Is Dolph Ziggler the One Burying Young Talent in WWE?

Fans have talked a lot, sometimes with reason, sometimes without, about a mythical "shovel" with which the aspirations of young and talented fighters have been "buried" forever, putting a premature end to what could have been. This "shovel" has been in the hands of Triple H, Randy Orton, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, and will surely be in the future of Roman Reigns. Well, this author believes that the one in charge of burying promises is actually Dolph Ziggler.

Sure, historically Ziggler has been a favorite of the audience and internet fans, he himself has been pointed out as a victim of "burial", but recently the blonde has ceased to be a promise, a future champion, and has become a veteran. As a veteran, WWE has trusted him to push the most promising newcomers, and on each occasion, he has failed.

No need to go into details, as the cases are well known. First there was Tyler Breeze, one of the great promises of the first batch of NXT, who after the disastrous love triangle with which he debuted and the mediocre quality of his initial matches with Ziggler, fell directly to the lower card, from which he still struggles to get out.

With Baron Corbin, he had a more difficult task, as he was greener when he debuted, and together they only became the owners of the kickoff for several months.

Then we have Shinsuke Nakamura, the great figure of the yellow brand in 2016, whom many saw before his debut with a stellar future. Ziggler was in charge of introducing him to the WWE Universe and did so with a disastrous promo in which he "confused" him with Michael Jackson and a series of matches that left much to be desired. Fortunately, the Japanese made his way thanks to his natural charisma.

And now there's Bobby Roode, with whom he had one of the worst matches of the last blue PPV, Hell in a Cell. It is clear that Roode does not work as well as a face, but having Ziggler as an opponent simply does not help.

To put it concretely, Ziggler's promos are monotonous and do not give his opponent a chance to respond, and his matches are much less than they promise. It's not that the blonde hasn't had great matches, just a year ago he had a very good series with The Miz, but he simply fails to give his opponent space to show the best of their repertoire, instead wrapping them in a repetitive dynamic with anticlimactic endings.

It only makes one compare it to the mentoring role that Chris Jericho has played in the last phases of his career. Y2J did everything to elevate Fandango, Bray Wyatt, and AJ Styles, even though the creatives failed with the first two, and he did it with entertaining rivalries and matches up to par.

Maybe the Show-Off will shut this author up today on SmackDown Live when he faces the Glorious in a two out of three falls match, hopefully that's the case, but for now, if anyone has "the shovel" in their hands and uses it frequently, that's Dolph Ziggler.