Stories involving Hugh Jackman and Snooki from Nic Nemeth’s time in WWE.
There was a 2011 episode of WWE Monday Night Raw when actor Hugh Jackman guest hosted the show. On that night, there was a singles match between Matt Cardona and Nic Nemeth. Jackman got involved and punched Nemeth in the face to cost him the match.
Nemeth has told the story of when he expressed to Jackman that he needed to legit punch him as hard as could, but while on the Going Postl podcast, Nemeth reveals he was threatened with being fired from WWE because he tweeted that Jackman may have fractured his jaw.
His tweet got picked up by outlets and TMZ called WWE to confirm the injury. Nemeth said he was just trying to play up the punch. Jackman did an interview with Entertainment Weekly and stated that he did not break Nemeth’s jaw. Nemeth recalls being told by the number two person in charge at the time that they did not want to have to fire him, but he’ll have to take the tweet down.
The next day (after moment with Hugh Jackman on Raw), I said, ‘I have to go for x-rays. I may have a slight fractured jaw’ and by the time the next morning came around, I was being threatened with being fired from WWE because I had lied and TMZ was calling them to check on it and I go, ‘I’m just trying to protect the storyline.’ I said, ‘I didn’t say Hugh Jackman put me in a hospital or I’m having a heart attack. I was like, oh, there’s a chance there’s a hairline fracture and I’m gonna get x-rays to keep it vague’, because it’s wrestling… Because it was such a good punch and everybody was talking about it that night and the next day, I was so excited. It all worked out and Broski was on a tear, I was so excited about it, I go, ‘Let me add a little extra to it’ and then the second-in-command was like, ‘I don’t wanna have to fire you but you’re gonna have to recant and take this down…’ Meanwhile, cut to two years later or the rest of WWE’s existence, they’d be begging for that kind of publicity but whatever and I said it in a nice way but I took it down but, for the next couple of weeks, I wore mouthguards and did Miz’s punch in the face gimmick that he did for a month or whatever… and it was really, really fun. I think I had matches with Miz anyway or Broski and it was like, the whole thing was not to not punch me in the face because my jaw might be broken and it was the best. That stuff makes it so much fun on the weekends.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Nemeth looked back at the WrestleMania 27 match involving himself and LayCool (Michelle McCool & Layla) versus Trish Stratus, John Morrison and Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi from the MTV series Jersey Shore.
Nemeth assumes LayCool pitched for the match and had pull to make it happen because of their standing with the higher-ups. He remembers Snooki being officially added to the mix and knowing there was no chance the match would be cut. Nemeth brought up the ‘number two person in charge’ again and said that individual told him and Morrison they’d be fined if they tried to steal the match away from the women in the bout.
He added that the match was supposed go 20 minutes but it was cut down due to Undertaker and Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque’s No Holds Barred match going long. Nemeth recalled practicing with Snooki beforehand and overall, he feels she did great in the match.
Here’s the most important part I knew about (mixed tag match at WrestleMania 27): Myself and John Morrison would never in hell have a chance — we would have a chance on the other 37 pay-per-views throughout the year to headline, open, crossover, semi-main but there’s — guys like us are always fighting to get a backstage on WrestleMania. You’re not gonna get a match on TV and I knew that him and I wouldn’t have that and I really wish I knew how that came to be. I would assume LayCool pitched that because they were in much higher standing with the office than just the guys who are really good at wrestling. So, I feel like they had a group and they had a story and they had some stuff so they had some pull, for whatever reasons… Once we were a part of it, I said, ‘Oh, we have a chance of being on WrestleMania.’ Then when we add Snooki in our match, I go, no matter what happens, no matter if she pins me and throws a pie in my face, metaphorically, that either way, no matter what happens, this match is not getting cut from the show. I’ve been in matches where they go, ‘You’re gonna lose 28 of your 29 minutes and we’re gonna cut you off the show’ and you go, ‘Ah, this sucks.’ This was a we’re fighting to be on the show, we’re in a thing with an announced thing and a story and a celebrity. No matter what happens, they gotta send us out there. So, I go, that’s a positive and I believe we were pulled aside and told by one of our bosses at that time to, ‘Don’t try and steal the match away from the women’ and just get a bunch of our sh*t in because it’s not about us and this said person who was telling me this was like second-in-command at the time, said, ‘We know what you’re gonna try and do and we’re already watching you so don’t do it and I’ll fine you a bunch of money’ and I had no idea what he was talking about. But, we got to the match, and then the match before us went 19 minutes heavy. So, they said, ‘You had 20 minutes for a match and then it was cut down to 15, then it was cut down to 10.’ Then they said, ‘Can we get a bell and you guys go to the finish?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and Nitro and I did that and then the women had their match that they had planned. So, it was kind of funny… I was on the apron just waving to Morrison. I’m like, ‘Hey bro, how’s everything over there?’ He’s, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty good…’ ‘Alright. Well I’ll see you in a minute.’ But, Snooki, I wasn’t there for her practices before WrestleMania week or her anything she had done before that but, I guess she likes to party and they put stuff on TV. You said, ‘Give me the dirt on Snooki.’ The dirt on Snooki is on MTV brother. So I don’t know. So, when we practiced, she seemed like she was completely coherent and ready to go and wanted to do something great and she knocked her part out of the park, I thought.
Nemeth is currently working with TNA Wrestling and has a shot at the company’s World Championship coming up at Rebellion.
In addition to that, Nemeth is the reigning IWGP Global Champion and he’ll be in action on April 12th against Tomohiro Ishii at NJPW Windy City Riot.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Going Postl with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
