With some stellar names featuring in the World Cup tournament at WWE's Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia last week, not many would have expected that it would be Dolph Ziggler and The Miz in the final.

Even fewer would have thought that Shane McMahon would be leaving the Middle East with the trophy.

WORLD CUP

It's easy to see why. There were some big names competing, ranging from Kurt Angle to Seth Rollins from Monday Night RAW, while Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton were representing SmackDown LIVE.

In the end, an injury to The A-Lister saw Shane O'Mac step in at the last minute to take on The Showoff, much to Constable Baron Corbin's dissent.

While names like The Miz and Ziggler seem like odd figures to feature in the final, WWE actually had very good reasons for manipulating the tournament in this fashion.

According to Rajah, the main reason why WWE selected Ziggler to make it all the way to the World Cup final in Crown Jewels is due to the fact that he was the lowest in the pecking order out of all the competitors from the red brand.

WWE needed a superstar that would be unaffected by being squashed by Shane in a matter of minutes.

Out of Seth Rollins, Angle, Ziggler and Bobby Lashley, it made the most sense to have Ziggler lose relatively quickly as he was already far down the pecking order, so a loss wouldn't have damaged his stock.

CAREFUL PLANNING

There was a similar story on SmackDown. WWE used the same strategy as The Miz was picked to feature in the final as he was the only one of the four blue brand competitors that WWE felt comfortable as backing out due to an injury.

The sourced added that the company doesn't like their babyface superstars to show that type of weakness and they would continue to fight on - and they were never going to have The Viper act in that manner.

To put it simply, it was to accommodate a Shane McMahon victory.

A win for Shane needed to be against someone who could be squashed quickly, and he needed to replace someone that would pull out of a match.

Not everyone is happy with the result, but WWE does tend to quickly forget about championships that are won in Saudi Arabia.

What do you make of the reason why WWE had The Miz and Dolph Ziggler compete in the World Cup final? Have YOUR say in the comments section below.

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