This week on WWE’s The Bump, one-half of the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, Dolph Ziggler appeared to talk about his big win with Robert Roode for the titles, as well as his favorite Royal Rumble moment as a fan and as a competitor.
But before they delved into these subjects, panelist Kayla Braxton asked Ziggler what’s different from going from being a singles competitor to becoming a tag team competitor. She also mentioned how this isn’t the first time Ziggler has seen tag team success with someone like Roode; he has seen this same sort of interaction and created this same sort of chemistry with the WWE Champion Drew McIntyre as well.
“It really depends,” Dolph Ziggler began. “You don’t approach the opportunities, you make them happen yourself. So, you mentioned Drew McIntyre. We bumped into each other and had mutual respect for wanting to kick people out of the locker room who didn’t want it, didn’t need it, or didn’t go 100 percent every single night. We made a team based on that. We almost could look at each other – without being friends for almost 20 years – and know this is what’s going to happen next to take us above and beyond.
“People care about tag team wrestling. And at that time – a lot of times – I was stepping on grenades for him left and right. Every time we teamed up together, I would step in front of a bus to make sure he would be ok. Every cohesive team has a different way about it. When it comes to Robert Roode, the two of us have this similar path, whether we’re on our own or as a team. It’s been like a year-and-a-half, and some people are like, ‘Were they thrown together this week?’ We have to go out there and make our own points and our own statements like we did with The Street Profits.”
When recalling his favorite Royal Rumble moment in his career, Ziggler says it was when he challenged Edge for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in 2011. Although he did not come out victorious in that match, he says it was the fans and Edge who created a moment he’ll never forget.
“There was a Royal Rumble where I fought against Edge for the World Heavyweight title once,” he replied. “We went one-on-one to open up the Royal Rumble. I went in knowing and the entire audience knowing that I had no chance of winning. Because Edge is so awesome at what he does because that rivalry became so great because I learned so much in the past from traveling with him, [I knew] I was a formable opponent to him at the time.
“Ten minutes into that 30-minute match, the entire crowd started coming around and realized there was a star in the making here. We beat the living hell out of each other. I appreciate anyone who loves and respects this business that knows you can go hard on them, and they’ll come back much harder on you. We stoled the show opening, and everybody had to follow it afterward. I do not know who won that Royal Rumble, and I don’t remember being in there. All I know is they weren’t sitting down the last 15 minutes of it. They knew I was going to lose, and we told them otherwise halfway through.”
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