Dolph Ziggler: When The Day Comes Someone Tells Me I’ve Lost A Step, It Will Haunt Me Forever

Dolph Ziggler enjoys being a player-coach in WWE.

Dolph Ziggler has been on WWE television as Dolph Ziggler for 14 years. In that time, he has held virtually every title in WWE except for the WWE championship, he has been trusted at every position of the card to deliver, and now, he’s being trusted with the main event of NXT Stand and Deliver, putting him in a new row for the first time ever during WrestleMania weekend.

Heading into Dallas, Texas as the NXT Champion, DZ will face Bron Breakker in the main event of the matinee card on Saturday, April 2. Ziggler says he is enjoying this current role as a player-coach and has enjoyed that role in WWE for quite some time. However, when the time comes that someone tells him he looks as though he’s lost a step, he says that moment will haunt him forever.

“I’ve always been a bit of a player-coach, Ziggler said to DAZN’s Steven Muehlhausen. “I enjoy that a lot. So when it down to it, that’s like Charlie Hustle. It’s Pete Rose, player-coach, and he’s still the one leaping in the air and putting it on the line just to get to second base. Player-coach is the way to be. The day someone says (and) pulls me aside and says, ‘It looks like you lost a step out there, or you didn’t really have it tonight’, that will haunt me forever. Then I will have to go, ‘Ok, I gotta fix something or get the hell out of here’.  But until then, I’m probably in the best shape of my life right now. I feel fantastic. I can go with anybody. I need people to be able to go with me. I think it’s a surreal thing to have me as champ. But long term, this is a big win for NXT and myself, I think.”

Speaking about his opponent, Dolph sees nothing but upside for the young Steiner heir.

“Having been in close contact with him for this one month, and I famously don’t watch wrestling or NXT or anything,” Ziggler said. “You see something in people’s eyes, and whether it gets accomplished or not, you know that he’s not ok with an A- match. He’s not ok with, ‘Ok, I’m a little tired here. I’ll just kind of phone this part in, and we’ll get back to it’. He wants to be explosive at all times and prove that he should be there on his own merit. I love that. I can’t wait to get hit with that spear, have the wind taken out of me, kick the hell out, and slap him around afterward. I think one day, of course, he has the tools and what you would say about anybody ever in developmental, but there’s an explosiveness in him that I don’t see in two-thirds of our roster.” 

You can check out the full card for Stand and Deliver here. We will have live coverage of the event on Saturday afternoon.