Dolph Ziggler Vs Alberto Del Rio (WWE Payback 16/6/2013)

We all have dark thoughts. We all have demons. Demons that will encourage you to indulge in toxic and self destructive behaviors. To fall on old vices and return to old flames that we know will burn us.

So anyway recently,as I've found myself watching more and more old wrestling I've had the thought "hey,you should watch that Alberto Del Rio vs Dolph Ziggler match from 2013 that no one talks about,I bet it fucks" stuck in my head. Probably because my 16/17 year old self adored it.

In most cases teenage Chris is an idiot. Not in an obnoxious way but instead a way that all teenagers are dumb. If you happen to be a teenager reading this I didn't mean to insult you, I promise you'll get smarter.

So anyway, because teenage Chris is normally such a dumbass I ignored this impulse the same way I'd ignore the impulse to throw my phone off a bridge. Like, it's an Alberto Del Rio match. Aside from being a scum bag he's not a wrestler that does much for me. He was fine, a good warm body but the phrase "oh boy that Albert Del Rio match was great" is a phrase so rare that it has no search results on Google….I assume.

But in a stunning turn of events,it turns out teenage Chris was right for once. This match is immaculate.

First of all a bit of context, this match had one job, make Dolph a face and Alberto a heel. This was a weird time in history where WWE made Alberto a face, this kinda sorta worked going into mania as he feuded with Jack Swagger and his racist Uncle but once he butted heads with Ziggler, who was positioned as a heel but was super over to the point where keeping him as a bad guy was a dumb thing to do.

Del Rio lost the title to Ziggler when he cashed in his Money in the Bank brief case. He exploited the injured leg of ADR in order to get the Zig Zag and the title.

Swagger would go on to concus Ziggler because he's a big oaf, leading to the champion missing 5 weeks of action and for his sins Swagger would lose to Del Rio in a number one contenders match.

Anyway onto the match, it starts like any pedestrian mid card title match, with the lads running the ropes, but then Del Rio head butt's Ziggler in the corner and that sets up the rest of the match where Del Rio keeps going after the head of the recently concussed Ziggler. Even moves that don't overtly target the head like a back suplex land like they hurt Ziggler's head. Dolphis selling his ass off, making fairly simple kicks feel like death blows. He is great at drawing sympathy from a crowd that wasn't into this match when it started (you could hear "RVD" chants from the start). But he draws them back, with all of his little hope spots making you belive he'll overcome. His fighting spirit here is great, with him always trying to refuse the refs help, desperately trying to stay in the fight and keep his title.

I'd like to take a moment and applaud the work of Dolphs seconds in this match, Big E Langston and AJ Lee. The way they sell the trouble Dolph is in was just right. Big E trying to step in for Dolph was just the right amount of Stoic and Concerned and AJ was a highlight here. Her concern was noticeable throughout the match and the screams she let out during some of the meaner kicks felt involuntary. Adding to the sincerity of this match. Seconds selling stuff like this can easily descend into distracting melodrama (see Cody trying to throw in the towel during the Okada/Omega Dominion match as a key example) but the performance of both Big E and AJ do nothing but enhance the story of the match without stealing focus.

I'm in two minds about Del Rios performance here. I described him as a good warm body earlier in this piece and honestly that kind or describes him here. Anyone could be delivering this beating as the key to the match is Dolph and on a mechanical level he's definitely not the best man for the job. Say what you want about Del Rio but his mean strikes aren't really a strength.

At the same time though, he's so hateable that it was the easiest thing in the world to turn him. He never really worked as a face. There's an incenserity to him as a good guy on so many levels. Beyond him being a shitty person his character in WWE is "I'm rich". A hard gimmick to make work as a babyface. In early 2013 WWE I don't think there's another guy Ziggler could have this match with. The booking success of this match is undeniable, mechanically Del Rio is a warm body but that dosen’t matter, Because he was the perfect warm body for the job.

His motivation is also very understandable. Ziggler exploited an Injury to win the title and he's doing the same. In his mind there's no difference. I think that small nugget helps the heel turn. He dosen’t cheat or anything, he just crosses a line he didn't think was there. There's a misconception that being an understandable bad guy means you need to be right some how. This isn't the case. For example, heel Ric Flair was motivated by money and power, an understandable motivation that you root against when paired with someone more earnest like Ricky Steamboat. You fully understand how Del Rio got from A to B here, but there's a marked difference between exploiting an injured leg and trying to cave the head in of someone who just recovered from a concussion.

The biggest flaw of this match is the fact the Fed didn't follow this through. Ziggler became an afterthought booking wise very quickly. He would have moments of brilliance, most notably in 2014 against The Authority and in 2016 where he made a multi month series with The Miz work, but he was never allowed to capitalize on the forward momentum this match could have afforded him.

Del Rio kept being given opportunities and failing. This was his peak, being the fourth most interesting wrestler in a singles match. But hey, you can say he was involved in a near perfect match I guess.