Dolph Ziggler reflects on ‘insanely fun’ WWE Raw return
Nic Nemeth had a lot of fun in his one-night-only return to WWE.
Reprising his role as Dolph Ziggler, Nemeth returned to WWE on Monday night for a Last Time is Now tournament match against Solo Sikoa. It was Nemeth’s first time competing in a WWE ring since he was released by the company in 2023. The night was a special one for Nemeth, who reflected on the experience during an appearance on Busted Open Radio this morning.
“Insanely fun and awesome and cool,” Nemeth said about his return. “I had to hide out all day, which was fun. In 20 years, I got to watch so many people hide or hide under the ring or sit on a bus somewhere — I never got to do the hiding. So I had all black on, and I put like a ski mask over my face and sunglasses. And they pulled me into the loading dock inside of the building. Then I got walked in and I got to hide out for like 5 or 6 hours. You know, once someone comes and visits you then a couple more people come to visit you. And then my brother goes, ‘Oh, I just found out online and it’s official that it’s you.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, great.’ So it took a solid hour of people poking their head into wave to like put it online somewhere and some ‘journalist’ [reported it].
“But, like, it was awesome. The in-between for a lot of stuff was Bob Roode, who was a badass wrestler and we got to tag together. And he’s the agent, and he’s even better at agenting than he is in the ring. And he’s still jacked, and awesome, and great. It was so cool to have him, like, going back and forth between him before we figured everything out. Surreal moment.”
Nemeth said he first found out about the surprise appearance 2-3 weeks ago. With Raw taking place at Madison Square Garden, it felt like all the different pieces fell into place to create something special.
“All these different pieces all added up to like — I was excited, but it’s wrestling, we have these egos, we’re crazy,” Nemeth said. “I go, ‘I hope they remember.’ Because otherwise, what am I doing here? And then the music hits and you get that 1/1000th of like, ‘Okay, they do. All right. Let’s go to work.'”
Though they were a bit pressed for time, Nemeth feels like he and Sikoa delivered with their match. It saw Sikoa pick up a victory to advance to the next round in the tournament to decide John Cena’s final opponent.
“Solo was on point, great the whole way, so easy to work with,” Nemeth said. “But I really think, in the time allotted, we crushed it. We gave everybody everything we could have. We gave the ups and downs of it. And, man, was the crowd there. It was a beautiful thing. It always flys by, but, like, it flew by. Really wanted to soak that in a little bit more.”
In his post-WWE career, Nemeth competes for TNA Wrestling and is also a regular host on SiriusXM’s Pro Wrestling Nation 24/7 channel.
Sikoa and Gunther both advanced in the Last Time is Now Tournament on Monday’s Raw. The updated schedule for the tournament can be seen here.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.