Nic Nemeth On a Possible WWE Hall of Fame Induction, Recalls Iron Man Match With Seth Rollins

Nic Nemeth recently weighed in on his chances at a WWE Hall of Fame induction and whether he thinks he’s had a Hall of Fame career. The former Dolph Ziggler was asked the questions in his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet.

Nemeth also weighed in on his 30-minute Iron Man match with Seth Rollins at Extreme Rules 2018, which drew criticism from fans for its pacing. You can see highlights from the conversaion below:

On the Iron Man match with Seth Rollins: “This was at the time where, no matter what you think of Roman now, he’s amazing, 11 out of 10. But at the time, he was being forced on people to constantly be the guy, and he’s great. But just at the time, he was force fed nonstop. Vince goes, ‘This is gonna stick one way or another, whether it takes 6 years or 10 or whatever.’ They’re like, God, we’re so sick of this, the same guy every time he’s in the main event, and he’s out. They go, God, I wish the guys fighting for the Intercontinental title would be out there. I wish Seth would be in the main event. Wish Dolph would get it. We got it. We got a shot. Finally, against the boss’s maiden wishes, we’re going to main event this pay-per-view, Intercontinental title is in the main event. It’s an Iron Man match. Seth, who you love, Dolph, who you mostly hate, and are good wrestlers. The guys that you are begging for, the workhorse guys, to get a shot. All the stars align.

“Vince still says no, and we talk him into it. We’re main eventing the show, and like three minutes in the crowd just starts doing the clock. I just put a hold on. I’m like, man, what is happening? And they’re not even doing the clock right, so it’s kind of screwing me up. Then I missed something, because they’re going, ‘7,6…’ and it’s like 10 or something. I’m like, what? It’s not even a countdown. It’s just the time. And then a third of the way through they go, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’re taking it off the screen.’ I go, ‘No, no, don’t do that.’ They take it off the screen. So the crowd just starts going ’10, 9…’ every 10 seconds. It’s not even every minute now, they’re doing it every 10 seconds. So now, instead of the last 10 seconds of every minute, it’s every 10 seconds. They’re just counting down. And now I don’t know what time it is, and now, most importantly, they’re not paying attention to the match. I go, man, that’s on us to get them back. We tried, and it wasn’t my best night, because I was a little out of it, because I was trying to do something on the fly that would change. But I’m trying to express that to Seth, while we’re going to these pieces that we got to get to every certain amount of minutes. And it’s just yeah, the crowd, internet crowd, live crowd, they begged for a shot for the IC title, for Seth, for myself, anything but Roman, they got it, and Vince went, ‘See I was right, you’re all wrong.’ And then it was out. So thanks a lot.”

On a possible WWE Hall of Fame induction: “I guess I think everybody kind of gets in eventually, but listening to that [my accomplishments], it’s like, it’s awesome. I know I downplayed the US Title a little bit, and sometimes it was just like, I’ve been there before, which is like, Hey, we got a bunch of heels going over in this pay-per-view Kofi has to win this match and win the US title back for you after like, two weeks, and you’re like, okay, and it doesn’t make sense. But there’s a lot of times where it did matter and make sense, and it felt good to be like oh, we have a good story, and now a title is involved, and now I’m fighting for it. And now I got it. Now it got taken away from me. Oh, I gotta chase it again. There’s a lot, I would say 70% of those things that you announced were like, I’m picturing the pay-per-view that led to it, or where we went afterwards. And it was like, that’s, that’s what I like. And that 1554 matches on TV would have been so much more if I wasn’t always, like, getting yelled at and taken off the show. Sometimes I really feel like there’s 10 more TV matches we could have got in there.”

On whether he feels like he had a Hall of Fame career: “Reading the paperwork and knowing what I can do? Sure. I would say yeah. But I genuinely don’t think about it at all. Some things I focus on, like hey, I have to give my body 11 out of 10 for any match that I’m in, no matter what company it’s in, or where it’s at, or if there’s 80 people or something. But knowing those stats, it’s like, yeah, I did, and it won’t be mentioned, probably even if I was in the Hall of Fame. But it was like, no one will ever follow that number of shows in a row, without being injured, without being out, without needing a week off.”