Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins have 30 minutes to prove why they’re the real main event

The Show Stealer versus The Architect in a 30 minute Iron Man Match for the Intercontinental Championship.

Can Seth Rollins win back his title from Dolph Ziggler with Drew McIntyre by his side? Would a Rollins win spark a break up between Ziggler and McIntyre? Will this match prove to Vince that these three men are worth more money than that overgrown baby shark Brock Lesnar?

The story so far

Last month on the June 18 edition of RAW Seth Rollins initiated an open challenge for his Intercontinental Title. Ziggler’s non-music music hit followed by his partner Drew McIntyre and everyone dance around in their seats because oh boy! this meant we were going to finally see Drew McIntyre face off with Seth Rollins. Except SWERVE it’s actually going to be Ziggler versus Rollins.

Once that announcement was made I think everyone just assumed that Rollins would win, but that next week we’d see McIntyre versus Rollins. This felt like a good place for the new partners to focus their energy, but surely if anyone was going to win the title it was going to be the returning Scotsman, right? Wrong!

In a shocking upset Ziggler was able to roll up Seth Rollins (with a little distraction from Mr. McIntyre) and win himself a sixth Intercontinental Championship.

Monday Night Rollins was officially canceled.

The build to Extreme Rules

Every former champion gets a rematch (except you Finn, sorry!) and after his shocking loss Rollins called for his immediately. The rematch between Rollins and Ziggler was FIRE EMOJI. Not only do they have excellent chemistry in the ring, but on top of that the audience was palpably invested in Rollins regaining his IC title.

A series of nearly there pin-falls and one beautiful frog splash later it seemed like Rollins was going to win this one and he did...except it was by disqualification because McIntyre pulled the ref out of the ring and beat up Rollins. But never fear, Roman is here!

Before the July 2 taping of RAW it was announced via Twitter that Ziggler and Rollins would face each other one-on-one in a 30 minute Iron Man match. But before Rollins could focus all of his energy on Ziggler, he had a tag team match to prep for.

Following the previous week’s disqualification, Roman and Rollins teamed up on for a mini SHEILD reunion (Miss you Dean!) to take on this dastardly duo. But when you team with Roman you get all his baggage and their match was also ruled a disqualification due to a run in by The Revival.

The go home show

Seth Rollins doesn’t like his new nickname of “former Intercontinental Champion”. The way he sees it Ziggler is good, but has only been able to retain the title because of his partner, that overgrown Scottish wookie. Rollins called out Ziggler and McIntyre in an in-ring promo to which the duo responded.

But they don’t call him The Architect for nothing. Rollins used his calm attitude and let’s just say questionable comedy skills to lure Drew McIntyre into a fight. Hoping to eliminate McIntyre as a threat on the PPV, Kurt Angle set the stipulation that if McIntyre lost to Rollins than he would be banned from ringside at Extreme Rules.

McIntyre and Rollins main evented the go home show and reminded the audience what a real main event caliber match looks like. These two are at the top of their game and it shows. McIntyre has only been back on the main roster in WWE for a short amount of time and while he has been effective in his partnership with Ziggler, he really got to shine in the match. Monday Night Rollins vs Main Event McIntyre is definitely a feud worth building to post Extreme Rules.

Now, teamwork goes both ways and as much as McIntyre helped Ziggler, Ziggler helped McIntyre. With a few well placed run ins and one nasty curb stomp later, Drew was able to hit the distracted Rollins with a claymore and pin Rollins, 1-2-3. Sorry Seth, but looks like you’ll be fighting both Dolph and Drew.

Tonight Ziggler and Rollins will have 30 minutes to rack up the most number of pin-falls to win the IC title. Sure McIntyre will get involved, but will Seth be able to take McIntyre out so he can focus on Ziggler? Or will McIntyre and Ziggler’s strategy of shenanigans prove too much for The Architect on his own?

Tune into cSs for full bell-to-bell coverage of Extreme Rules this Sunday starting at 6:00 p.m. ET with the Kickoff show leading right on into the main card at 7:00 p.m. ET.