After years on the indies,RyanNemeth debuted in AEW back in 2021, enjoying three years with the promotion before leaving in 2024 when his contract expired. Nemeth's exit sparked controversy, however, when he made several allegations oflocker room harassment ensuing a long legal battle with CM Punk and Tony Khan.Looking back at his AEW exit,Nemeth claimed that he considered retiring from pro wrestling after everything that happened. "I had politely said 'no thank you' a few times," he claimed during an interview with "Death Arts Xiii By Ash," implying that TNA had reached out to him multiple times post-AEW. "I was a little turned off by everything in wrestling in my personal life, which made it seem like I don't want to have anything to do with this [business] any more ever again."Nemeth noted that there are some "half-facts" out there about what happened, but asserts that he had soured on pro wrestling in general. Because of this, when someone from TNA reached out,Nemeth claims that he didn't want to get involved with wrestling at all. "That conversation went on for a few weeks or months," he said.Ultimately, Nemeth got to the point where he laid down a few conditions, specifically that he didn't want to be "put into random eight-man tag matches on the internet that nobody watches" or be a jobber. In response, TNA told him there was an angle with him and his brother,Nic Nemeth, which was more up-to-speed with what he wanted."This actually sounds cool, to have a company have an idea versus 'Would you like to be cannon fodder for the people we really care about?'" he expressed. "It was the company saying 'You are special, and we'd like to utilize that in our TV storylines.'That was exciting to me."If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "DeathArts XiiiBy Ash," and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
