He was hot fire as a heel with AJ and Big E as his team. But, whereas someone like Kevin Owens knows how to play with a crowd to stay heel when he's supposed to be heel, Ziggler bought the reaction too much, and WWE had no choice but to turn him face. That CAN work great - see Corporate-to-People's Champ era Rock. But they didn't do any of the ground work. And then when he was making progress, they nerfed his Survivor Series momentum because they had to have Face Roman doing Big Dog things.