on july 19 at the 2016 wwe draft, ziggler was drafted to "smackdown". on the july 26 episode of "smackdown", ziggler won a six-pack challenge against a.j. styles, apollo crews, baron corbin, bray wyatt, and john cena to become the number one contender for the wwe world championship. on the august 2 edition of "smackdown", ziggler defended his contendership against bray wyatt, to prove to his critics that he was worthy of being in the main event. ziggler won the match, but was attacked afterwards by wyatt and erick rowan, who also laid out dean ambrose when he attempted to save ziggler. on august 21 at summerslam, ziggler was defeated by ambrose. on the following edition of smackdown, aj styles began taunting ziggler about his defeat, setting up a match with the stipulation that if ziggler won, the main event at backlash would have been a triple threat. he would go on to lose the match. at backlash, ziggler failed to win the miz's intercontinental championship after maryse sprayed something at ziggler whilst miz distracted the referee. after failing to win the intercontinental title in the following weeks, ziggler challenged him for the title one more time at no mercy with his career on the line. on the october 4 "smackdown", in a miztv segment, miz aired a parody "documentary" showing ziggler's lowest career moments. afterwards, he introduced ziggler's former teammates, kenny and mikey of the spirit squad, who would end up attacking ziggler on orders from miz. at no mercy, ziggler defeated the miz, winning the intercontinental championship for the fifth time and saving his career.