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Throughout Dolph Ziggler’s time in WWE, he has had a number of scripted on-screen relationships with a variety of women. All of these relationships have actually had a very significant impact on Ziggler's career and helped slowly push him closer to the top.
So let’s take a look now and analyse the influence of Ziggler's multiple on-screen relationships.
Maria
Ziggler's first on-screen relationship was with former WWE diva Maria Kanellis. Maria began accompanying Ziggler to the ring as his valet while Ziggler chased the Intercontinental championship although ultimately lost to then-champ Rey Mysterio.
Ziggler, with Maria still by his side, entered into a feud with John Morrison after Morrison defeated Mysterio for the IC title.
The scripted relationship between Maria/Ziggler ended on an episode of Smackdown when Ziggler blamed Maria for a loss against Morrison. However Ziggler and Maria have actually still remained fairly close friends in real life.
Their on-screen relationship didn’t essentially result in much though for either competitor.
Vickie Guerrero
Soon after, on the 10th of June, Ziggler began a new romantic relationship with none other than Vickie Guerrero. Only a few months later, with Vickie’s support at ringside, Ziggler was able to capture the IC title for the first time, defeating Kofi Kingston.
Ziggler would go on to have a five month reign with Vickie by his side and on the same night he lost the title he would go on to win a number one contenders match for the World Heavyweight Championship. Despite losing to Edge, he would go on to deliver an amazing performance that helped push his career forward thanks to Vickie’s influence.
At one point in his feud with Edge, Vickie even awarded Ziggler the championship, thus marking his first ever World title reign which also officially made him a triple crown champion even if his reign only lasted 11 minutes and 23 seconds.
Ziggler would continue his relationship with Vickie Guerrero for quite some time and achieved varying degrees of success including a United States title reign. However the greatest moment in his career to date, with Vickie still providing support, was when he won the Money in the Bank briefcase.
The long on-screen relationship between Ziggler/Vickie ultimately begun to deteriorate when AJ got involved leading directly into a new scripted relationship.
Vickie’s relationship was extremely influential on Dolph’s career and really helped push him to another level.
AJ Lee
At TLC, Ziggler has another career defining moment when he defended his MITB contract against ‘Superman’ himself-John Cena, in a ladder match. The moment of truth came however when AJ Lee turned on Cena by shoving him off the ladder thus helping Ziggler win and beginning a new on-screen relationship for Ziggler.
The scripted relationship between Ziggler/AJ also led to the formation of a new stable which included powerhouse Big E Langston. This new interesting stable showed a lot of extreme promise. Big E and Ziggler teamed up in Big E’s official main roster debut at Wrestlemania 29 with AJ at ringside however they lost to the tag team champs Daniel Bryan/Kane.
The biggest moment in Ziggler’s career came the night after on Raw when he cashed in his MITB briefcase on Del Rio to capture the world title to a standing ovation. The future looked bright as Ziggler, AJ and Big E all embraced as the crowd went wild. However, an ill-timed concussion would derail his momentum.
Upon his return, he lost the world title to Del Rio. In their rematch, AJ inadvertently cost Ziggler the championship by cause him to win by DQ. This lead to their scripted break up and a brief feud between AJ/Big E and Dolph/Kaitlyn.
The on-screen relationship between AJ/Ziggler may have been relatively short but was still just as important for both AJ Lee and Ziggler’s career as the Vickie/Ziggler relationship was.
Lana
The most recent scripted relationship that appears to be brewing is with the ravishing Russian Lana. Since his split from AJ, Dolph has remained solo. However following the split with Rusev, Lana confronted Ziggler, kissing him twice and seeming to form a new relationship.
The extent to this new pairing is still very much in question as even Ziggler himself acknowledge that he believes she is just using him to make Rusev jealous. Also, now that Rusev may be seriously injured, it will be even more interesting to see where this new potential relationship leads.
In the time following the AJ break up when Ziggler was solo, he achieved a varying amount of success. There was one stage where he got stuck in a severe slump and appeared destined to forever remain a jobber. However he managed to climb out of the abyss having multiple prosperous IC title reigns and even became the sole survivor in the Survivor Series match for a second time, putting The Authority out of power.
Ziggler now finds himself again in a dangerous position where he is close to becoming irrelevant without a meaningful storyline. However, this new pairing with Lana could be just what both performers need to further advance their respective careers.
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