Nic Nemeth says he turned down WWE multiple times before returning for the ‘Last Time Is Now’ tournament.
After 19 years in WWE as Dolph Ziggler, Nic Nemeth was released on September 21st, 2023. Since then, he has become a mainstay of TNA, where he is a former World and Tag Team Champion. While other stars have focused on making it back to WWE after being let go, Nemeth says he turned down the opportunity on more than one occasion. However, he made an exception to be a surprise entrant in the ‘Last Time Is Now’ tournament to determine John Cena’s final opponent.
Speaking on That Sweet Pop, Nemeth revealed that WWE had asked him to go back at different times, but he “didn’t really want to,” but when they called him about the tournament, he wanted to be part of it.
“They had asked me to come back a couple different times for some other things, and I was like ‘I don’t know. It’s been two years. I don’t really want to,’ and then they said, ‘This is for Cena.’
“They said, ‘We’ve had a million matches together. Incredible guy. We’ve done so much. We have a story. We have a history, and I know all the good that he’s done.You could roll down a Santa Claus list of names of everything he’s done, what he’s done for us in the back, what he’s done to help out the guys and girls, what he’s done granting those wishes, everything else on the like, come on. He’s the greatest of all time. We get to call him that.
“And he’s earned so many things that you’ll probably never even hear about. So now come back for this tournament, ‘Yeah, hell yeah.’”
Nemeth received a huge reaction from fans on his return, but was unable to make it past the first round of the tournament, where he was defeated by Solo Sikoa.
Nic Nemeth Re-Signs With TNA
While there was speculation after his Raw appearance that a full-time WWE return could happen, Nic Nemeth signed a new TNA deal in January 2026. The star broke the news himself on Busted Open Radio on January 15th, the same day that TNA premiered Impact on AMC.
