Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler was recently interviewed by Lillian Garcia on the podcast Chasing Glory With Lillian Garcia where he revealed the interesting plans that the WWE had laid out for him before his eventual inclusion in the Spirit Squad.
Ziggler stated that he was supposed to be Kurt Angle’s protegee, here’s what The Showoff had to add regarding the WWE’s vision for the same. Ziggler said:
“A little before I got called up to do the Spirit Squad I was told by the in-between when you’re hearing you’re gonna get called up to WWE, the main roster. They were like, ‘hey they really like that you have an amateur wrestling background’ and I had my crew cut, my military haircut. They go, ‘it’s great that you have no tattoos, we’re kinda looking at you as Kurt Angle’s protegee or something.’
The plan, however, did not go as planned to Ziggler’s dismay, as he found himself being a part of the Spirit Squad, which was seen as a joke. Ziggler added:
“It just became a rotating cast of legends. It was like Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, Ric Flair and it never ended and it was like, ‘Woah.’ We were learning stuff that other people didn’t get a chance to learn like on a regular basis we were very spoiled. We were kinda seen as jokes but also we were fighting DX in the main event of a pay-per-view in a cage or something.”
H/T to WrestlingInc for the transcription
