Dolph Ziggler Addresses WWE Return In John Cena Tournament

Nic Nemeth has addressed his surprise return as Dolph Ziggler on last night’s WWE Raw and entry into the John Cena Last Time is Now tournament.

After Zack Ryder made his return as a mystery opponent for LA Knight on SmackDown in Albany, NY, all eyes were on who would step up and challenge Solo Sikoa on WWE Raw in the “World’s Most Famous Arena” Madison Square Garden.

While names such as Joe Hendry were widely speculated by fans, not turned out to instead be someone who knows John Cena very well: TNA Wrestling’s Nic Nemeth aka Dolph Ziggler.

After receiving a huge pop from the NYC crowd, Ziggler took Solo Sikoa to his limits but ultimately fell short, as the MFT leader progressed into the quarter-finals.

Discussing his big return on Busted Open Radio, Nemeth recalled being hidden away by WWE hours before making his entrance:

“In 20 years I got to watch so many people hide, or hide under the ring or sit on a bus, I never got to do the hiding. I had all black on, I had a ski mask over my face and sunglasses and they pull me into the loading dock inside of the building and I got to hide out for five or six hours.”

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He then spoke of how “cool” it was to make his return in the manner he did, given he and John Cena’s history together in WWE:

“They could have me back for any show in any city and it would be cool and fun, I’m 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 force it, you have genuine history’ which is really cool.

“And then also getting to be in Madison Square Garden. Also getting to come back after two years, all these positions and be a surprise. All these different pieces added up to like… I was excited but it’s wrestling, we have these egos we’re crazy.”

“I go ‘I hope they remember’ because otherwise what am I going here. And then the music hits and you get that one 1,000 of like… (holds breath) okay they do, alright let’s go to work.”

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Ziggler and Cena faced off many times throughout their respective WWE careers, perhaps most notably in 2012 where they headlined that year’s WWE TLC pay-per-view.

Also on Raw, GUNTHER progressed to the quarter-finals of the John Cena tournament by defeating Je’Von Evans and will face the winner of Carmelo Hayes vs. Bronson Reed – which takes place on this Friday’s SmackDown.