In an interview with Inside the Ropes in May 2017, WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg spoke of joining WWE for the first time back in 2003.
Goldberg had worked for rival WCW from 1997-2001, when they were in a bitter feud with WWE during the Monday Night War era, and waited until his contract with Time Warner ran its course before agreeing to join WWE.
It was like jumping into a fire pit with no way out because I was their competition, along with everyone else, for a long time and we didn’t look favourably upon our competition a lot of times and we did anything we could to get out in front. And now we find ourselves working with the competition and everything we did will be held against us.
Goldberg talked about how almost immediately WWE tried to embarrass him in a skit with Dustin Rhodes aka Goldust in April 2003.
And so after two weeks, they put a wig on me, figure that. You think it might have had something to do with the fact that we were neck and neck with them and I might have been one of the guys who helped, and they had some feelings about that, and they wanted to diminish the character? I don’t know, at the end of the day it was what it was and if it wasn’t Dustin then I never would have done it because he’s a buddy of mine.
Goldberg spoke of how much of a challenge it was working in WWE with a whole new bunch of people that he didn’t know and most still saw him as a rival to them.
It was tough, it was a totally different deal. Before WCW I played football in the area, I played college football, I played pro football, and I knew most of the guys for a long period of time prior to wrestling. That was not the case in WWE. Totally different. Not only was the office in Stamford, Connecticut, 1200 miles away from me but it was run by people that I didn’t know, it was filled with people that were working as wrestlers I had no clue who they were and I just thought it was the enemy. And so how good could it be going up there? They wanted to hang us at one point, as we wanted to hang them, you do whatever you could do to bury your competition. And we resorted and they resorted to some really goofy stuff. And now that’s who I’m working for. So it was tough. It was a really tough decision.
Despite feuds with The Rock, Triple H and Brock Lesnar, Goldberg only lasted for his one-year deal that he signed up for in 2003, with his final WWE appearance being at WrestleMania XX in March 2004, and not returning to the company until over 12 years later in 2016.
Goldberg Takes A Shot At “The Moron I Kicked In The Head”
Recently Goldberg seemingly took a verbal jab against Bret Hart in reference to when Goldberg kicked Bret Hart in the head at WCW Starrcade 1999, which would prematurely end Bret’s in-ring career.
Recently a former WWE Superstar spoke about what caused “the Goldberg myth” to die.
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