on the november 1 episode of "smackdown", ziggler's first successful title defense was against curt hawkins, who he defeated with in seven seconds, he also made a survivor series challenge to anybody on the raw roster. on the following episode of "raw", sami zayn defeated rusev to challenge for the title; however, ziggler defended his championship against miz on the 900th episode of "smackdown", and was defeated after a distraction by maryse, ending his reign at 37 days. on the november 22 edition of smackdown, it was announced that ziggler would face miz in a ladder match at the event for the intercontinental championship in what was advertised as their final match, where ziggler was defeated. on the december 13 edition of "smackdown", ziggler pinned dean ambrose in a fatal four-way elimination match also involving the miz and luke harper, to become the number one contender to aj styles' wwe championship. the following week, baron corbin confronted ziggler, and the two had a match with ziggler's number one contender's spot on the line. the match ended in a double count-out and daniel bryan made the december 27 episode's wwe championship match a triple-threat between styles, ziggler, and corbin. in that match, styles retained the wwe championship after pinning ziggler.