• Former Champion Says WWE Ruined His Huge Momentum With Boring Promos
On Chris Van Vliet’s Insight podcast, Dolph Ziggler discussed multiple times WWE had the chance to elevate him but chose not to.
He pointed to Survivor Series 2014 as the biggest missed opportunity – when he single-handedly eliminated The Authority and received a standing ovation. He said fans saw him as the underdog hero, yet WWE followed that momentum with scripted promos full of “boring” dialogue.
“I was ready to be a top babyface,” he said. “Instead, they gave me two pages of lines about wanting to entertain people.”
Ziggler also recalled similar missed chances after Money In The Bank wins and strong feuds with Seth Rollins, where he was constantly stopped short.
He acknowledged that everyone in WWE experiences “start-stop pushes,” but in his case, it happened repeatedly – often when he was connecting most with fans.
Ziggler later noted that Vince McMahon never saw him as “the top guy.”
“Vince liked my work, but didn’t believe I should be the World Champion,” said Ziggler.
• Eric Bischoff Reveals The Real Reason He Booked Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant’s Monster Truck Match
In one of the more infamous matches in WCW history, Hulk Hogan faced The Giant (later known as The Big Show in WWF/E) in a Monster Truck Showdown at Halloween Havoc 1995. During his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff finally explained what led to that bizarre concept.
According to Bischoff, the idea came from talks with agent Barry Bloom, who represented the Bigfoot monster truck brand. Bischoff saw it as a potential crossover between two powerful fanbases.
“It wasn’t just random craziness,” he said. “I thought, what if we can create a licensing deal between WCW and Bigfoot – toys, merchandise, pay-per-view crossover. It made business sense at the time.”
He admitted, though, that the execution went off the rails after the storyline had Hogan throw The Giant off a rooftop.
“That’s where we screwed it up,” Bischoff laughed. “We went from marketing opportunity to murder mystery.”
Despite the outcome, Bischoff still defends the ambition behind the idea, calling it “one of the most creative swings” WCW ever took.
• Vince McMahon Fired Brad Maddox For Using A Classless Word
WWE Hall of Famer JBL recently recalled an interesting story about Vince McMahon’s opinion of former RAW General Manager Brad Maddox, revealing that the former WWE Chairman once saw great potential in Maddox before abruptly firing him over a single word used in a promo.
Speaking on Something To Wrestle, JBL said Vince had high praise for Maddox during his time in WWE until he called the fans “pricks” in a promo.
“I talked with Vince a lot, I flew with Vince a lot, Vince told me one day, he goes, ‘That kid’s special.’ It’s the only time I’ve ever heard him say that. He’s said nicer things about people, but the way he said it, like, ‘That kid’s got it.’ You don’t hear that from Vince very much. Vince really liked Maddox.
And then when he went out there, I’m sitting there waiting for a pre-show, I’m sitting there waiting to go out with Michael Cole, and that’s when Maddox called the fans a bunch of pricks or something.
He comes back and Vince fired him. Vince hated that word, he thought that was a classless word. It’s one of the few times I got in trouble.
All the stuff I’ve said on commentary, all the stuff I’ve said in promos, one of the few times I ever got in trouble was when I called someone a selfish prick, I think is what I called them, or egotistical prick or something like that. Vince pulled me aside and goes, ‘We have sponsors here, we have all these people here, you can’t use language like that.’
There’s something about that word that Vince hated. But yes, that was the word that got Maddox fired.”
Brad Maddox was fired in November 2015 after he used the word during an off-air promo.
