Today was a rollercoaster ride for WWE fans, as the day began with news of SmackDown’s move from FOX to USA Network and WWE’s return to Australia before the day soured with a number of WWE talents released from their contracts. Talents from Raw, SmackDown, and NXT were released throughout the day, and one of the most surprising names on the list was Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler has been part of WWE for the past 19 years and has created a bevy of memorable moments throughout his WWE career. You a count The Rock as a fan too, as Dwayne Johnson took to Twitter after hearing of the releases and highlighted Ziggler’s accomplishments while wishing everyone affected by today’s cuts well.
On Twitter, The Rock wrote, “Just seeing all these releases now. These days so f’n tough for the ones who gave their all to our crazy world of pro wrestling. Like @HEELZiggler. What a decorated @WWE career and I’ll always be a supporter and fan. Can’t wait to see what he (and everyone) does next… #onward”
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Some of the stars affected by today’s releases include Ziggler, Dana Brooke, Shelton Benjamin, Rick Boogs, Emma, Mustafa Ali, Dabba Kato, and more. We wish those who were affected by the releases today well and we hope to see them all flourish in their next chapter, wherever that may be.
Ziggler has quite the list of accomplishments (via Sportskeeda), including having the 3rd most matches on WWE TV with 1554. Ziggler is also a two-time World Heavyweight Champion, one-time NXT Champion, six-time Intercontinental Champion, two-time United States Champion, four-time Tag Team Champion, and one-time Money in the Bank winner, a win that led to what might go down as the greatest cash in ever in WWE history.
As for The Rock, he recently made his return to WWE SmackDown last week, but he also got fans buzzing by revealing that he was at one point locked in to appear at WrestleMania 39. Not only was he going to be involved with the show, but according to The Rock he was locked in to face Roman Reigns there. The Rock spoke with Pat McAfee on why that didn’t end up happening.
“The Rock headlining WrestleMania with Roman Reigns, SoFi Stadium, that was locked. We were doing it,” Rock said. “In the beginning of 2022, (WWE CEO) Nick Khan was very instrumental in bringing Vince and I together. We all flew to LA. We met. We sat. We broke out the Teremana, and about an hour later we started talking about the potential of what this match could be. Myself and Roman Reigns headlining WrestleMania at SoFi. We shook hands and we hugged right there and said, ‘Let’s do this.’”
“The north star thought was let’s not do something good, let’s not do something great, let’s do something unprecedented. A match? Great. Roman’s an incredible athlete. He’s going to be on Mount Rushmore. The bigger thought was what can we do for the fans where WrestleMania isn’t the end of something, it’s actually the beginning of something bigger. We got really, really close but we couldn’t actually nail what that thing was. We agreed, there is a merger coming up, there’s WrestleMania in Philadelphia,” Rock said. “I’m saying that’s a potential. I’m open. Let’s figure out what that is.”
