Dolph Ziggler on Considering Retirement, Changing His Attitude

Between his match with Goldberg at SummerSlam and his DZ and Friends comedy event at the Rec Room in Toronto on Saturday night, Dolph Ziggler has a busy weekend ahead of him.

But before all of that gets underway, the former World Heavyweight Champion sat down with ComicBook.com to give thoughts on everything from his career’s future to the Cleveland Browns’ upcoming season.

ComicBook.com: We didn’t see you there for a couple months with your hiatus, and I know some fans began to wonder whether or not you had stepped away from the ring for good. Was that ever on the table or did you always plan on coming back?

Dolph Ziggler: I’ve been contemplating that off and on for a couple of years, but it’s the weirdest thing. I’ve been so crazily lucky, injury-wise, that I haven’t ever had to go away for a long time at any point to rehab or fix a shoulder or knee or something worse. But at some point in the last maybe four or five years, I’ve been asking to go away just for a few months, just so you didn’t see me on TV every single week for many years in a row without a break.

So I asked for a few years, if every once in a while, once everything was settled, there was no injuries, that I could disappear for a little bit and come back. Just so that everyone forgets the mask that I put on or see me every day, and I got a point to where I had to go away. And I debated, should it be for good? Should it be for a year? Should it be for a few months? And I remembered, I’ve been very fortunate without injuries that I really need to take advantage and wrestle while I can, because I’m going to miss it so damn much when I can’t. So I got a few months out of it.

What drives you at this point in your career?

Well, the same thing that drove me when I first started wrestling. I love it, and you don’t want to not do it, and you get to a point where, ‘Hey man, I’ve lost 95 out of 100 matches. This is a real bummer. Maybe I need to leave.’ But you know that this isn’t opinion. I’m awesome at my job. If fans get mad that I’m around too much, okay. If fans get mad that I lose too much, fair. But to debate how good I am at my job is pretty embarrassing at this point. We’re 14 years in, being one of the best performers in the last 14 years. So I love it. I live for it. And even that time I had off, I hated every day that I wasn’t there. I hated it. And I’m not just saying that. I hated not being on the road, not doing what I love, not performing.

During a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet you mentioned how it had been a few years since you were the “angry guy” who was upset about his spot, but then hinted that wasn’t you so much anymore When did that change happen?

Yeah, because you reach a point where you know, no matter how many people get hurt, no matter how many opportunities you get, no matter what happens, no matter what A-plus-plus [rating] you get, that you know you have a 99% chance of never becoming world champion. And it kills me every day. But that 1% chance is the reason I keep going to work and go, I can give them an A-plus match today and phone it in a little bit. But I can’t, I won’t, I can’t allow myself to do it. You can get those doubts in your head, and you go “no”. I owe it to the fans. I owe it to the people who paid to come here. I have a job to do, and only I can do it the way I can, and I will do it the way I can better than anyone else until I can’t anymore.

So I did the things where I would come to mat and throw a case of water, or say “follow that”, or say “damn, I’m over”, or say anything like that. I’d dare the main event in the next match to follow what I did, and at a point they can’t, and they realize it, and then it becomes so normal that you don’t want to do it anymore, because it messes with your head even more. So you go, ‘Listen, I’m going to come here, I’m going to do my job, I’m going to crush it, and you’re going to have to live with the fact that I’m not the main event.’

Would you ever consider moving to a part-time schedule?

If WWE told me tomorrow, ‘We don’t want your services around here anymore except for a couple of months a year,’ I’d have to think long and hard about it, because I would hate to not be around full-time. But I know that that is a thing that exists, and I know that it’s still something that could answer if you’re salivating over being in a ring and that’s the way to do it. It would crush me, because it wasn’t on my terms, and I would do 300 live events a year for the rest of my life if I could.

If they brought that forth to me, it would crush my soul. But, I’d have to weigh the options out of never wrestling or wrestling a couple times a year and see where I stood.

Let’s talk a little Cleveland Browns — what record do they need to finish with for you to consider the season a success?

We had expectations before the rest of the world started having expectations. I mean, the fact that this is the most anticipated season of the year where we knew we were going to go 0-16, or 1-15, and we still looked forward to the season because that’s how die-hard fans we are for the last 40 years. The fan base has been so loyal that it’s going to be weird. We’re weird. Everyone’s like, ‘Hey, the Browns are going to be good this year.’ I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ We’re not ready for it, but we’re excited, and I think anything over 8- 8 makes us go, ‘That is a [season] because it goes from one win, then no wins, then four wins, and six wins. We know how rebuilding works, we know how that stuff works. I mean,we’re very excited.

Along with SummerSlam and his comedy show, Ziggler will also take place in WWE’s meet and greets with fans in Toronto on Aug. 9-11.