Chris Jericho and Goldberg have broken down their notorious backstage altercation with both men saying they felt it was engineered by other people.
The animosity between Chris Jericho and Goldberg stretched back to their days working together in WCW in the mid-nineties. Jericho left that company in 1999, joining WWE but by the time 2003 came around Goldberg was ready to join the company as well, so both men resumed hostilities.
Writing in his Undisputed: How to Become World Champ in 1,372 Easy Steps, Chris Jericho detailed the confrontation between both men in a WWE locker room:
“It was Goldfinch’s first Raw, and I worked with HHH vs. Shawn and Booker T. After the match, I was pulled aside and informed that Goldsmith had spent the entire match barking to Nash about how I didn’t know how to sell properly and how I hadn’t wanted to do business with him in WCW.”
“It made me mad that he had only been with the company for a little over a week, and he was already up to his old tricks. It was time to put a stop to it right now. I marched straight into the dressing room and saw Nash sitting in the corner like a giant praying mantis acting like he owned the place, while Billy Boy sat across from him with a self-indulgent smile on his face. Throwing caution to the wind, I stood in front of him and stared directly into his eyes.”
“‘I heard you were saying some stuff about me during my match. I don’t know if you realize it, but things have changed. This isn’t WCW. If you have something to say to me, say it to my face.’”
What happened next is the stuff of wrestling legend with Chris Jericho managing to get the better of Goldberg via a front-face lock before other wrestlers could separate the two men. Jericho added that while the fight was going on “Nash Mantis continued to sit in his chair in the corner of the room watching the festivities.”
Now Goldberg and Jericho have set the record straight when the WWE Hall of Famer appeared on Talk Is Jericho. The first-ever AEW World Champion began by saying he thinks the animosity between the men had been manipulated by others:
“Well, I mean once again, I firmly believe that you know, we had our backstage you know, brew ha ha scuffle backstage. That was manipulated, I think, by other people to kind of pit [us] against each other.”
A sentiment which Goldberg agreed with:
“100% You know, things in life happened for a reason. And I believe that one was because of the true animosity you and I had for each other. It was a stage that was set by other people. And we just followed out the storyline. You know, I will apologise to the end of my days for that.”
Goldberg later admitted that the rumours of Jericho getting the better of him were true:
“Oh my god. Yeah, you kicked my ass. Pretty good, man.”
To which Jericho responded with tongue in cheek:
“Oh, yeah, I stretched you. Yeah, that’s not exactly what happened. But I’ll take it. Hey, man, I do remember too we fought out the doors in Milwaukee into the concourse for a second. We actually bought it out of the dressing room back into the dressing room. I was like there’s other people seeing this?”
During the conversation, Goldberg discussed the animosity towards him from Bret Hart and explained why he is “done apologising” to The Hitman.
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