Ryan Nemeth tricked the tricksters.
Nemeth spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard to promote the launch of The Nemeth Bros podcast. Ryan and his brother, TNA World Champion Nic Nemeth, plan on providing a modern take on the wrestling world through a mix of comedy and personal stories.
One of those stories, highlighted in the first episode of the podcast, involved a “fake doctor” prank the brothers pulled during their stay in WWE’s former developmental territory. Nemeth recalled pranking the whole roster and coaching staff, tricking them into believing his great-grandmother had died during a promo class.
“I pranked the entire roster and coaching staff into believing that, live over the phone during the promo class, my great-grandmother had a stroke and died. And I enlisted Nic [to portray] the fake doctor on the other end of the phone,” Ryan explained. “And this played over the whole arena sound speakers. I feel so evil laughing about this, but enough time has been removed and she didn’t really have a stroke and die over the phone. That was a prank.
“So, that’s something I have been keeping a secret for about ten years. And it felt good like, ‘All right. Enough time has passed. I can confess what really happened here,” he added. “Nic helped me, and he barely remembered it. And I’m like, ‘Yeah dude. You were the fake doctor.’”
“Andy Kaufman was like my spirit guide”
Nemeth said those are the kinds of stories fans can expect on The Nemeth Bros podcast. It was a prank, but Nemeth noted how it also served as motivation to try and outfox others in a business built on pulling off illusions.
“The head coach realized that I really loved that kind of stuff, so he kept feeding me Andy Kaufman material. Every week he would give me a book, a movie, a match, a DVD, whatever, and I just became demented and obsessed with trying to trick the tricksters,” Nemeth explained.
“It was for the sake of art. I thought, ‘We have gathered here in Florida supposedly the best tricksters there are on Earth. We are hiring all these people to train them to be putting on this smoke and mirrors illusions every week, and it’s the best of the best, the cream of the crop.’ And I thought, if I could trick the people who are tricking people, then I’m the main guy. [Or so] I thought. That was my goal each week,” Nemeth added. “So that was my first foray into that kind of stuff. And Andy Kaufman was like my spirit guide, basically.”
New episodes of The Nemeth Bros podcast air on Thursdays on PodcastOne, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
