Exclusive: Nic Nemeth Shares Frustrating WWE Vince McMahon Story

TNA World Champion Nic Nemeth spent years waiting for the opportunity to call himself a top guy in professional wrestling. He was a mainstay on WWE TV for nearly two decades as Dolph Ziggler, and earned a reputation as a reliable and dependable workhorse in the ring.

Nemeth now will attempt to hold off another workhorse in rising TNA star Joe Hendry at Sunday's TNA Genesis pay-per-view, someone who also had to wait for his moment to break through. Nemeth got his as Ziggler when he won the 2012 Money in the Bank contract, guaranteeing him a chance to become a world champion. But he seldom won matches before he cashed in, including hardly ever winning against John Cena.

The 44-year-old gave The Takedown on SI insight on his presentation at the time in WWE, and some of the frustrations he dealt with in regard to Vince McMahon's booking even after winning the World Heavyweight Championship on the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania 29.

"Like when I became world champ, the first match I had, I remember Vince told me once, 'you finally cash in this contract, you won't lose every single night. Everyone forgets about it. It's all out the window. And you're the world champ,'" Nemeth recalled.

"I cash in. I was the world champ. And the next Monday, I lost a five-minute match. Jack Swagger and I went, 'what the f***' are we doing here? Like what?'"

While it wasn't quite a five-minute match, Nemeth did lose to Swagger in less than 10 minutes on the following week's Raw, having only registered one win as champion against Chris Jericho on the Smackdown prior before taking a fall.

He said his experiences at the time helped shape his outlook on what wrestling is now, and how he's going about his current TNA run and pushing himself to be the best champion he can be.

"So once you realize, hey, it's Hollywood, it changes every single day. It's out of my hands sometimes," Nemeth said. "And I, at this point, it's 'I want to show myself.' There's no motivation, there's no extra things. I don't stop, I don't quit, I don't let myself do anything other than a 10 out of 10.

Nemeth also praised current TNA management and the creative team for collaborating in a way that benefits everyone and prevents situations like what he faced with Vince, shouting out Tommy Dreamer and Gail Kim in particular.

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"I'm a link in this team that is kicking ass behind the scenes," he said. "Ariel [Schnerer], Tommy, Gail, kicking ass. Motivating all the talent, having a relationship with the talent where it's like, 'how about this? How about this,' and then meeting in the middle. Like, whoa, that can happen. Like, this is the coolest thing ever."

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