Dolph Ziggler recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet to discuss a wide range of topics.
During the interview, he looked back on his Money in the Bank cash-in on Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Title on an April 2013 episode of WWE RAW and explained why he feels the cash-in is different. Ziggler said,
“A bunch of people make other arguments, but here’s why mine’s (MITB cash-in) different than if you want to say, Seth’s at WrestleMania, or like the first-ever one or whatever. I mean, the first one was pretty cool. I didn’t understand the idea, it was Edge, right? And Vince (McMahon) is there and like, whoa, you know? But here’s why mine is better, because of what I just said. I lost every single match. Vickie (Guerrero) talked for me, I got Vickie, and then we go on to A.J. (Lee) and Big E. So I now have a group of three. And I’m losing every single match, except for the ladder match, which was so fun. There’s a great GIF of (Lord) Tensai throwing me into the chairs and I fly around on my head. I win, and I win that and I go, how are we going to build on this? Because I can’t just lose 900 matches in a row, win this one and then lose 900 in a row again, and the boss goes, ‘Now you’re gonna lose even more,’ and not in a devious way. He goes, ‘Because you have this briefcase, and when that contract gets cashed in, everything is erased.’ And I go, ‘Okay, that’s a fair point.’
Ziggler mentioned that he wishes he could’ve had Del Rio kick out of his finisher for a near fall before going to the finish of the bout. He added,
“I have never witnessed even watching Attitude Era Stone Cold come out on TV, I’m sure it was louder. But me witnessing that in person and feeling the prickles up my body, not me getting goosebumps, this rush of noise hitting my body. I was like, man, I again, I go, I hope they get into this. Again, a good guy is injured and he’s laying on the mat. And a bad guy who loses all the time is going to come down and become world champion maybe. And I’m like, are they gonna buy it? I don’t know. But I go, I was really proud, I go early in the day, like he’s hurt, you come down, you hit him with the briefcase, bah, bah, bah, 1,2,3 new champ, the place is going to lose it! I go, this is me. I almost get the big prize for nine years in a row, let’s make them feel like Dolph is getting Dolphed one more time… I almost orchestrated it exactly how I wanted it, but I wanted one more little thing. But I go, ‘Let’s have that. I’ll beat him up, with the thing, I’ll stomp on his ankle, hit a Fameasser to a corpse, 1, 2, kick out.’ And you can just see the crowd go, they’re doing it again. They got us, they teased us, we thought he was gonna be the guy and they are rubbing it in our face. And then we get one more little false finish. I go, I’ll have him just come kick me in the head, kicks me in the head. I go down and they’re like, no, he’s rolling me over. I’m like, it was one of the most beautiful Shakespearean three-minute movies I could ever create, other than when we gave it back with him kicking me in the head 500 times and like, putting me out. We did a double turn, that was really fun. But we do that, we have one more false and then he gives me that kick. I kick out, I go for something, and he puts on his finisher, the armbar. So I’m locked in, I’m scrambling around. I wanted to scramble for like another minute, but I go, let’s not push it, they’ve gone up and down three times in 90 seconds, like more than you could ever imagine. And I’m like, good, I’m good at that. And then again, storytelling. He has a hurt ankle. I go back to that ankle, and I go, we sometimes forget it in that moment. You don’t always need that story, but I wanted the story. Yeah, here it comes. He’s got it. No, they’re screwing him. Oh my God, you’re gonna make them tap out. He’s gonna win. And as I’m selling up and he’s coming up with his back, everybody starts to realize, oh my God, it’s going to happen but then I’d like to have think that like 10 or 20 percent on the Zig Zig, one two, [pauses], they’re like three, okay, okay. Okay, you never know, and if I had my way, I would have had him kick out of that Zig Zig and why I would have went with something else. I’ll never have that WrestleMania hot crowd, hot moment, right place, right time. I’m the guy that they wanted to be the guy whether the office wanted it or not… I was so spoiled. It’s like three-and-a-half minutes and I am so proud of Del Rio, (he) was great in that too, and great in that double turn but that three-and-a-half minutes is so beautiful for the business that I’m very proud that I was a part of it.”
