Dolph Ziggler was recently a guest on Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia. During the podcast, Ziggler shared the interesting idea that WWE had for him for his WWE debut. This was prior to him joining the Spirit Squad.
Ziggler says that he was almost Kurt Angle’s protegé. Here is what he said (quote below via Wrestling INC):
“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 protegé or something.’
“If Kurt Angle hadn’t won that gold medal and came to WWE I might not have even got a chance. But because he was so good and he did so well when he got here they’re like, ‘maybe we can give some smaller guys a try and because of him I got a chance to work here. And they go, hey maybe we consider you as his protegee and I go, ‘what? This is the craziest thing ever!’ Cut to four weeks later and I’m a cheerleader with four other guys, but still the thought was there that maybe that was gonna happen.”
Would you have preferred Ziggler as Angle’s protegé or did you enjoy his work with the Spirit Squad? Let us know in the comment section.
On a related note, Brian Cage recently revealed what WWE had planned for him before he was released. You can read that here.