sources: www.f4wonline.com, PWInsider.com

— For those keeping track, Dolph Ziggler has taken part in twenty-six Intercontinental title matches at various events (televised and non-televised) within the past few months, losing all but two. He won one match via count-out with another match being ruled a double count-out. Furthermore, he has come up short in retrieving the title on television on seven different occasions including Night of Champions, SummerSlam, Hell in the Cell and four separate episodes of Friday Night SmackDown.

Ziggler was at one point scheduled to win the title from Rey Mysterio over the summer, but the high-flying Superstar vetoed dropping the title to him on more than one occasion. When push came to shove as a result of a 30-day suspension for violating the company’s drug testing policy in early September, Mysterio agreed to drop the title to John Morrison.

Now it appears that the ship has sailed on Ziggler nabbing the gold as WWE officials have reportedly “given up on him.”

On a related noted, Ziggler was voted the “Most Deserving of a Title Shot” among his peers in the “Superstar Survey” taken for the latest issue of WWE Magazine.

— Immediately following next week’s Monday Night Raw broadcast in Baltimore, Maryland, the WWE crew will head to the Middle East to tape the company’s annual Tribute to the Troops show. This year’s show will air as a one-hour special on Saturday, December 19th at 9:00 p.m. on NBC. Due to the trip, next week’s episodes of Friday SmackDown and ECW will be taped this Sunday in Hampton, Virginia.

— Last week’s episode of WWE Superstars on WGN America drew a 1.0 cable rating. The midnight replay scored a 0.25.

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