Speaking in a new interview, Dolph Ziggler has moved to praise his tag team partner in crime Robert Roode.
Ziggler and Roode first came together as a team in August 2019 on an episode of Monday Night RAW. The duo tasted success immediately as they earned a shot at the RAW Tag Team Titles which they duly won.
In more recent times, the Dirty Dawgs have found a home on SmackDown following the draft in October 2020. Again, the team quickly rose to the top of the tag team ranks on the blue brand. Ziggler and Roode won the Tag Team Titles the following January.
Before he arrived in NXT in 2016, Roode established himself as a mainstay of TNA. While he also won the world championship, Roode became known as a hugely proficient tag team wrestler, winning the TNA Tag Team Titles on six occasions.
In conversation with Ryan Satin on his Out Of Character podcast, Ziggler described his ‘glorious’ partner as “the me of other promotions.”
“I love talking great about myself, but for the time being, Robert Roode also,” Ziggler said. “Holy cow! I feel like he was the me of other companies. Putting it all in his hands, knowing what to do. In a pinch going, ‘This has all changed now. You have 10 seconds,’ and he is a true freaking pro!
“There’s two of us that are really good at this, so it’s really helpful to the rest of the tag team division.”
Earlier in the conversation Dolph Ziggler discussed his new found status as an elder statesman of WWE. Ziggler has been with the company for 15 years, meaning he’s now in a position to pass on his experience to Superstars such as The Street Profits and Dominik Mysterio. The former world champion lifted the lid on his new status.
“Screw all of them, they’re not taking my spot,” he jokingly answered when asked if he enjoys passing that veteran wisdom along. “I’ll give you that answer just like I would say to them backstage, but also go, once the joke was over, I love passing that on. I really do.
“There’s no reason to be a negative bitter A-hole and then not give back to everybody else. I know what I’m doing better than almost everybody in the business, and I can give out lessons — maybe they take it, maybe they don’t — but being in the ring with Street Profits, Dominik [Mysterio], it’s so fun to know that you’re helping and not trying to sabotage.
“If we go to the back, Vince ain’t yelling at Dominik for screwing up. It was me. I screwed up because this is in my hands, which I have waited my whole life, ’til about five years ago, for everything to be in my hands, and I work for it and prove it. So I love when it’s all on me to make everything special.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Ziggler discussed his time with the Spirit Squad and his relationship with Vince McMahon.
Ziggler and Roode were most recently in action at WrestleMania Backlash. However, despite their best efforts they lost the SmackDown Tag Team Titles to Rey and Dominik Mysterio.