Goldberg Had COVID When WWE Called About Roman Reigns Match
Two-time WWE Universal Champion, Bill Goldberg, joined the CarCast podcast this week, following the Hall of Famer's trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Elimination Chamber.
At the event on February 19, Goldberg was defeated by Universal Champion, Roman Reigns. However, the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion explained WWE's reasoning for his selection as Reigns' opponent on the show.
"Roman's a great dude, man," Goldberg said. "Let's be perfectly honest. I would have squished him fifteen years ago, but now? It's a different story. I'm 55. I do two matches a year. What am I going to do? Come in at one of the bigger pay-per-views and I'm gonna beat the WWE Universal Champion and take the belt home with me for six months then come back champion?
"I mean hey, I don't write the script. I just kinda follow it. Well, kinda follow it. And, the fact is, like I said man, one of the main reasons why I came back was to give back to the business. If I can set Roman up and make him look a million bucks going into WrestleMania against Brock, then that's my job."
Despite putting in a solid 5:59 minutes of work during the match, Goldberg revealed he only had two weeks to prepare for the showdown because he was struck down with Covid.
"Not only do a plethora of people understand what the outcome will most likely be [in regards to his match with Roman Reigns], but, you know, I obviously only had an extremely short period of time to get ready for it," Goldberg explained. "You know, I hadn't trained in three months. I have Covid when I get the phone call to go. I literally had two weeks in the gym to get ready for this.
"What people don't understand, and it will come out in the documentary, is it is tough to do that as a 20-year-old. It's even more difficult to do it as a 30-year-old. As a 40-year-old, it's almost impossible. At 55-years-old? It's – I'm one of the 0.003% of humans on the planet that can pull something like that off. But in doing it, it's very tough mentally to keep yourself in a positive space because you've got so many negatives going against you, right?
"Then, oh, 90% understand what the storyline is gonna be. I'm fighting an uphill battle the whole way. At this point, throughout the years that I've been able to do this in a short schedule, you go out, you do your job as best to your ability."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit CarCast with an h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.