In the past year or so, the United States Championship has become something that has seen a number of open challenges thanks to John Cena. Now, it appears as if the “open challenge” deal is moving to the Intercontinental title as well. Recently, current title holder Dolph Ziggler decided to issue an open challenge for Survivor Series in which anyone on the Monday Night Raw roster could accept.
Now, there is an update on just who may step up to oppose Ziggler at the pay-per-view in two weeks, and it’s an interesting one.
Last month, at No Mercy , Dolph Ziggler won his fifth Intercontinental title by defeating The Miz in a “Title vs. Career Match.” Now, The Miz has been feuding with Ziggler on SmackDown , but he keeps acting as if he is too good for the champ and that has led to him being left out in the cold.
As recapped by the official website of WWE, Ziggler started an Intercontinental Championship Open Challenge this week on SmackDown Live . The challenge was first answered by a returning Curt Hawkins, who ended up being defeated in rather quick fashion.
The Miz, who was at ringside for the match, refused his title rematch last week and Ziggler now says he will have to wait. At that point, Ziggler issued the open challenge for the Intercontinental title at Survivor Series and said anyone from Monday Night Raw can accept and go after his belt.
At that point, all of the fans began wondering who was going to step up and accept the challenge. The thing is, even Ziggler and other superstars on both shows wondered who would step up to the plate and go after the Intercontinental title.
It looks as if WWE is going to keep the suspense going for this match as they aren’t going to let anyone know. Well, at least for a while. WrestleZone is reporting that WWE has announced that no one will know who Ziggler’s opponent is going to be until the actual night of the Survivor Series, so they can’t be prepared for it.
With the three elimination-style tag team matches on the card for the PPV, it appears as if Ziggler wants to keep the trend of brand supremacy battles going. While there is no real way of knowing who he will fact off against, it’s easy to figure out who he won’t be facing and it is any of those already on the card in the tag matches.
The current card for Survivor Series is as follows:
- Men’s Elimination Tag Team Match: Raw vs. SmackDown Live
- Women’s Elimination Tag Team Match: Raw vs. SmackDown Live
- Tag Teams Elimination Match: Raw vs. SmackDown Live
- Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar
- Dolph Ziggler’s Intercontinental Title Open Challenge
The match is officially on the card and makes for five total so far. More matches are going to have to be added to the card, as Survivor Series has been extended to four hours in 2016 and there’s no way that even the traditional elimination-style tag bouts could cover that much time.
#WWE #SurvivorSeries 2016 – Intercontinental Championship Open Challenge
Dolph Ziggler © VS?? (RAW) pic.twitter.com/NbEndctckI
— Catch_Lutte (@Catch_Lutte) November 3, 2016
Dolph Ziggler has been at the top of his game and in the main event scene over the past year, while also being buried time and time again. Now, he’s one of the top stars on SmackDown Live as the Intercontinental Champion and his open challenge to anyone on Monday Night Raw is a huge storyline. WWE is making sure that this match gets a lot of attention and excitement, though, and that’s why they are keeping the identity of his opponent secret until Survivor Series .
[Featured Image by WWE]