Supremely confident Dolph Ziggler ready to be top man in WWE

WWE superstar Dolph Ziggler has a chip on his shoulder.

As a matter of fact, it's more like a boulder.

He's carried it from his days growing up in Cleveland, to his days breaking records as a collegiate wrestler at Kent State and until now as the current WWE Intercontinental Champion.

That boulder-sized chip on his shoulder helps him believe that he is the very best the wrestling business has to offer in and out of the ring.

Ziggler (real name Nick Nemeth) is not alone in his belief. Fans on social media tell him how great he is on a daily basis. His peers praise him after getting first-hand looks into his talents at every WWE show.

All of this would usually make someone arrogant, cocky. That may be the case when it comes to Ziggler. But as he sees it, it's all merely fact.

"I get a lot of it from legends, I get a lot of it from my peers backstage, I get a lot of it from my bosses backstage," Ziggler said during an interview with philly.com. "People recognize when someone is awesome at something and I'm not going to pretend to be humble about it. I'm very vocal about it. I'm good at this. I'm real good and one day when I finish I may be the best ever, but right now, everyone talking in my ear is just fun."

Being praised on a regular basis can be embarrassing for some, but not Ziggler.

"You might have to ask Michael Jordan if he got tired of being called the greatest ever after every game," he said. "I'm sure you don't get tired of it. If you're being told everyday that you're the worst ever, maybe that could affect someone's psyche, but I don't have feelings like other people. All I have is a chip on my shoulder that says that I want to be the best."

His resume is just as impressive as his in-ring ability. Besides being the reigning Intercontinental Champion, he is a former World Heavyweight and United States Champion. He's also a former Money in the Bank winner.

Despite boasting a sparkling resume, and having adulation of the fans and the respect of his peers, Ziggler isn't quite a main-event player in the WWE.

Sure, Ziggler has had his moments at the top of the card, but he has yet to make a consistent home for himself in the main event after nearly a decade with the company.

As for the reasons why someone with so much obvious talent hasn't quite made it to the highest level of the industry, no one really knows. No one outside of the WWE brain trust at least. Whatever the reason, Ziggler isn't quite there.

It's not for a lack of desire. Ziggler is not short on that. He wants nothing more than to be the center of attention. In fact, he thrives on it.

It's not a matter of complacency. Ziggler is a perfectionist. He routinely tears the house down with his matches, but rarely takes time to enjoy them afterward.

More often than not, he's picking a part all of the things he believed he did wrong in the ring, for that one wrong thing could be what's holding him back from being at the top of the proverbial wrestling mountain.

"It's good and its bad," Ziggler said. "Sometimes it sucks that people have to wait for years of having the best match on the card, getting some of the best reactions and you're not at the top."

"Sometimes, that doesn't matter," he added. "It doesn't matter about talent, it doesn't matter the situation. It matters where the storyline is going."

He'll more than likely do the same thing Oct. 7, after the WWE rolls into the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia for a taping of Smackdown.

"[Philadelphia is a] hell of a wrestling town. I love that place," Ziggler said.

"I love those fans that are hardcore fans just like I was," he added.

A man with such passion for his profession has to have something that keeps him motivated. For Ziggler at the moment, that is bringing the Intercontinental title back to its stature of yesteryear.

It wasn't that long ago when the Intercontinental title was seen as stepping stone to the WWE Championship. Not only was it a steppingstone but also it was usually handed to the hardest working in-ring performer in the company.

The title has lost some of its luster in recent years for a variety of reasons, but Ziggler is set on returning to its once illustrious place in the business.

"It is not there yet," he said. "I feel like I have an opportunity to have it somewhere near where it was. It used to be a stepping stone of, 'This guy is getting great reactions, this guy is putting on a show every night.'"

"Right now, that is not the case, but hopefully it will be in due time " he added. "People were complaining that the title wasn't prestigious enough are now the same people are now complaining that in three weeks I've defended six times. You can't have both, but I love it. I live for it. I live to fight every single day and outdo myself."

"Hopefully, with the passion that I have and that the fans have toward this title we could get there, but it's going to take some time."

Ziggler expects a lot of himself and whether he should or not, places a lot of pressure on his shoulders.

But those shoulders bear the boulder-sized chip that he's been carrying around for years. If those shoulders can carry that, they can probably handle anything.

WWE joins the fight against breast cancer

The month of October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the entire country will be donning pink in commemoration of the fight against the disease.

For the third year in a row, the WWE is partnering up with Susan G. Komen in raising awareness of the ailment.

Ziggler, a man who wears pink on a regular basis, is proud that WWE is fighting for such a good cause.

"We're not just a part of this," he said. "We're trying to be the leaders and trying to get the word out as much as possible and that's something the WWE has always been great about."