Nic Nemeth says he’s not in the wrestling business to be someone’s scarecrow.
Nemeth recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast and shared his mindset going into his 2019 SummerSlam match with Goldberg. The “feud” was fairly one-sided, with Nemeth (then known as Dolph Ziggler) playing the heel that ultimately lost rather quickly to the former WCW star.
As Nemeth explained it, he thought the match would be short, but he’d get to taunt Goldberg a bit before taking a few moves and the finish. However, Vince McMahon informed him that the match would instead just see Goldberg hit a spear and a Jackhammer for the win.
“[I said,] ‘What’s the point of Ding, ding, ding, spear, Jackhammer?’ I go, ‘A local could do it, anybody could do it,’” Nemeth explained. “And [Vince] was like, ‘Well, I don’t know what he can do with you.’ I go, ‘If I can’t be in this match doing something, then I have to leave this company right now. And I’m not kidding, if this is purely for someone, a scarecrow, to take a spear and a jackhammer, I don’t want to work here.’ And also, it was supposed to be my second to last night. Anyway, we’ll get to that in a minute…”
Nemeth said he argued with McMahon all day about the format of the match, noting that there needs to be more for the fans. Finally, Nemeth says they agreed to let him hit two superkicks that Goldberg could kick out of a pin for. He said Renee Paquette didn’t even know what they planned, and her surprised reaction validated why he pushed to add to the match.
Nemeth said he was paired with Goldberg because he was leaving the company an unnamed person said he could put two people over on the way out.
“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, you know what? Damn it. Goldberg on Sunday, and that Monday, I wrestle Miz with my career on the line, and he beats me.’ I wanted to make sure he tapped me out with his version of the Figure Four, but some version of that, to like ‘I’m helping my friend on the way out. I’m giving his Figure Four the best sell that he’ll ever have.’ So that gets passed on to him. And I lost on Sunday to Goldberg, I’ll lose there to Mike, and then I was out of the company and on a handshake deal, I was out. And that day I was told that I would not be allowed to be out.”
More recently, Nemeth has taken sly digs at Goldberg, including a reply to a fan who said that he was lucky to be in the ring with him.
“You are free to believe anything you tell yourself, but that doesn’t make it accurate. ‘Kinda lucky to have been in the ring with him’ …and not end up in a hospital, is much more accurate tho. Thanks for following,” Nemeth remarked.
Read More: Kota Ibushi Injured And Stretchered Out At AEW Collision Taping
