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TNA Champion Nic Nemeth sat down with PWInsiderElite.com last week to discuss Bound for Glory, which will take place this Sunday 10/11 in Tampa, Florida on PPV, YouTube and TNA+. Here are highlights from the conversation, which Elite subscribers can listen to right now:
Comparing being the elder statesman facing the younger Leon Slater vs. his own experiences fighting to get to the top of WWE: "I think there's a difference between 20 years ago—and obviously the business changes and evolves and it's always different. There was a lot more bullies and assholes messing with people who didn't want to lose their spot. It's a little different now where it's like, I welcome the challenge to try and take my spot. But I think the reps that I have in—you don't just get, you don't just earn like, 'Oh, you won some titles in WWE, I guess you can just always be the main event at every other company'. That's not how this works. It's like you've got to prove yourself every day, and even if that's not the case, I have to prove it to myself. When I left WWE, I said, 'I don't know if I'm the best, I feel like I am, but I don't know if maybe I've only been in the ring with these 60 guys and gals, maybe I don't know if I've tested against everyone else, I can't hang, I don't know'. And the first couple of weeks—because I did not do independent wrestling—the first couple of weeks out of WWE, I went to Japan, I went to Mexico, I went all over the world, and I went, 'Oh, I am actually still good. Got it.' So that makes me feel good going into this. As the veteran, I feel like I've got the reps in. And sometimes that can be a negative. Sometimes it can be like, 'You know what, I got all these reps in, so I got to walk hunched over and my back hurts, my neck hurts, and I got this thing with my knee'. But I'm possibly the least injured person in 23 consecutive years of wrestling with no off-season, and I've been very fortunate. And I've gotten those reps in, and I really think that's the difference between me and Leon Slater. I have the reps, so I've been in those positions before to where I'm scratching and clawing and trying to get up the card a little bit, and nobody wants to help you and invite you in, and that's how it should be. It should be like, 'Hey, if I can't get in there...' There's an option when it comes to TNA. It's not just stomping on necks and stabbing people in the back. You can actually turn in your X Division Championship, which we call Option C, and once you relinquish that, it's no longer yours, and you're betting on yourself. And so many people are like, 'This guy bet on himself, this girl bet on herself'—yes, that's what pro wrestling is. And it's not always a Disney movie ending. You can bet on yourself and lose because when it comes to betting, people lose all the time. Leon Slater is betting on himself, and he's someone who I've sung the praises of for years at this point. He's smarter than he should be, he's better than he should be, he's insanely athletic, charismatic, he's a cool guy, I'm rooting for him. But when it comes down to the bell ringing, I won't be just singing his praises. I turn that off and I go, 'How can I defeat this person in the most humiliating way possible and stand there with a show-stealing match that puts me on top, standing on top of him as the credits roll?' And that's something that I've backed up repeatedly for probably 18 of my 23 years, and non-stop in TNA in the main event."
Whether the pressure he places on himself is self-imposed or just a progression of the work ethic over his career: "I think some of it's vanity, but also some of it is—you know, when I played baseball and hockey and football, and I played all sports and loved them, it wasn't like, 'Hey, this is fun to do'. I wanted to dive and have the winning catch, I wanted to jump and catch a foul ball where I flipped over the railing into someone's lap. I always wanted to have everyone looking at me doing it. So whether it's mentally for me, or pushing myself constantly to be better, either way works for pro wrestling because I'm pushing myself. I can talk, and you can say nice things about me, and I can say, 'Man, I'm awesome at pro wrestling, I'm one of the greatest of all time'. I see it. But I don't go, 'I'm one of the greatest of all time' and then just go play video games and then show up and wrestle. I think I'm going to be the greatest of all time, and when I retire, I will have an unrelinquished record that nobody would ever in any modern era or the years before do 20-plus consecutive years without injury that puts you out for more than a couple of days. And I really feel like I'm driving myself to not just be the Cal Ripken, but also the All-Star and Cal Ripken as I make my way through my career. So I think I drive myself no matter what I'm doing. If I'm doing the Wordle puzzle, I want to win against my family. If I'm playing baseball, I'm going to dive and save the winning hit, and I'm going to bunt and beat out a throw to first and steal home. All of these things apply when it comes to pro wrestling because I have that same mentality—whether there's a chip on my shoulder for a reason, or it's just because I want to be the best, there's a chip on my shoulder."
AMC as TNA's broadcast partner: "I think it's been a ridiculously positive turnaround, man. We set goals, and then Carlos Silva came in as the new president and set some more goals for us, and we all got on board as a team and said, 'All right, we're going to get this many people at the show; all right, we're going to double it for the next one; all right, we're going to get 5,000 people here; we're going to get 6,000 here; we're going to do this many VIP meet and greets'. Everyone was talking, 'We're going to get a TV deal,' and we were fighting—AXS has been great partners for us, but we were trying to get a genuine cable distributor and have somebody to have our backs, and oh man, has AMC been great! Every—I get to tell this story all the time: I went home around at the end of December to hang out with my parents, and my brothers were with me, we're hanging out there. We're watching Christmas Vacation on AMC, and every other commercial was for TNA, or me and Ryan, or The Hardys, and I went, 'This is the coolest thing ever!' And it's like, they are so behind us that every time we do a better number or get a couple more viewers or do something special, they are right there behind us and constantly promoting. So they are very happy with us, we are ridiculously happy with them, and we will make strides over and over. Now, it takes—it's not like, 'Oh, we're just going to get 100,000 extra viewers every month and then we'll have 5 million in no time'. It's pro wrestling, and it takes a while. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon, and that's a real way to play it—like constantly setting little goals and trying to go, 'Okay, at the end of the year, we're trying to get this number up just a little bit higher, and then every end of year, it's going to go just a little bit higher till we max out'. Let's keep rocking and rolling, and they have been a ridiculously awesome partner, and we've been delivering on our shows—our main events on TV leading to pay-per-views, the stories, the characters. You don't know what's going to happen at Bound for Glory, we got some crazy stuff going down whether it's debuts or returns or just chaos. And then I have to go out there and deliver in the main event. I really think coming on to the *iMPACT!*s after Bound for Glory, we should have a higher number than normal because it is on us to go steal the show every single segment of that match, and then it's on me to steal it in the main event."
Teaming with his brother: "Pretty awesome, man. I don't have many goals left. I'm constantly setting little goals in the gym or to get certain aspects of a match better. I don't have championship—where it's like, 'I need to win this title' or 'I need to have this match'—I just think about making things great. And now with Ryan, winning the tag titles is the coolest thing in the world. But having on a regular basis, flying in and going to work and working with him and throwing ideas around, we quickly realized we have the same chemistry that we have on comedy sets and improv shows, we have the same stuff in the ring because we just work well together. So I'm the first person to say I'm the hardest on myself, I am second hardest on my friends and family. So if this wasn't going to work and it wasn't working out, we weren't going to have some nepo baby bullshit to where Ryan just gets to ride my coattails and be Tag Team Champion and fight for the X Division title and become World Champion. Like, if it didn't work, I would've said, 'Hey listen, this isn't working out, we're going to make something happen, but it won't be this'. And one week after the first week we did, I went, 'That was pretty good, but let's see how it goes'. And that second week, when the crowd was booing Ryan out of the building and cheering me on, I went, 'We have something really great to work with here, let's run with it'."
Memories of Tampa, where BFG will be held: "Man, I have tons of Tampa memories. I lived here for a year and a half, and I absolutely loved it. It felt like I was in college still. That's besides the point—we could go to Green Iguana or head up Dale Mabry and figure some stuff out. But most importantly, when it comes to wanting to come to this show, I love Tampa. Tampa and Florida, big wrestling place, big wrestling town, and that's really easy to read off the back of a mic stand or your guitar when you're saying, 'Nothing's better than being here in Cleveland!'—you're like, 'Yeah, right'. This is a real place where you can't just be good at wrestling, you have to give them great wrestling because they've seen it all. So when it comes to Tampa, Florida, when it comes to that Florida area, everybody getting on board, I'm rooting for this show to kill it right out the gate. We're going to have a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, we're going to have the X Division, the Knockouts doing their thing, The Hardys all over the place, and we're going to deliver in that main event. And I truly—I'm not going to give you some bullshit pro wrestling, 'And I'm the greatest of all time, so I'm going to win this match'. There's a chance I lose. There's a chance on any given Sunday at a Super Bowl, the Browns can win. It's not going to happen, but it could happen! So when it comes to Leon Slater, I'm rooting for this kid while I do all this media and say good things about him. But when that bell rings and I deliver in that main event and walk out with everyone booing and throwing garbage, knowing that I stole the show and the title from the kid, that's what we're talking about. That's the difference in TNA Wrestling and everywhere else. You got a killer roster, the front office is behind the talent, and you have this relationship back and forth, give and go. And when it comes down to it, they steal the show every step of the way, and I start sweating halfway through most pay-per-views going, 'How am I going to follow this?' and then I remember who the f**k I am."
Talents he hasn't had a chance to face yet: "So, I've been in the ring a little bit with BDE and Sosa, and I like those guys. Those two are on a course to be quick rising stars for us. And also—I mean, Leon Slater, I've been talking about for years, so after this, he goes to the back of the line and then we'll see what happens. But Hotch and Ali have been doing some insane work, and it's one thing to be wrestling-based and just go, 'Man, those matches are killer'. But I'm such an old school wrestling fan that the story of being on the same team, and the inner struggles and the politics at play, and Ali having more equity in him because he's been on TV longer, and you finally stand up to him and then you have this story that draws out and has all this emotion—and then they're giving you insane show-stealing matches. Everyone in Order 4 is killing it, but right now I'm watching Hotch and Ali and I go, 'Man, the world is their oyster right now'. They are going to become something bigger and better coming out of Bound for Glory, and I would love to see either one of those two coming for me."
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