Current WWE Star Thought They’d Be Fired In 2008

A veteran WWE star has shared the story about how he thought that he would be fired 15 years ago, yet he still works in the company.

It’s been a long, nearly 20-year journey for Dolph Ziggler in WWE. The former college standout wrestler from Kent State University was signed by the company in 2004. Now at 42 years old, Ziggler has proven to be one of the most reliable, durable and talented superstars in the history of the company.

During his impressive WWE career, Ziggler has put together a Hall of Fame resume as a guy that wrestled as a heel for most of his run. That run has seen him win two WWE World Heavyweight Titles, six Intercontinental Titles, two United States Titles, four reigns as a Tag Team Champion, he won Money in the Bank, and also the NXT Title.

While Ziggler never really became the top guy in his run in the company, he has still accomplished a lot even though he admits he thought he was going to get fired in 2008.

In an interview with Chris Van Vliet on YouTube, Dolph Ziggler talked about how in 2008, he was booked in a match with Batista and he thought that was going to be the end of his run in WWE. Ziggler spoke about that time period in 2008 when he came back after a break.

“A lot of people think that’s the debut but that’s when I come back. I wanna say I wrestle R-Truth as Dolph Ziggler, I think I have a double count out or I roll in and beat Truth… and then I’m not on TV for a month or month and a half and then I come back and it’s against Batista, and I go ‘Oh, this is my last day at work.’”

“If you were a new young guy, you don’t know what’s going on. I don’t have a legacy, I don’t have friends in the meeting, I don’t know what I’m doing. They gave me this weird name that I tried to fight them on and my debut was a count out win against R-Truth, who is beloved, especially by me.”

“If you’re debuting and you’re fighting Triple H and winning, they’ve got plans for you. When you’re debuting against R-Truth, who wasn’t on TV at the time, and you’re barely scraping by and then you go away for a month and they tell me that it’s you and Batista and it’s one segment… lucky for me, Batista is not just a sweetheart, he’s great and wanted to have a good match. So, I just saw that and I go ‘Oh, this is it.’”

“Instead, we have a really fun match. It was like eight or ten minutes but it was kind of a good match, but he’s going on to a pay-per-view in a world title match, so he definitively beats me, totally get that. But I don’t have to check the wanted ads next Monday.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Ziggler recalled what it was like to cash in the Money in the Bank contract ten years ago on Raw to become the World Heavyweight Title in a moment that many people consider to be the highlight of his WWE career.