Ryan Nemeth Describes His Time On The Independent Scene As “The Wild West”
Ryan Nemeth reflects on his wrestling career following his departure from WWE.
The brother of former two-time World Heavyweight Champion Dolph Ziggler, Ryan Nemeth signed a developmental contract with WWE in 2011 and remained with the company for two years. Nemeth had the opportunity to work as a wrestler and an interviewer for a short period of time. In 2013, he departed from the sports-entertainment company and made his way onto the independent wrestling scene and last wrestled in September of 2018 for the ‘Nuclear Heat Wrestling’ promotion in California, per Cagematch.net.
Nemeth is preparing to release a film entitled ‘HEEL’ which is about a pro wrestler who receives a contract from the biggest company in the world and just needs to stay out of trouble for a few weeks before signing with said company. To promote the film, Nemeth was interviewed by Justin Barrasso for a feature for Yahoo! Sports and discussed his time on the independent scene and how his experiences correlate to what will be featured in the ‘HEEL’ film.
“When I left NXT and started working the indie scene, I learned it was the Wild West. There are no rules, there’s no overarching body or group. It’s basically a group of nomads going from promotion to promotion. It’s not as hard as you’d think for someone to get away with bad stuff. By the time somebody is whispering about something you did to some girl, you’re already 300 miles away at the next show. It makes getting away with being a scumbag pretty easy, and if you’re the woman who is the victim of some kind of violence or sexual assault, this is just like any other industry and any other sport — the minute you open your mouth and say something about somebody, you have your industry telling you you’re a liar or a sh-t, and there is this new giant army of online fans suddenly doxxing you.” Nemeth said. “Do you want to lose all your bookings and speak out? Or keep quiet and continue to allow this to happen? It’s so easy to go undetected as a truly sh–ty, sleazy scumbag in wrestling. So short of saying, ‘Here’s what I know about this business,’ which I’ll never do because that’s a betrayal to people who are victimized and those are not my stories to tell, but my story to tell is a fictional work inspired by that world. I love wrestling and I love most of the people in the business, but a seedy underbelly exists, the same that is being exposed in every other industry except in wrestling, which is avoiding it because it blends fantasy and reality and we’re never supposed to know which is real.”
To check out the full interview with Nemeth, click here, and Dolph Ziggler is a part of the movie trailer as well and Dolph was in action this past Sunday at WWE’s Stomping Grounds pay-per-view and was on the losing end of his WWE Championship match with Kofi Kingston.
