At the end of tonight’s Raw, Dolph Ziggler and the Miz were set to have a contract signing ahead of their scheduled match this Sunday at SummerSlam. And none other than Shawn Michaels was presiding over the whole thing. Ziggler has not only been needling Miz, but many legendary figures in wrestling. These include HBK and another man who came to fame in the 90s, one Bill Goldberg.
Dolph of course ran down both Miz and Shawn, before signing his contract. But Miz let him know that he needed to read the fine print, because the opponent Ziggler just signed to face… wasn’t him. He gazed over at Shawn Michaels… but HBK told Ziggler that it wasn’t him, either. And the crowd immediately knew, serenading the three men with chants of Goldberg.
And then… he emerged. Goldberg hit the ring, causing Ziggler to hightail it. He signed the contract, as Ziggler screamed at him from the ramp, only to get dropped by a Sweet Chin Music, a receipt from a few weeks prior. That’s how Raw went off the air.
So, yeah. Ziggler vs. Goldberg. Suffice to say that’s a match no one would’ve predicted at the start of the year, or even a month ago. Hell, I reported this would be happening, and even I felt it was a crazy idea. But it truly came to pass. The contract signing, indeed, did not go without a hitch – not the boldest of predictions there, admittedly – as it turns out that Miz never intended to face Dolph at all this time around.
It’s uh, a clash of styles to say the least. But it’s a major Dolph Ziggler match that the crowd will be reacting to for the first time in God knows how long. So that’s a plus.
Winner: Bill Goldberg
For some ridiculous reason Ziggler gets on the mic afterwards, still on the mat and yells at him to get back into the ring. He berates Goldberg and claims he isn’t man enough to face him. I believe he also called him a ‘dipsh*t’, though it was censored. So Goldberg gets back into the ring and delivers another destructive spear.
Goldberg leaves. Dolph… amazingly takes up the mic again and says ‘anybody can get lucky twice’. He says he knew he didn’t have the balls to face him man-to-man and that’s why he’s a laughing stock. Ziggler says he’ll never be defeated, will never stay down and is the best thing going today. Goldberg’s music hits and he’s out again.
Goldberg pulls Dolph to his feet… Dolph puts up the dukes. Goldberg hits the ropes twice and a third spear just breaks him absolutely in half. Yikes.
Plus, a title change occurred tonight.
After a truly horrendous, almost non-existent run as tag champs, The IIconics have been dethroned. That’s, way too strong a word, isn’t it? Their tag titles have been towed? I think that’s closer. Anyway they lost. Funnily enough, it was in a four way tag match that turned out to be elimination rules. And the champs were the first team eliminated!
That’s actually a bit of a classic Heymanism there. Immediately put us in a spot where we were guaranteed to crown a new champion. And in the end, it was Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross who walked away with the gold. Err, gold and silver, I guess?
Really begs the question as to why they put the tag titles on the IIconics when they clearly had no intention of using them. I mean I know Vince has a habit of getting bored of his shiny new toys fast, but that might’ve been a record. He seemingly lost interest overnight, in spite of them genuinely being entertaining when allowed to be.
Ah well. They’re on an act that WWE atleast seems more interested in now, even if this win does come off the heels of Alexa and Nikki getting decimated 2-on-1 by Bayley at Extreme Rules. Hopefully these two as champs will actually make a PPV card some time.
