As noted before, the main reason that WWE selected Dolph Ziggler to make it all the way to the World Cup finals is due to the fact that he was lowest on the “pecking order” among the competitors in the tournament on the Raw side. WWE had to pick someone who was would be unaffected by being squashed by Shane McMahon in a matter of minutes and Ziggler was the only one who made sense out of him, Bobby Lashey, Seth Rollins and Kurt Angle.
On the Smackdown side, the same strategy was used as The Miz was picked as a finalist as he was the only one of the four on the Smackdown side that WWE felt comfortable as backing out due to an injury. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the company doesn’t like their babyfaces to show that sort of weakness and they would never put Randy Orton in that position.
