s what they wanted [the hair cut]. Then after three weeks they said ‘Oh, our bad. Sometimes people don’t see [it]. How about I just beat some people up sometimes? Or won a couple matches? Or talked? Or talk like I am right now and defend myself and say, ‘Hey, I should be out here tying people in knots, winning world titles, getting on the microphone, hopping on a jet, doing a press conference and strutting away with Ric Flair!’ And they go, ‘Yeah, but… I dunno. We should just cut your hair. So I tried to get out of it as much as I could, but sadly, I guess that’s the vision that they have and you have to go with that and try and fight them every single day and I do fight the good fight behind the scenes and in the ring every damn day.
On possibly creating a stable with Miz and John Morrison:
Maybe if I owned the company [I could make that stable]. ‘Hey, my friends [Miz and Morrison] are here, I’m just going to be on there team!’ But that’s not how it works,” Ziggler explained. “There were a handful of times where we were working together and we did a couple of backstage things. It was like, this is really, really easy to turn into a team just like that. As usual, there’s other things going on and there’s other factors. The goal is something else and you go ‘OK, we just showed you the chemistry we have here and what we can do, but no problem.’ It’s one of those things and maybe we go back to it, we really could,” Dolph continued. “In one day, we did like a two minute thing where we talked to each other and then we were a six-man team. We were tagging and laughing and I go ‘This is just the first day! This is something that could easily be special without us even knowing.’ So maybe we’ll go back to it, I would love that.