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When Dolph Ziggler was released from the WWE Universe back in September, it drew a variety of different reactions from across the WWE Universe.
To some, the move was genuinely surprising, as Ziggler was rapidly approaching 20 years with the promotion, and there's nothing WWE likes to do more than celebrate a milestone of such magnitude, even if a decent chunk of that time was spent on the shelf split over multiple eras, as fans saw with Edge and Rey Mysterio respectively. And to others? Well, they might have forgotten that the “Showoff” was even employed by WWE, period, as he's barely been used on television since his tag team with Bobby Roode went on the shelf due to injury.
Discussing his firing in an interview with Busted Open Radio, Ziggler reveals that he actually reached out about moving on from The Fed, as he could see the writing on the wall for literally years.
“I was prepared. For the last six, eight, ten months going, ‘At some point, I have to make a change here.' As you get ready to go and see you don't have a chance to be in a PPV match and steal the show. You don't have a chance to have a six-minute match to steal the show. You have a match, and it's three minutes, and you don't get an entrance, and everyone knows who is winning. Can I find a way to have that work? Once that started happening, even a couple of years ago when Roode [Bobby Roode] and I were tagging, I was thinking, ‘At some point, I have to be ready to go. Will my shape and stamina still be there?' I have been preparing so long and getting things ready to go, it wasn't ‘What? What do I do now? I'm free.' I was planning for half of this entire last contract going, ‘I know at some point, I'm being paid way too much to sit at home, so I'm gonna have to get out of here,'” Dolph Ziggler explained on BOR via Fightful.
“I always wanted to be ready to go, just in case they said, ‘I know you've been doing 90-second matches, can you do 30 minutes with The Undertaker?' You're d*mn right I can. I was ready to go anyway, I just wanted to have every option available. It wasn't out of the blue. I had sent emails to the boss over the last few months saying, ‘I have to move on to somewhere else, can you let me do this?' Eventually, without exact back and forth, that's how it worked out. It wasn't weird because it was so six, eight, ten months in place going, ‘Here it comes.' Now, I have 90 days sitting around, which broke my heart, but I just got extra workouts.”
In WWE, much like in life, a performer is either progressing or regressing; there is no in-between. While Ziggler was able to enjoy a very nice paycheck for doing nothing more than showing up for work – if they even called him in – it's cool to learn that he had a backup plan ready to go for when the gravy train finally stopped rolling into the station, even if fans don't quite know where he'll end up full-time just yet.
Tommy Dreamer shoots on Dolph Ziggler's New Japan debut.
Speaking of what's next for Dolph Ziggler, which will feature at least a stop in New Japan Pro Wrestling to settle a Wrestle Kingdom 18 beef with David Finlay, Tommy Dreamer commented on his friend's first steps back into the indie world in years, letting fans know that he thinks Nic Nemeth is in for a “very, very cool year.”
“When we’re talking with Nic Nemeth, it’s a big step for him [to go to NJPW]. You think about the success of a Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar, Cody Rhodes that they had going the path of New Japan. The guy was a former world champion. A lot of people say, though he had an amazing career in WWE, a lot of times [Nemeth was] underutilized, so now he’s getting to write his own way. It’ll be a cool year for pro wrestling, but it’ll be a very, very cool year for Nic Nemeth,” Dolph Ziggler said via 411 Mania.
“He’s my friend. I’ve always wanted to see him succeed … He could do it all in the ring. I’ve wrestled him. He’s so, so good. He’s a natural on the microphone. He has all those intangibles that you want to where you say, ‘Hey, this is a guy I could put my company around.'”
What does the future hold for Ziggler? Will he join NJPW full-time? Or maybe he instead becomes a member of AEW, joining his brother Ryan Nemeth as a combination singles/tag team act? Could he bypass both routes and instead go full-on indie, accepting a booking here and a booking there as he pursues something else, say his burgeoning comedy career? Either way, keep an eye on Ziggler, as he'll certainly be wrestling more in 2024 than his final act in WWE.
