Ladder Batter

The WWE held their annual “TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs” event on 12/4/16 — the video is available on WWE Network.

My favorite match involved The Miz, dressed in black like an Old School Heel, against suffering Baby-Face, Dolph Ziggler in spectacular silver tights with Old Glory screen-printed down his right leg.

They’re fighting for the Inter-Continental Championship in a Ladder Match.  Tall ladders are set up around the ring for easy access.  The prized belt is suspended from the ceiling about 15 feet in the air.  The only way to win is to disable your opponent so you have time to set up a ladder in the ring, climb up, and retrieve the belt before he knocks you off, grabs your leg, or pulls down the back of your trunks.

Oh yeah, you can also use the ladders as weapons, driving them into your opponent’s face or tying his legs in painful knots around the ladder rungs (see below.)

Miz gives zero fucks about Dolph’s handsome looks.

The match is fairly even until this brutal assault by The Miz.  With Ziggler busy dragging a ladder from under the ring, The Miz swings on the ropes and blasts him in the face with both boots.  They call it a “Cannonball Dropkick” and it looks pretty damn effective and realistic to me, maybe thanks to Ziggler’s talent at selling.

What a boss looking move — Ziggler is a stud.

As the hero, Dolph uses the ladders mostly as a platform to jump off, for example when he delivers this dramatic, perfectly executed Flying Elbow.  If he does try to strike with the ladder, he is ultimately thwarted or the attempt backfires painfully.   The Miz on the other hand is able to use the ladders to bash, pummel, batter, and pound.  This sets a tone of unfair advantage, which I love.

Helplessly trapped, Dolph is repeatedly Trash Compacted.

In this dramatic scene, our Hero is caught in the corner, a ladder placed diagonally across the middle ropes to prevent his escape.

The Miz then repeatedly Drop-Kicks the steel ladder, bashing it into the helpless man’s stomach, chest, and face!  This is so damn brutal looking and unfair, it’s just delicious.

How do they do this without really injuring each other??

Here is a later version of the same Sitting Duck motif: Ziggler trapped in the corner, the ladder propped against his cheek.  The heartless Miz sails across the ring to drive his boots into the unforgiving metal ladder.  These guys are so amazing, able to perform these dangerous stunts on the spot, in front of a live audience, while nearly naked too!

My very favorite move of the whole match was this awesome Figure Four Leglock applied with Ziggler’s right leg WRAPPED AROUND THE BOTTOM RUNG OF THE DAMN LADDER!  Poor Ziggler’s beautiful and patriotic silver tights are being desecrated, the ladder rail pressing painfully against his groin to crush his manhood, his leg torqued at a painful angle!

I want to meet (and spend a long weekend in a hotel with) whoever dreamed up this sexy, sadistic variation of the Miz’s patented finishing hold — which I’m calling the Figure Four Ladder Lock.

Ziggler’s leg is slammed ruthlessly onto the folded ladder.

Here is another classic move, cleverly revised to incorporate a ladder.  The Miz hoists up his opponent by the leg, but instead of dropping his shin across his own thigh as usual, the villain drops that bent leg onto metal!

DAMN — one wrong move and he would’ve broken the poor guy’s ankle — like for real!  The risks they take for us make me appreciate these athletes even more.

Again the villain drops Dolph’s leg onto the hard steel.

This animation is actually just a replay from another angle of the above Leg Meets Ladder maneuver.  But for this article, and in my own fantasies about this match, The Miz actually dropped his opponent’s leg onto the ladder a second time.

Then he did it six or seven more times until our Hero could barely walk.  That relentless re-use of the same painful Leg Breaker makes it seem even hotter.

The commentators keep telling us that this is the last chapter in the feud between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler.  This match settles their beef and the two men will apparently never wrestle again.

But this grudge is HOT and they have great chemistry together!  They are the perfect Bully and Baby-Face.  They’re also from the same city, so they should sustain this feud for like 10 or 15 more years.

Like our politicians, The Miz fights dirty to get what he wants.

Ziggler sets up two ladders to double his chances of reaching the top before being thrown off.  He climbs both ladders, nearly grapsing the prized belt!

But The Miz takes advantage of the gap between Ziggler’s thighs, aiming two big boots right into Dolph’s nuts.  Once again, the hero is thwarted, his efforts to use the ladder turned against him.  May the more brutal man win.

Those boots to the balls are more than Ziggler can handle.  He falls off the ladder clutching his crotch and practicing how to sing soprano, while The Miz easily retrieves his belt and wins the match.  The scene closes with The Miz celebrating his awesomeness, his belt on one shoulder and his woman on the other.   Flaunting his sexual dominance, the victor makes out with his gal while Ziggler is shown down on the floor nursing his ruined baby-makers with only the referee to console him.  What degrading humiliation for Ziggler, forced to watch like a ruined eunuch as the sexually superior Alpha Male makes out right in front of him!