Ryan Nemeth, real-life brother of one-half of the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions Dolph Ziggler (Nic Nemeth), recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet on various topics, including his debut on the January 27 episode of AEW Dynamite, where he lost a Singles Match to Hangman Page.
This is what Ryan Nemeth said:
“Being [in AEW] is kind of like a huge reunion.” “I have so many friends from NXT or other parts of wrestling. Walking in the locker room felt like home. I went to AEW to see Amanda Huber (the late Jon Huber/Brodie Lee’s wife) because I knew there was going to be a birthday for Brodie Jr. I thought I would surprise her and say happy birthday. I used to babysit him in Tampa. I wanted to say hi to her, I also secretly had my gear with me. They asked me, ‘Since you’re here, do you want to wrestle?’ And I said sure. I think it went well, I blacked out but I think I won (laughs). I was honored to debut on Dynamite. It felt great to be back in the ring. During shutdown I have been doing a lot of wrestling but not in front of a live crowd. It’s been a lot of stunt work or coordinating for TV shows. AEW are super into promoting creativity, very motivational and positive environment.”
Ryan then talked about the similarities between himself and Dolph Ziggler, but going to great lengths to differentiate himself from Ziggler and them having pretty different lives.
This is what Ryan Nemeth said:
“There are similarities. We are brothers, we are related, we were both trained by the exact same people in wrestling.” “We grew up wrestling for the same school together. But I will say I’ve spent my entire wrestling career looking and dressing the exact opposite of him. He had blond hair, I dyed mine black. He wore pants, I wore shorts. No matter what I do, for a decade, any time I’m in a match, the Internet says I’m a carbon copy of him. But we’ve had pretty different lives. He was a college wrestler, I focused more on acting and writing. In the past few years, to do so many of these things together is awesome. I never felt like we were competing for anything though.”
Ryan Nemeth then talked about his short stint in WWE and almost overnight, he disappeared and seem to not exist any longer.
This is what Ryan Nemeth said:
“It was working great for me there while Dr. Tom Prichard was head coach and John Laurinaitis was in charge of talent relations.” “They had a top 10 list of talent and I was number 3 I think. Almost overnight, someone took over head coach, someone took over talent and I didn’t seem to exist anymore.”
“This new coach did not like me or my brother. He is not there anymore though. I didn’t believe in him as a coach, I just said it. An executive confirmed the coach didn’t like me, and didn’t know if there was anything I could do. When the executive called to release me, I asked if that was what’s happening here, he said yes. It’s just how wrestling works. The phone call, the executive thought I was going to go to Hollywood. One month later I moved to Los Angeles.”
You can check out Ryan Nemeth’s comments in the video below:
