“You Got to Punch Me” – Dolph Ziggler Recalls Advising Hugh Jackman Ahead of WWE Appearance

WWE is scripted, but the punches and kicks are quite real, if not all the way. However, some of the punches are quite hard, and Dolph Ziggler explained that these real ones are planned as well.

While in conversation with Ryan Satin, he explained that when Hugh Jackman arrived at WWE in September 2011, he suggested Jackman punch him as hard as he could, right on his jaw. In the match in question, Jackman was in Zack Ryder’s corner in his match against Ziggler.

“We figured it out where he’s going to — I see him there, he’s got Broski’s headband on. And he’s going to punch me in the face. He goes, ‘so what do we do? I kind of swing by you?’ I go, ‘if you don’t punch me in the face as hard as you can, I’m going to get fired and I’m coming after you.”

“We have 500 cameras out there and a world watching. You got to punch me because we got enough people saying this stuff’s phony, anyways. You got to freaking hit me and make this count.’ I go, ‘don’t worry, you can see by the jaw I can take a freaking punch.’”

However, Dolph Ziggler wasn’t sure if Hugh Jackman would actually go through with it. In fact, right before stepping out to the ring, Ziggler confirmed if Jackman was ready to execute the plan.

“Right before we went out I said one last time, ‘listen man if you’re going to halfway do it or miss, let’s switch this right now because I need you to punch me in the face with my hands down and my head [extends neck forward].’ He goes, ‘I promise you I won’t let you down,’ and he cracked me in the face pretty damn hard. It was great.”

Dolph Ziggler explained how the idea came to be

The former WWE SmackDown Tag Team champion provided an insight into the type of individual Hugh Jackman is.

He revealed it was the Hollywood star who wanted to do something which would make it much more interesting.

“Backstage, he’s a sweetheart guy. He was so nice and he was a fan, he remembered Brooklyn Brawler coming to a show when he was a kid. He remembered a bunch of different things, he was like, ‘how can we make this awesome?’ Again, that is rare. You could be bringing up someone else and I’d be like, ‘that was okay.’ This guy wanted to make this amazing. He didn’t have to. There were no rules for him. He could do whatever he wanted.”

Currently, Dolph Ziggler is in a tag team with Robert Roode, and recently lost the SmackDown tag team championship titles to Rey and Dominik Mysterio.

Read More: Rey Mysterio and Son Dominik Make History at WWE WrestleMania Backlash 2021

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