Naturally, it’s a sports analogy:
If your team lost for years & then caught fire, would you just complain bc they used to always lose, or just enjoy the ride?#SDLive
— Dolph Ziggler (@HEELZiggler) October 3, 2016
The biggest complaint from fans, at least as far as I’ve seen, has been that Ziggler has been booked into the ground so hard for so long that it’s difficult to invest in the story they’re telling now. That story is that he’s putting his career on the line for one last chance at the Intercontinental championship The Miz is currently lugging around.
Where Ziggler’s analogy falls short is the cynicism that comes with rooting for a perennial loser. It’s not that fans don’t enjoy the ride it’s that they’re always anticipating the inevitable return to reality. If you’ve been losing for years, you are a loser. The expectation, then, is that a short winning streak doesn’t represent a reversal of fortune but is, instead, an anomaly.
That doesn’t mean what we’re getting now isn’t good. A win is a win and all that. Ziggler is just misguided in his own complaint about the complaints he’s getting. He’s failing to take into account his own history, the biggest influence for said complaints.
Those complaints, whether he likes it or not, are valid.