Dolph Ziggler recently spoke with NBC Sports to promote tonight's WWE Tribute to The Troops. The full interview is right here.

Is there a certain point in time that you can point to where you say "this is where the downward turn started" or was it a gradual process? [being unhappy with the placement of his character right now]

"It was very gradual. It went from 'Wow, we have something special here with Dolph. The crowd is feeding off of him whether he's a good guy or a bad guy.' But after a while, a really good match here and there or a special moment here and there is not enough to create a star. So after a big match and then just going back to being Dolph, it's hard to not be Dolph.

"I've been very lucky in that I've been able to make the most out of those situations. Anytime people see me or the character, you can kind of see how they mesh together and I'm pretty sure there's nobody who blends that gray area with the character better than me. And that's a fact."

He had spoke about what he'd do to change his character/gimmick right now

"Yeah I'd be about three inches taller, so I could be a 10-time world champion (laughs). I'm a big 80s hair metal guy, like a David Lee Roth or someone like Nikki Sixx or Vince Neil to where I could put on a big show and be awesome at wrestling, but in this character right now where I focus on throwing that all away because I see the transparency in characters and my character hates on them.

"It's a special place that I get to go and I walk to the ring with disdain for the fans knowing that they sit there and bury everything that we do, but then they cheer for who their supposed to because they're such hypocrites it's so great."