TNA's Nic Nemeth Discusses Rediscovering Love For Wrestling After WWE, Dolph Ziggler

While the TNA World Champion goes by his real name today, Nic Nemeth is more recognized by his Dolph Ziggler WWE persona, which he portrayed for 15 years after his 2008 repackaging. Looking back at his career during a recent episode of "Busted Open Radio," Nemeth described working in the industry and shared his opinion of his career.

He explained that working in wrestling is like Hollywood, where sometimes those less talented make far more money than others, which make it easy to become bitter. 

"Even in the good time you're thinking about how it can be better and there's a lot of downtime in between a really bad part that you go, you want to quit or you want to stop or you hate this, or you hate everything," he said.

Nemeth recalled feeling that he's good at his job, despite not having a top spot in WWE, which led him to feel like he needed to get out immediately because he began to hate every aspect of it. 

"When the part you love is being around everyone and even in a Superstars or Main Event match, where you watch one little piece of work and you go, 'Oh, that was great,'" Nemeth exclaimed. "I love that. That just put shivers down my back because you love the wrestling business so much."

Since his WWE release, Nic Nemeth has found himself in the locker rooms of both TNA and NJPW, which he's admitted has been a difficult experience. However, he now describes it as being a fourth grader transferring to a new school, where he doesn't know anybody in the classroom. 

"I'm a little nervous about what I'm doing, I go, 'Hey, I talk a big damn game for the last 15 years. Can I only do it in this bubble in New York? Or can I actually go out and make a name for myself again?'" Nemeth questioned.

He then proclaimed that while he's worried about many different factors of wrestling, winning is still important to him, even winning championships he doesn't necessarily think he needs. 

"If I can have a championship that helps get 2 percent more recognition to a show that I love, to a roster that I love, to an entire company, that I go they are working behind the scenes to make everything awesome?" he said. "I go, 'Damn it, let's go.' I'm all for it."

Not too long ago, while discussing Cody Rhodes explicitly-laden promo during the build up to WrestleMania XL, Nic Nemeth claimed that he actually doesn't watch wrestling, which led to a running gag that he's now denying. Nemeth revealed that he sometimes gets into the headspace of rarely sleeping, leading to overthinking about all the aspects of having a good match, which is why it ends up not being fun.

"I want to go, 'That kicked ass.' And I'm the harshest critic of myself. I'm the harshest on Miz and Ryder and Nitro, but I'm the hardest on myself, no matter what the case is," he said. "So you go, 'Did you back that up? Did you earn that money they flew you in here to earn?' Then you go, 'Damn right, I did.' Or sometimes I don't, I go, 'Damn, I gotta fix this.'"

Nemeth stated that he watches wrestling, and how he feels happy witnessing good wrestling.

"I do watch wrestling, and I do root for so many people," Nemeth claimed. The star then described how watching good wrestling ends up making him truly happy and that any bitterness he's claimed to have had against his booking in WWE has been a joke all along. "The real-life part? I live for this. I love it."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.