After weeks of tormenting The Miz, it would seem Dolph Ziggler and the A-Lister are going to be squaring off at the Biggest Party of the Summer. WWE have announced earlier today that they will be squaring off at SummerSlam.
Ziggler and The Miz have squared off on many an occasion, one of WWE’s most frequent rivalries. According to cagematch.net, a database of match histories, the two have been involved in no less than 146 matches with one another, albeit that includes Royal Rumble matches and battle royals. Still, a staggering number. In fact, this bout won’t even be their first time squaring off at SummerSlam. Ziggler wrestled the Intercontinental Title away from the Miz at the 2014 iteration.
This one will be somewhat unique, however. as nearly 100% of their previous matches have seen Dolph Ziggler play the babyface and The Miz play the heel. This would be the first time anyone’s seen the inverse of this since 2012 in which they had a couple of TV matches, one of which being on Main Event; hardly high profile. So this will, if nothing else, be a funny little role reversal. That’s always an interesting to see in wrestling, famous feuds with inverted alignments.
The segments leading into this match have thus far been quite nice. Dolph and Miz have traded scathing, tragically accurate barbs. Dolph also assaulted Shawn Michaels during an episode of MizTV, and is seemingly building to a match with him at a later date, likely at the Saudi Arabia show in November.
It has to be said that neither Ziggler or Miz are coming into this bout on a hot streak.
Dolph Ziggler returned from a leave of absence – after a very cold run – to challenge WWE Champion Kofi Kingston. He of course lost them all, and these bouts were generally very dead due to the utter lack of belief that he was in any way shape or form a threat to become WWE Champion. He’s certainly rebounding somewhat with this angle, but even now they like to put him in WWE title matches so he can take the fall and it isn’t really helping his stock.
Miz on the other hand, actually had a shockingly successful babyface turn for the first time ever earlier this year, after previous attempts had failed miserably. He truly did get over as a face in his feud with Shane. Sadly, WWE’s response was to have Shane repeatedly and thoroughly defeat him. And they’ve done precious little with the Miz ever since. So yeah his momentum has dropped like a brick as well.
Still, an optimist could look forward to this match. The two of them have always had a surprisingly good chemistry with each other. General consensus is that Miz’s best pure in-ring matches have always been against Ziggler. The two Cleveland natives are close friends in real life and tend to gel exceptionally well whenever they work together. So in theory having them compete at SummerSlam again could result in a fun match.
Provided there’s literally any noise to speak of when they lock up, anyway…
