Day 109: Why Is Goldberg Still A Thing?

Everything was going just fine. Despite the fact that I kept falling asleep, the main event on last night’s Raw was one of the best that I’ve seen in a while. Keith Lee fought tooth and nail to try to usurp Drew McIntyre’s title. For a moment there, after Keith did a perfect spanish fly off the top rope, it seemed like it was going to happen. With a group of legends watching from the ramp, Keith proved once again that he is the future of the company. He’s already a fan favorite. He’s ridiculously quick and agile for his gargantuan size. He’s got a great underdog story that the WWE has already drilled into our brains repeatedly.

A few weeks ago, he was sent back to the performance center along with other underperforming [read: overweight] wrestlers. Nobody knew why he was sent there with a bunch of jobbers, but the answer was made clear last night. He’s being pushed for a title run and from the looks of it, he is ready. Ultimately, Drew won the match, but the seeds were sown. This was all a setup for a match at the Royal Rumble or maybe Wrestlemania. After a respectful fist bump, Drew grabbed the mic, probably to talk up Keith some more. There it was. The moment he was waiting for. The start of his big push.

Instead, Drew was interrupted.

By Goldberg.

Words cannot express the disappointment that engulfed my whole being.

The 54 year old child stormed the ring. Keith Lee suddenly disappeared, from both the ring and the storylines. He gave an angered speech to Drew about how he has it all, but he doesn’t have respect. He implored that Drew saw all of the legends as feeble old geezers and that he thinks that he’s better than them in their prime. [And honestly, yes, that’s true. Drew McIntyre would wipe the floor with IRS, Tatanka, Farooq and Mark Henry. It’s stupid to even assume that he couldn’t.] So to teach him respect, he challenged him to a title match at the Royal Rumble. And then they ran out of TV time and awkwardly ended the show as a physical altercation began.

To an outsider, or somebody who only tuned in for Legends Night, this probably seemed like a fair challenge. But if there’s one thing that Drew McIntyre [or at least his character] has, it is respect. He’s respectful to everyone in the locker room and also respectful to all of the legends. It’s very clear that:

A. He wrote the script months ago, when Randy Orton was champion
B. He legit thought that Drew was Randy Orton
C. He thought he was on Smackdown, challenging the other long-haired champion

It’s unclear how the story is going to proceed from here. They’re both regarded as faces, so who’s going to play the heel? Was this a sloppy transition and now suddenly Drew McIntyre is going to be a disrespectful villain? Or is Goldberg going to play heel as the angry and senile old man? Who in the hell wants to watch this crap? And one question burns bright among the others.

Why is Goldberg still a thing?

I’ll confess that I was never a Bill Goldberg fan, so I don’t really understand his appeal. He’s seemingly talentless and tired. He can’t do a match longer than 2 minutes and even then, it’s real sloppy. When he squashed the unstoppable Fiend last February, it was one of the biggest mistakes that the WWE had made. It alienated the fans and basically destroyed the Fiend character for no reason. Why would you give the title to a 54 year old wrestler that can’t even put on a good match? What am I missing?

What makes it worse is that he’s been long-rumored to fight Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania. Not only does it seem likely now, there’s also a clear path for it to happen. He’s going to squash Drew at the Royal Rumble and take the Heavyweight Title. Then he’s going to challenge Roman for a title unification at Wrestlemania. That’ll put the Universal Title out of its misery and double the playing field for the Heavyweight Title, which is sorely needed. Win-win, right? Nope. It’s not that easy.

Ratings are at the bottom of the barrel, especially for Raw. The worst thing they can do is have Goldberg hold the title hostage until Wrestlemania. And then when that happens, he’s going to face the most despised heel in a 90 second squash match. Goldberg will win and then The Miz will cash in his Money in the Bank and walk out the undisputed champ. If they’re trying to keep fans from switching their allegiance to AEW, this is not the way. It hasn’t even been booked, but I’m already dreading Wrestlemania. It better have a damn good undercard, because the main event is going to be absolute trash. And it’s also a slap in the face to everyone in the locker room that’s been waiting for their shot. Instead of getting his Wrestlemania moment, Keith Lee is probably going to end up have an Omos On A Pole Match against AJ Styles. That’ll put butts in the digital seats.

There are some big problems going on at WWE and Vince McMahon has already been vocal about making huge changes. If Goldberg is actually part of this master plan, maybe they deserve to go down…

– TeeCoZee