Nic Nemeth Believes He Stayed In WWE ‘Five Years Too Long’, Addresses Options Open To Stars

Published: 23 seconds ago by Dave Adamson | Last Updated: 23 seconds ago by Dave Adamson

Dave has been a website writer for WrestleTalk since October 2022, having previously written for Den of Geek, among a number of wrestling, movie and television-related sites. Dave has been around the independent wrestling scene for more than a decade, including behind-the-scenes.

WWE

With his 2023 release bringing an end to a 19 year WWE career, Nic Nemeth has now admitted he likely stayed in the company “five years too long.”

Now competing as Nic Nemeth in TNA Wrestling, the former Dolph Ziggler has seen opportunities appear on the independent scene as well as in NJPW.

Speaking with Good Karma Wrestling, Nemeth addressed the wealth of opportunities now available to wrestling stars and how it can help with negotiations, saying:

“The options are huge for everybody. AEW, six and a half years ago, changed everything for everybody at every company. Whether you’re televised or not, you all of a sudden have at least one other place to go work and one more place to go to your boss. If I hate this job, I can tell you. Or if I want to lie and say, ‘They offered me triple to go to this X place. What do you do?’ And if that helps you negotiate, great. Because for years, people were like, Yeah, you can go to Japan, you can go be independent, but you won’t have a full-time check, and you won’t be on full-time TV.”

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When it comes to opportunities, Nemeth would also look at his own career, revealing he stayed in WWE a touch too long, stating:

“And now having the extra option, and TNA now being on AMC, everybody has an extra option, whether they hate what they’re doing or they love what they’re doing or they’re stagnant. They get to go to a different territory, and it almost goes back to those territory days, where if you’re there too long, I stayed in WWE 19 and a half years, probably five years too long, and I should have bounced back and bounced around.

“But having all these options is great for everybody. I’m in TNA. I get to do JCW. I get to do independent matches. I get to bounce around the world or take the weekend off. And as I get older, one of these days I’ll take a weekend off, but I am a workaholic, and I don’t stop.”

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Nemeth returned as Dolph Ziggler in November of last year, competing in John Cena’s Last Time Is Now Tournament, losing to Solo Sikoa.

One Door Closes, Another Door Opens

With a set of WWE releases taking place in April of this year, the wrestling scene will eventually see a return for a number of former independent stars when their respective non-compete clauses come to an end.

For the likes of Aleister Black, he has experienced this before, parting ways with WWE back in June 2021 and heading to AEW before making his return to the TKO-owned company last year.

AEW isn’t the only option available to select former WWE stars, either, with TNA Wrestling, Maple Leaf Pro, NJPW and other major companies all potential homes for suitable names, and some able to reinvent themselves

Success doesn’t come easily just because someone was a WWE star, though, with Matt Cardona (previously Zack Ryder) having previously shared his advice to released talent back in March 2025, tweeting:

“To the recently released,

“You have three choices…

“1) Fade into obscurity

“2) Coast off of your WWE name

“3) Work your ass off, reinvent yourself, make a lot of money, and have a lot of f***ing fun!”

Cardona made his WWE return, under his real-life and independent wrestling name, having been released during the COVID-19-related budget cuts back in April 2020.

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