Prior to Dolph Ziggler’s successful run in NXT 2.0, he was a mainstay and long time veteran on the main roster. Dolph added to his list of career achievements by becoming the NXT Champion by defeating Bron Breakker and Tommaso Ciampa in a triple threat match at NXT Roadblock.
Before heading down to NXT, Ziggler was in a tag team with Robert Roode on Monday Night Raw.
Ziggler On Working In NXT
Ziggler joined Corey Graves on WWE After The Bell to talk about heading down to NXT and how it’s impacted his career.
“Everyone is asking, ‘how do you feel about being surprised?’ Surprised? I came here to scout talent and two weeks later, I’m the NXT Champion. That wasn’t in the cards, that wasn’t even a thought process.
I’m constantly working, I’m never out sick, but I felt stale. Roode and I are really good at what we do and it didn’t seem like we were doing anything that important right now and it’s ‘what have you done for me lately?’ At the moment, we’re not crushing it. It didn’t seem like we were going to have a match on WrestleMania unless we made something happen. We saw an opening and said, ‘Let’s try this out, let’s go see NXT.’
Half the time, anybody who shows up from NXT, their first match is with me anyway. Especially Roode, he even had a match with me.
Now, I’m going to cut out the middle man and go to NXT and start wrestling there. I really came to scout talent, see if a few people had some up and coming things that I could possibly work with that aligned, and got thrown right into the mix. It’s crazy. It’s so funny, if you’re surprised that I’m NXT Champion, normally if you’re surprised I’m United States Champion or World Champion, I’m not, I’m blown away,” he said.
Dolph On Working With Bron Breakker
Ziggler also spoke about sharing the ring with the top prospect Bron Breakker.
The former World Champion said, “I did not plan on this. I’m very happy to be in this moment with Breakker, who has 20 matches under his belt, but somehow can go. He has this insane speed and power that…I’ve been speared by Goldberg and I’m like, ‘This guy, you kidding me,’ and has knocked the wind out of me and put me down. This kid hits harder. That spear put me down. I was happy to kickout and keep moving, but I go, ‘Holy Crap.’
He has that, in that prime of his career, linebacker closing speed for every movement. When he figures out how to hone that in a year or two or three, he’s going to be someone who is kind of unstoppable.”
The current WWE NXT Champion is set to defend his title against Breakker at NXT Stand & Deliver on Saturday, April 2.
H/T to Jeremy Lambert of Fightful for the transcription
