Speaking to Mirror in the UK, Dolph Ziggler discussed his longevity in WWE and how his recent hiatus helped him understand that time off is a good thing.
Dolph Ziggler on his tenure in WWE:
“A lot of it is luck because injuries, no matter how good you are, can put you on the sidelines. No matter how good you or your opponent are, you can step on the mat wrong and tear your ACL. So a couple of those add up, and they don’t trust you anymore and you can’t do certain things.
“But also being able to adjust at all times and being ready to go whether you’re being a glorified enhancer talent or someone that’s told ‘we’re going to revamp the entire tag-team division, starting today, with you and this tag partner that you’ve never wrestled with, and you’re going to do 45 minutes tonight and it’s going to go on and on, go!’ and you can do it and not have them go ‘he wasn’t really ready for that’. You’re always prepared for any possible role. I can talk on TV, I can make it funny, I can do a behind the scenes interview on the fly, I can go talk to investors, to kids, to an anti-bullying rally. You can do all those things, something Miz has made an entire career out of, I can do that, plus the good wrestling.”
Dolph Ziggler on his hiatus:
“I learned shit. I learned that I needed a vacation after 14 years,” he quipped. “After about 11/12 years non-stop, and being one of the people like Kofi and Seamus and Miz that did five days a week, every week for a couple of years in a row, and then we’re doing the rallies and PR.
“I said I’ve been too lucky with injuries, that fans have now seen me every single Monday or Friday – or whatever our schedule was – I worked 10 years in a row without a break. Miz gets a break to do a crappy movie. Someone else gets one because they get hurt, someone for something else, I thought ‘they’ve seen me so much, I’m taken for granted, there’s no excitement to seeing me 200 times in a row.’
“So I go, ‘I have to go away.’ For a year or two, I kept getting told ‘sure’ and then right as I was getting ready to go, they said ‘we need you’. I’ve never heard ‘we need you’ more than anything from any other company my whole entire life, but it’s so great to hear, to know that I’ve made an entire career out of them needing me to be here.”
You can read the full interview here.
