Dolph Ziggler was a mainstay in WWE for two decades but was released by the company last September. It was clear for years that there were never any plans to push him as a top star again, a shame after his run as World Heavyweight Champion was ended prematurely by a concussion following a memorable cash-in.
Now a free agent, Ziggler - who is using his real name, Nic Nemeth - began the next chapter of his pro wrestling career by appearing at New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom 18. Sat in the front row, he later confronted new IWGP Global Champion David Finlay.
Since then, it's been confirmed the two men will square off for the title at NJPW New Beginning on January 23. During a recent appearance on Busted Open Radio, Nemeth reflected on his WWE release and how it felt to be released by the company.
"It’s weird because I was preparing for the last six, eight, ten months, going, 'At some point, I have to make a change here.' So as you get ready to go and you see that you don’t have a chance to be in a pay-per-view match and steal the show, you don’t have a chance to have a six-minute match and steal the show, you have a match where at this point, it’s three minutes, and you don’t get an entrance on the show, and everybody knows who’s winning the match on the show, you go, 'Can I find a way to have that work?'"
"Once that started happening, even a couple years ago, when Roode and I were tagging, I was starting to think, 'Hey man, at some point, I need to be ready to go. Will my shape and stamina still be there?'"
"I'd been preparing for this so long and getting things ready to go that I wasn’t like, 'What? What do I do now?' It was, I was planning this along, half of this entire last contract with WWE, going, 'I know at some point, I am being paid way too much money to sit at home, so I’m gonna have to get out of here.' So I just wanted to always be ready to go, just in case they said, 'Hey, I know you’ve been doing 90-second matches. Can you do 35 minutes on TV with The Undertaker?' You’re damn right I can. So I was ready to go anyway. I just wanted to have every option available."
"It wasn’t out of the blue, and I had sent a few emails to the boss for the last six months, definitively saying, 'I have to move on somewhere else. Can you let me do this?' Eventually, without exact back and forth, that’s how it worked out. So it wasn’t weird because it was so, six, eight, ten months in place for me, going, 'Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.' Okay great. Now I have 90 days of sitting around, which is gonna break my heart, but I got to do it. So I’ll just take the extra workouts and everything like that."
It's fascinating to get these insights and it's clear Nemeth was unhappy for a while. It's no great wonder when he was stuck in limbo for such a long time and used only sporadically when he was clearly eager to be on TV competing in the ring.
Vince McMahon seemed to lose faith in Ziggler as the years passed and, for whatever reason, Triple H couldn't find a place for him either. Now, though, Nemeth can make his mark in Japan and establish himself as more than just a WWE Superstar.