Nic Nemeth Explains Balancing His Love For Wrestling With Reality Of Working For WWE

Nic Nemeth had to leave the WWE when he did.

The former World Heavyweight Champion was released from his WWE contract last year. It ended 19 years in the company where he became one of the most popular wrestlers in the company.

Under the name Dolph Ziggler, Nic Nemeth won countless titles. This included world titles, Intercontinental Championships and even the NXT title in recent years. However, he knew that it was time to leave when he did.

Nic Nemeth spoke to Adrian Hernandez on Unlikely, where he discussed leaving the WWE.

Hernandez noted the struggle being balancing ‘perks’ and ‘work’ in a respective profession. He asked Nemeth if he struggled with the same thing. Nemeth said it wasn’t just recent frustration, he felt like he fought that feeling for 19 years.

“It’s not just the final two years; that was off and on for 19 years. It’s like, ‘Hey, you’re fighting for the world title, great! What do I do next Monday?’ And they say, ‘Well, you’re not on,’ and you go, ‘Oh, okay.’ So, that’s the part that affects you more. You’re like, ‘Oh, I thought we had a plan. We did this thing, and I pitched these ideas to go with it, and that’s not in the works for the company, and we’re going in a different direction.’ Okay, so those pieces are worse than just sitting around or having a 4-minute match.

Sure, everybody wants to be champion, and every fan thinks their favorite should be champion. Some fans think all their favorites should be champion at the same time, no matter what; if not, they’re being buried. So, there’s extremes back and forth. But no matter what I say out loud or to people, or joke around online, it is heartbreaking when you’re like, ‘Here’s this story that I pitched. We went with it. We did one quarter of it, and then it’s over with,’ and you go, ‘Oh, this hurts.’

Nic Nemeth Tried To Balance Love For Wrestling And Working For The WWE

Nic Nemeth continued. He said that he had to balance doing what he “loves so much” with the reality of working in the WWE.

But it’s not my company. It’s not my call to be the leader, so I will do what I have to do. Then hopefully, in six months, I get one more chance to get this story that I love that they can embrace, and then we run with it. And every six months or a year, there’d be one or two pieces of it. And you go, ‘Here we go!’ And they go, ‘Well, now we’re going to go with Roman on this thing,’ and you go, ‘Okay, well, now we’re going to go A-set on this.’ Damn it, okay, I’ll start over.

Because you love it so much, and because you know, with that little tease, that little taste, like there’s a chance, there’s a chance you’re going to break that glass in case of emergency and make this guy the champ. And they’re going to have to go with me because they see it, and they got to a point where they saw it, the crowd saw it, and they still went, ‘We want to go a different direction.’ And at that point, you go, ‘Okay, I’m going to take the money.’”