Below are some top WWE & AEW news stories of the day, involving Dolph Ziggler and Swerve Strickland.
• Former World Heavyweight Champion Dolph Ziggler was released from WWE last year and he recently appeared at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 under his real name Nic Nemeth.
During an interview on Busted Open Radio, Ziggler revealed what he told “The Boss” at WWE before his release:
“I was prepared. For the last 6, 8, 10 months going, ‘At some point, I have to make a change here.’ As you get ready to go and see you don’t have a chance to be in a PPV match and steal the show. You don’t have a chance to have a six-minute match to steal the show. You have a match and it’s three minutes and you don’t get an entrance and everyone knows who is winning. Can I find a way to have that work?
Once that started happening, even a couple of years ago when [Bobby Roode] and I were tagging, I was thinking, ‘At some point, I have to be ready to go. Will my shape and stamina still be there?’ I have been preparing so long and getting things ready to go, it wasn’t ‘What? What do I do now? I’m free.’ I was planning for half of this entire last contract going, ‘I know at some point, I’m being paid way too much to sit at home so I’m gonna have to get out of here’.
I always wanted to be ready to go, just in case they said, ‘I know you’ve been doing 90-second matches, can you do 30 minutes with The Undertaker?’ You’re damn right I can. I was ready to go anyway, I just wanted to have every option available.
[The WWE release] wasn’t out of the blue. I had sent emails to the boss over the last few months saying, ‘I have to move on to somewhere else, can you let me do this?’ Eventually, without exact back and forth, that’s how it worked out. It wasn’t weird because it was so 6, 8, 10 months in place going, ‘Here it comes.’ Now, I have 90 days sitting around, which broke my heart, but I just got extra workouts.”
• Swerve Strickland, who is gaining momentum in AEW, is venturing into Hollywood with a role in the upcoming horror film “Stiletto”.
The film, produced by Hearse Productions, features Gigi Gustin as the star and executive producer, along with a cast including Charlotte McKinney, Colleen Camp, Pancho Moler, Tyler Abron, Stephen Blackehart, Meghan Carrasquillo, Russel Todd, and Mia Challis.
Samuel Gonzalez Jr. will direct the movie, which is set to start shooting later this month.
Below is the synopsis of the movie:
“A year after the grisly murder of a local exotic dancer, the victim’s sister, Lyric, searches for the serial killer responsible as he stalks and kills his favorite dancers on the night of the anniversary.”
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