this idea belongs to my friend chris who has started watching wrestling again. He hasn't watched since summerslam

Royal Rumble- John Cena defeats Brock Lesnar for the wwe title. However Cena is very tired and beaten down. Seth Rollins comes out, cashes in his MITB and beats Cena for the WWE title.

Later that Night Ziggler wins the royal rumble.

Feb PPV- Seth retains after defeating Cena

WM 31- Ziggler vs Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

He said after SS this year, something like this would make a lot of sense and it seems like it would be unexpected.

Cena isn't winning the 16th championship and tying Flair only to lose it the same night.

Isn't Roman Reigns gonna win the rumble?

Zigman ain't winning shit

They might let him beat Rusev for the United States title but I doubt that even

Then having Ziggler being the sole survivor was just fucking pointless. That huge of a spot shouldn't have went to him then, that spot should have went to someone else that they can use to make a top star out of. Ziggler winning the rumble would capitalize the momentum he is getting.

lol I've thought about this a lot sense and frankly he was chosen because A: the fans know how good he is and B: He had been so entrenched in the midcard that he couldn't possibly steal the spotlight from Triple H and Sting.

He was chosen because he wasn't a threat to Triple H getting the most reaction. If Cena was out there they might have been divided on who they wanted Sting to attack.

So it wasn't a push, it was an acknowledgement that he's been shit on for so long that he's not a threat to the real stars.

^ Sad but true.

All the same, WWE would be foolish not to capitalize on Dolph's current momentum and the reactions he's getting. It seems like they are going to try and keep him high on the card, too, but I would be shocked to see them re-book the Rumble and WrestleMania around it.

What I think is slightly more likely (though also fairly unlikely) is, if Cena loses at TLC, putting Dolph up against Lesnar at the Rumble. Lesnar would wreck Dolph, of course, but Dolph's work would help remind people of the beast Lesnar's supposed to be heading forward to WrestleMania. Then, Dolph can have a solid match with someone (maybe Seth, maybe Rusev, someone high up but not at the top) in the mid-card of WM.

I'd love to see Dolph get a serious run with the WWE title, but right now the spotlight's primed to focus on the ex-Shield members, most specifically Roman. However, I see no reason why Dolph can't have a moment like proposed here in 2016 or 2017.