ziggler successfully retained the intercontinental championship at in a three-way ladder match against kingston and jack swagger, but lost the title to kingston at "smackdown" on january 4, ending a five-month reign at 160 days. that same night, ziggler won a four-way match against cody rhodes, drew mcintyre and the big show to become the number one contender to the world heavyweight championship. at the royal rumble, ziggler was unsuccessful in his title match against edge. on february 4, ziggler's storyline girlfriend vickie guerrero, who was the acting general manager of smackdown, banned the spear – edge's finishing move – and decided that if edge used it, ziggler would be awarded the championship. ziggler was again defeated by edge in a rematch on the february 11 episode of "smackdown", but because edge used the spear, guerrero declared ziggler the new champion on the february 14 episode of "raw". prior to ziggler's official coronation ceremony on "smackdown" on february 18, guerrero also fired edge, claiming that he had attacked smackdown general manager theodore long several weeks prior. however, long interrupted ziggler's ceremony and accused guerrero of orchestrating the attack, prompting guerrero to reveal ziggler as the attacker and long to rehire edge. long also gave edge a rematch against ziggler, who lost the championship back to edge and was then fired by long.