During a recent appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Nic Nemeth (formerly known as Dolph Ziggler) opened up about the intense backstage confrontation he had with Vince McMahon over his SummerSlam 2019 match against Goldberg. The former World Heavyweight Champion revealed that he was so opposed to the original plan for the bout that he threatened to quit the company on the spot.
“I was told no, ding, ding, ding, spear, jackhammer,” Nemeth recalled of the initial creative direction. “I said, ‘Vince, why am I in this match when anybody could take a spear and a jackhammer?’ I go, ‘If I can’t be in this match doing something, then I have to leave this company right now.’ If this is purely for a scarecrow to take a spear and a jackhammer, I don’t want to work here.”
Nemeth explained that he argued for more action in the match to give the live audience something memorable. “I’m fighting. I’m like, it should be something. I should kick him. I should hit him with my finish. I should do something,” he said. “There should be something other than a bell, because then there’s no little ride.”
Ultimately, a compromise was reached, allowing Nemeth to deliver two superkicks before Goldberg’s trademark spear and jackhammer ended the contest. “Finally it was a superkick on the bell, get a false out of it. Superkick him again, and then get broken in half. And I go, ‘Yeah, okay, that’s something, at least,’” he said.
The SummerSlam encounter, which lasted just over a minute, was one of the most talked-about matches of the night. Nemeth’s dramatic post-match selling — repeatedly taunting Goldberg for more punishment — helped turn a brief squash into a memorable moment.
In a surprising revelation, Nemeth shared that the match was originally supposed to serve as his farewell from WWE. “I was pitched the idea to go with Goldberg because I was going to leave the company,” he explained. “I’ll lose there to Mike [The Miz], and then I was out of the company and on a handshake deal, I was out. And that day I was told that I would not be allowed to be out.”
Despite the backstage turmoil, Nemeth stayed with WWE for another four years before being released in September 2023. Now wrestling for TNA, Nemeth continues to reflect on his WWE tenure — particularly moments like SummerSlam 2019 — as examples of the constant push-and-pull between creative vision and performer pride.
