I think Ziggler has all the skills and talents needed to be a decent champion. It’s really up to the WWE to give him the right storyline and push. His main problem is being relatively small in modern wrestling, so he needs very flashy moves or great style on the mike to overcome a lack of power moves. Winning with sleeper holds won’t go over to well. He needs a good finishing sequence, not just a finishing move. That’s what worked for both Flair and HBK.
Eh, overall in the old days there was more of a “make yourself look better by making sure your opponent is seen as very good, so that you’re that much better for beating him” attitude than there is today, but still, from my memories of watching World Class back in the day, rarely was Flair truly on the level of whatever Von Eirch he was facing and the crowd knew it.
As for doing his own cheating, while he may normally have left his women back in the limo, he did have his own little group of helpers…
I would argue about Ziggler being too small in modern wrestling. I really became a fan in the early 90s when smaller wrestlers started taking over and showing fantastic skills, as opposed to the giants from the 80s just man handling each other. The best wrestlers have mostly been smaller, like HBK, Bret, Benoit, Angle, Jericho, Bryan, etc.
Eggs-ackerly. Great crowd-puller. It also worked for the Honky-Tonk man - that’s why he was the longest-running Intercontinental Champ in WWF. He’d go to a city, face the Home-town hero, win by cheating (via either Jimmy Hart’s megaphone, or the guitar) - and move onto the next town - which had been having weeks of publicity about how Their Hero was going to beat the dastardly villain, cheers, cheers.
There would be pre-fight advertising about how Local Hero was fighting HTM for the I/C belt weeks in advance - despite the fact in the meantime, HTM was booked to have a fight nearly every night where he could potentially lose the belt.