Nic Nemeth On His WWE Raw Return Being Kept Secret, Was Nervous Before Match

Nic Nemeth made his one-off return to WWE Raw as Dolph Ziggler this week, and he weighed in on the secrecy around his appearance and more. Nemeth appeared on Raw as Ziggler for the Last Time Is Now Tournament. He faced Solo Sikoa, but came up short in the match.

Nemeth appeared on Busted Open Radio and spoke about entering Madison Square Garden in secret and more. He also noted he was a bit nervous before the match about the potential crowd reaction. You can see highlights below:

On Keeping His Appearance a Secret:

“Insanely fun and awesome and cool. 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. They pulled me into the loading dock inside of the building, and then I got walked in and I gotta hide out for like five or six hours.

“But after — 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 in some journalist.”

On Robert Roode Producing the Match:

“But it was awesome. The in-between for a lot of stuff was Bob Rude, who was a badass wrestler, and we got to tag together. 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. So it was so cool to have him like, going back and forth between him before we figured everything out.

“Surreal moment. Like there’s so many — they could have me back for any show in any city and it would be cool and fun. I am very fortunate to have something like the Cena Tournament and like, ‘Hey, you have history with this guy.’ And you don’t even have to like force it. Like we have genuine history. It’s like really cool.”

On Being Nervous Before The Match:

“And then also getting to be in Madison Square Garden. Also getting to come back after two years… and be a surprise. All these different pieces all added up to like, I was excited. But it’s wrestling, we have these egos, we’re crazy. I go, ‘I hope they remember, ’cause otherwise what am I doing here?’ And then music hits and you get that 1/1000 of like, ‘Okay, they do. Alright, let’s go to work. Like, that’s the difference.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.