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Before he was TNA World Champion, Nic Nemeth was WWE's Dolph Ziggler. During his time in WWE, Nemeth had a brief tenure with the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. In a new interview with Sports Illustrated, Nemeth says that then-WWE Chairman Vince McMahon thought it would wipe the slate clean on his losing streak.
"Like when I became world champ, the first match I had, I remember Vince told me once, 'you finally cash in this contract, you won't lose every single night,'" Nemeth explained. "'Everyone forgets about it. It's all out the window. And you're the world champ.'"
Unfortunately for Nemeth, the world title win wasn't the end of his bad luck.
"I cash in. I was the world champ. And the next Monday, I lost a five-minute match," Nemeth said. "[I lost to] Jack Swagger and I went, 'what the f***' are we doing here? Like what?'"
Nemeth realized that he had no control over his direction in WWE and learned to go with the flow of things. After all, pro wrestling is entertainment first, competition second.
"So once you realize, hey, it's Hollywood, it changes every single day. It's out of my hands sometimes," Nemeth said. "And I, at this point, it's 'I want to show myself.' There's no motivation, there's no extra things. I don't stop, I don't quit, I don't let myself do anything other than a 10 out of 10."
Nemeth was released from WWE in 2023 where he went on to become champion in NJPW, AAA, and finally TNA Wrestling.

