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Outside of a short but sweet run with the NXT Championship in 2022, Nic Nemeth, aka Dolph Ziggler, hasn't been a serious player in WWE's singles division since midway through the last decade, when he was bouncing around between the United States Championship and the Intercontinental Championship – with two World Heavyweight Championship reigns thrown in for good measure – between 2011 and 2018.
Sure, he still found some success after his sixth and final run with the IC Title, winning tag team gold on three occasions, first with Drew McIntyre and then with his Dirty Dawgs partner Robert Roode, but you have to go back all the way to August of 2022 to find his last clean televised singles win on the main roster, which isn't particularly good news for a performer making a ton of money on a veteran contract.
So why, after releasing dozens of performers over the past few years, did Ziggler stick around so long? Well, in the opinion of the “Show Off” in an interview with Busted Open Radio, Ziggler explained that, after being a fixture of television for years, he transitioned into more of a utility bench player who could fill a variety of different roles in a pinch if his number was called.
“And it helps when you have 18, 19 years, you have in your back pocket that you can always just when this situation arises, boom I can go here. Somebody's shoulder came out of place in this match. ‘Don't worry. I got it.' We go here. And then you continue on and do things like that. It's almost like, it's standup comedy. If you get 15,000 reps in, you start to have things in your back pocket. You start to figure out what your… The story that you are telling is. Even if you lose the crowd for a second or something happens here, it really is a unique set of skills that several people have. But I feel like I have been someone who, like you said, could be plugged in…” Dolph Ziggler told Busted Open Radio via WrestleZone.
“You forget sometimes when you're like, ‘Hey! I haven't won a match in two and a half years. Am I good at this job? Why am I here? Why are these millions of dollars coming into my house for me to have a 30-second match with?” And you go, ‘Don't worry. There's a reason it's still there.' Because, if something happens you are always the break-glass in case, and bring you in there. And it's happened several times in the past I've been fortunate to make it happen.
“Especially these last two, three, four years it was, ‘I'm Ozzie Smith sitting on the bench. If you need a Shortstop, I save the game at Shortstop. You need a closing Pitcher to make it happen, if you need somebody to catch, if you need somebody at center field.' And clearly, I look like I can play all those positions too, so.”
Say what you will about Ziggler's run on SmackDown and RAW over the past five years or so, but he has been called upon, be it to give Austin Theory a hard time, to wrestle a young star like Tyler Bate on Main Event, or even to serve as a “boss” for Bron Breakker in NXT, the 19-year veteran showed up and delivered what fans wanted to see. Now free to wrestle wherever he'd like, Ziggler should be able to put that experience to good use.
Ryan Nemeth is excited to finally wrestle with Dolph Ziggler.
After being forced to watch his brother's professional wrestling career prosper from afar, Ryan Nemeth now has a chance to finally work alongside his brother Nic Nemeth on the indies now that Dolph Ziggler is no more.
Discussing the prospects of becoming a full-time tag team not just in the ring but on outside projects in an appearance on Busted Open Radio, Nemeth celebrated the idea, as they are already off to a very promising start.
“I'm very excited about it. I just had the flashback of, when that kind of question is asked to someone, and they say, ‘Well, you'll have to wait and see.' I can't do that. I can't wait. Is there something, or isn't there?” Ryan Nemeth asked. “I've been telling him to leave WWE for like over a decade now. I think it's always great to leave and reinvent yourself or leave and just do something else. I'm psyched to tag with him, I'm psyched to do more comedy shows with him. We just shot Wanted Man, which is incredible, and getting a huge positive response to launch his new character. We have 3 million views on social platforms. I'm so psyched about the positive response. Some horror websites are doing write-ups on it. That kind of stuff is what I'm psyched about, and you can't do that kind of stuff when one of you is trapped in a very intense WWE schedule. I'm very excited to start wrestling with him, doing events with him, and shooting more stuff. Nemeth Bros forever, baby.”
Despite overlapping for a few years within the WWE Universe, the Nemeth brothers have only shared the ring in an official match once, wrestling against each other on an NXT house show back in 2013. While there's no way of knowing how things will shake out for the “Wanted Man” in 2024, it's safe to say the brothers will lap that number many times over this year alone.
