WWE News: New Backstage Details On Goldberg’s Feud With The Rock In 2003
Goldberg’s recent emergence from the 2K Sports “hatch,” unveiled at this past Monday night’s episode of RAW, sparked water-cooler conversation across the wrestling landscape. The majority of those discussions, of course, centered around the possibility of Goldberg, one day, returning to the WWE. There remains some levels of hostility on both sides, however, and fans must consistently be reminded that Goldberg signed the video game deal with 2K Sports, not with WWE. Although, as we reported earlier this week, nothing or no one gets put in the WWE 2K games without the approval of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
It‘s the relationship between Vince and Goldberg that has gathered a lot of steam this week as it relates to the reasons why he won’t return to WWE. And all of this Goldberg news, with him trending worldwide once again, unearthed a gem from over a decade ago when he first arrived to sports entertainment’s preeminent empire. Goldberg signed with the WWE in 2003, debuting on the RAW the night after WrestleMania 19.
That show is still widely considered one of the best WrestleManias of all time, featuring a card stacked with talent from top to bottom. And with Goldberg arriving the following night, the talent pool was that much deeper. According to the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the idea for Goldberg to enter a feud with The Rock immediately upon his debut came from The Rock himself. It was Rock’s creative that called for the two icons to engage in a three-match program that would have culminated at WrestleMania 20 in Madison Square Garden, a year after Goldberg first came in.
What’s not known is when, or at what pay-per-view, the second of the three matches would have taken place, but what is known is that The Rock would have gone over in the rematch, and the rubber match at WrestleMania was still far off and yet to be determined. Things went according to plan in the first bout, when a babyface Goldberg defeated a heel Rock clean at Backlash in 2003. But then the rest of the huge plans never came to fruition because The Rock was summoned by Hollywood and could no longer commit to a schedule with WWE. Meanwhile, Goldberg agreed to a deal that booked him for eight dates a month, but that was presumably before Rock departed to do movies and the main event program fell apart.
Goldberg continued to compete in some significant feuds, with the likes of Chris Jericho and Triple H, the latter from whom Goldberg won the World Heavyweight Championship at 2003’s Unforgiven pay-per-view. But with his one-year deal (worth $1 million) set to expire after WrestleMania 20, neither side wanted to continue the partnership as the relationship had become strained. Vince paired Goldberg up with Brock Lesnar for what was billed as a colossal showdown in New York City, but then Lesnar gave his notice that he, too was leaving the WWE. Vince decided that Goldberg would go over in the match because he was the babyface, but it might have gone down as the worst match in the show’s illustrious history because the live crowd knew that both guys were on their way out.
Goldberg recently said that not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about a rematch with Lesnar, and the fact that the WWE 2K17 video game trailer teased that very idea has people’s heads spinning. That age-old notion of “never say never” has come up quite a lot this week, and with Goldberg also saying he has 50 matches left in him, the possibilities of closing the books on both a Lesnar rematch and finishing what The Rock originally wanted remain that much more intriguing.
[Image via WWE]
