Vince McMahon Punished Ex-WWE Writer For Criticizing Dolph Ziggler’s Name

Dolph Ziggler has been a mainstay on WWE television since signing with the company in 2004. The Showoff has accomplished a lot in WWE, but it was a very long and arduous road for him. Now it appears that an ex-WWE writer was punished by Vince McMahon over Dolph Ziggler’s name.

Dolph Ziggler is a two-time World Heavyweight Champion, having won the title back in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Unfortunately, he was never seen in the main event title picture after 2013, much to the dismay of fans. In recent memory, he had a shorter run with the NXT Title.

Dolph Ziggler was initially introduced as Nicky as part of the Spirit Squad. Prior to that, he was the golf caddy of Kerwin White/Chavo Guerrero. It wasn’t until 2008 that fans were properly introduced to him as Dolph Ziggler.

While speaking to Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. recalled standing up to Vince McMahon over Dolph Ziggler’s name and criticizing it. Due to this, he was punished by the WWE Chairman.

“Dolph’s the man, dude. I had to direct the very first Dolph Ziggler segment ever, the first three actually when he was just coming up… [When he’s like] ‘Hi I am Dolph Ziggler’ and Jamie Noble’s like, ‘I know your name,’ We were just trying to do anything we could to make this not suck because I’ve fought against this idea so much that Vince made me do it. They were like, ‘What are we going to name him?’ So they said, ‘Dirk Diggler’ and Vince was like, ‘That’s great’ and I stood up and I’m looking at the guy who pitched it. I’m like, ‘Dude, we’re gonna get sued. It’s from Boogie Nights, you can’t do that. Why can’t we just give him a normal name? Why does it have to be goofy?’

Then they were throwing all these names out there, [Somone said] ‘Well he looks like Dolph Lundgren,’ and he’s like, ‘What about Dolph Ziggler?’ I literally was like, ‘We’re NOT doing Dolph Ziggler.’ I think this guy DJ had my back too and was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t love that.’ I fought so hard and Vince was like, ‘All right, it’s Dolph Ziggler.’ He goes, ‘Freddy, you’re gonna handle that segment,’ and I looked at him, I was like, ‘What kind of middle finger is that? Just tell me to fuck off. Why would you do this?’ So I went to him [Dolph], and I think it was either me or Freebird [Michael Hayes] that broke the name to him, and he was just like, ‘huh…okay.’ He just went for it man, the same way he goes for it in the ring. He committed right away. He knew it was crap and people hated it, till they loved it. It was very reminiscent of The New Day. People hated The New Day and the same chant that was, ‘you suck’ became ‘oh my God, we love you guys’ and they became… and it was the work on the mic and the work in the ring that got those guys over.

In Dolph’s case, it was his work in the ring and then his mic work, which developed about a decade into his career where all of a sudden you were like, here we go, here we go, career vs. Miz, let’s do this. Those promos were top-shelf. I remember that storyline, and I shouldn’t, but I do, you know what I mean? That’s how good those guys were in that. I genuinely thought he was going to lose and that was going to be it, and he was going to retire from wrestling. I mean that’s how well he made me believe it, but I was there when they conceived the name, fought against it and was punished for my efforts.”

Dolph Ziggler also challenged Conor McGregor to a best-of-three series. Only time will tell whether WWE will end up having anything worthwhile planned for Dolph Ziggler in the near future.

What’s your view on what Freddie Prinze Jr. said? Are you surprised by it? Sound off in the comments!