Nic Nemeth on returning to WWE Raw as Dolph Ziggler, hiding backstage

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Nic Nemeth addressed his return to WWE as Dolph Ziggler on Monday’s Raw. “Insanely fun and awesome and cool,” Nemeth stated on Busted Open Radio. “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 five or six 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 in to wave to like put it online somewhere.”

Powell’s POV: It’s an odd call for WWE officials to do all of that to sneak Ziggler into the building only to let some people visit him once he was backstage. For those who missed it, Nemeth worked under the Ziggler name and lost a The Last Time Is Now tournament match to Solo Sikoa. H/T to F4Wonline.com for the transcription.

(Jason Powell, founder and editor of ProWrestling.net, has covered pro wrestling full-time dating back to 1997. He hosts a weekly podcast, Pro Wrestling Boom, and also appears regularly on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Reach him via email at dotnetjason@gmail.com and on social media via @prowrestlingnet.bsky.social or x.com/prowrestlingnet. For his full bio and information on this website, click here.)