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Goldberg On One More Match, Bret Hart, Bray Wyatt, The Undertaker & The Best Spear Ever

Posted: Aug 1st 2024 By: Chris Van Vliet

Goldberg (@Goldberg) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in San Antonio, TX to discuss his legendary in-ring career which saw him find success in WCW and WWE, how things could have been different if he did not get injured in the NFL, if one more match will happen and if it could happen in WWE, getting concussed in his match against The Undertaker, Bray Wyatt (The Fiend) and Roman Reigns, how close he got to making an appearance in AEW, having a "Big meaty men slapping meat" match with Big E, who took the best spear ever and more!

On being retired:

"When you have been a wrestler at some point in your life, I don't think you're retired until you're dead. But I mean, I don't know, I was kind of forced into retirement a little bit. I don't like to think that I'm retired in any respect, whether it's from working or wrestling or anything else. I've kind of been hiding out here on the ranch for the past four or five years, investing 100% of my time, effort and emotion into our son Gage and trying to prepare him for his journey off to college because it's such a transitional time in a kid's life. And yeah, I've kind of been on the shelf, like, the example I can give people is when Wanda cooks dinner and it’s steak night, we have six steaks to eat, she gets one, I get one and Gage gets whatever's left, which is like four of them, right? So and then, while I'm eating my one, and if he's eaten those four, and he looks hungry, then I'll cut mine in half and give it to him. So I've lost probably 30 pounds in five years. I haven't been able to come in the gym too much because he's always up here with his buddies and they're doing their thing, but that's what this is for. [They don't want to work out with Bill Goldberg?] Hell no. I'm way in their rearview mirror man, my kid is so much stronger to me. Now the day I knew I was going to be emasculated by my son. Forever forthcoming is the day that he got on my neck machine and could actually do more weight than I could. And he's 18."

On Gage having the Goldberg name:

"It's a blessing and it's a curse. It gives you opportunity, but the added pressure sometimes is insurmountable."

On what would have happened if he didn’t get injured in the NFL:

"It would look the same, because I probably would have done the same thing, I probably would have gotten cut, because I wasn't good enough to stay there. I mean, it is what it is. Who knows? I famously, I hearken back onto my speech at the WWE Hall of Fame and people asked me what I wanted to be, what I wanted my life to stand for. I always wanted to be somebody that the kids could look up to. And I always thought that the best way to accomplish that was being in the NFL and being in the NFL Hall of Fame. Well, as I was being inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame, I realized that that was not true. That by being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame that was probably bigger than any NFL induction ever could have been, because I think I reached more people."

On what made him try wrestling:

"My accountant called me and he said you might want to get off your ass because you didn't make millions in the NFL and you need a job. And you look at your potential list of things that immediately you can do and I didn't want to do any of them. I just didn't. And I wasn't finished with my physical prowess, not my prowess but my physical way of earning a living through physicality, whatever it may be, and I wanted to be able to apply what I had worked so hard for my entire life, which was playing football. And if there was something I could apply it to then great and oh, let's try to find something that will that will satiate your violent tendencies and keep you out of jail at the same time. So I mean, it served a lot of purposes it put money in my pocket, it gave me a job and it was therapy in a way."

On possibly not being ready when he debuted:

"I mean, 100% I wasn't ready, but I was put in, I was a piece of a puzzle. In a world where you can dictate what people see, why not roll the dice when you can control the narrative to a point? So I get it, I completely understand it and I probably should have performed a little bit better. I don't know, I think I did pretty good. I don't know. I mean, let me let me look on the past 20 years where people comment on stuff, I guess I haven't done sh*t. But truly looking back on it, I did pretty damn good for the situation that I was in because I wasn't a lifer. I wasn't a guy who aspired to be a professional wrestler, so I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything about the business. I learned quite quickly how cutthroat it can be. But I didn't really know and I tried to consume as much knowledge as humanly possible, in a short period of time and try to put forth the best package."

On the Bret Hart animosity:

"I really don't care anymore about Bret, I couldn't care less. You know Louis, right? All I can tell you is this. Louis and I know and [Brian] Knobbs knows, through Legends of Wrestling that shortly thereafter all that sh*t that happened. I talked Louis into giving Bret Hart a job at Legends of Wrestling. He must forget about stuff like that. He must forget about the conversations we had back then."

On talking to Bret Hart since the accident:

"We’ve talked a couple of times. As of late because of the things coming out of his mouth, I don't really know that I would be talking to him if I saw him. But hey, man, I'm 57 years old. I don't need to prove anything to Bret Hart or to any other human being. The fact is, it was a mistake. I was extremely green in the business and anybody who knows me knows that if I didn't intend to hurt him, then it was an accident. If I intended to hurt him, then I'd be the first one to tell him and you and everyone else. But man, I was green dude. I mean, it was a screw-up in the match and it's live on national television. There's two people that have to dance and you can only do so much and I mean, things went awry. It is what it is."

On If the promise of one more match in WWE will happen:

"Well no, not from Vince. No, if that match was still on the table, it would have been done, I would have thought. But hey, man, I was thinking about it this morning in the shower, right? And I thought, Man, I had one of the best wrestling careers ever and don't think for one second that I don't understand that and I don't appreciate it. And so to sit here and cry over a person not keeping his word in a business, that's as cutthroat as humanly possible and he gets cast out. What do I think's gonna happen? So come on, man. I mean, I'm a big boy, it is what it is. If I really wanted that to happen, I could go do it myself. I could go to India and do it. I could go to Israel and do it. I could go to Japan and do it. I could do it here in the States. The fact is though, the past six years, I've poured every ounce of my soul into my son, and I haven't even used this weight room barely. But now he's out the door. I got to fill my time with a bunch of stuff. So I'm working on my cars and I'm training again, I'm going to get stem cells, bio accelerator down in Columbia. I've got this new TV show going I'm going to roadkill nights in Detroit August the 10th. I'm actually living again."

On his relationship with Triple H:

I haven’t talked to Triple H in a long time. It was extremely rocky in the beginning. But I think I think we're at a good place. Man. I have nothing but respect for him, man. He's turned an interesting situation into a very successful situation and very profitable and I'm proud of it man. Good job."

On if he is happy with the Roman Reigns match being his last one:

"No, it sucks. I had f*cking COVID three weeks before I was asked to do it. It was horrible. No, it was a favor. You know, it was my job. I'm not gonna say no, I've never said no, really. And I was asked to wrestle twice a year. They were caught between a rock and a hard place and I was their answer. I feel like I did him a favor and that's why I thought that the favor would be reciprocated. But it is what it is. I'll never forget the phone call I got when I was in bed. I couldn't even breathe and I felt like ass. I couldn't even get up. [Vince says] You can make Saudi in three weeks? Sure I'll be there You promise me a match after that. [Vince said] Sure. I should have done better. That's my fault."

On The Undertaker match in Saudi Arabia:

"I knocked myself out before walking to the frickin ring. You know, when I came back, intensity is something very hard to replicate and I had forgotten my sequence to the ring. I'd forgotten my preparation. It had been so long, and I had put it away, I had put it in a dark place in my mind. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to get ready for matches anymore. I was just detached. And well, I remember then that I gotta headbutt the door. And I headbutted the door right when they played my music to wrestle Taker, which was the most unbelievable opportunity ever. And I knocked myself out. I was walking to the ring man I was on. I was on that street."

Do you remember anything from that match?

"I remember the referee asking me if I could go on and me saying yes. And then him turning away and then me saying no. And then me saying yes and then me saying no, I remember that. Then he [Undertaker] shot me to the turnbuckle and I like to make it if I'm going to be hurt, I like to make it look as real as possible. Sometimes actually making it real. And I unintentionally headbutted the frickin post. And yeah, it knocked me for another one. So I had two concussions leading up to me dropping him on his head. And then the nice little payback was the tombstone straight up and down on my head. And thank God for that neck machine right there or I wouldn't be talking to you. But I deserved it, 100%."

On why talks with Tony Khan never went any further:

"I just think we have a different perspective on it. I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me to really pass judgment on their production because I don't watch it. I see clips of it and it's hard to give a rational breakdown of how they are if I don't really watch it, so I don't really know. He reminds me of Dixie Carter, but a male version. I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. But he reminds me of that scenario. And it's just a different feel, it’s just different."

Were you ever close on making a deal?

"I don't think I was ever close to making a deal with him. I think it was much more a realistic transition when Sting was involved. I reached out to Sting because I wanted to be a part. I thought he and I could do a farewell thing at some point together. But it wasn't about me. It was about Sting and I could never overshadow anything that he does. But I don't want to convolute the waters. It would have been a nice crescendo but it wasn't about me."

On what happened when WCW closed down:

"I didn't know except for the fact that I knew I wasn't going to work for 50 cents on the dollar. So I'm gonna sit at home and let it play out. I had no idea. I really didn't. I knew that I had always wanted to go to Japan. Always. And that gave me the opportunity. That was a dream come true."

On interrupting The Rock in his WWE debut:

"It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun and big kudos to him for having you know, the foresight that it would be something that would go over like that, he's very unselfish. And at the end of the day, it's a dance man. We all need to we all need everyone involved to be a part of it because it's a well-oiled machine. You can't I always tell people that I couldn't have had the streak if it wasn't for 176 guys to make me look good. Right? I mean, the match in Colorado Springs with the flock. And they threw themselves around like it was nobody's business. They made me look like Godzilla and it was awesome. But that's their job, that's what they do."

On a possible match with Big E:

"I’ll give it to him tomorrow. We can leave that part out [big meaty men slapping meat] of it. Right when he says it to me Goldberg’s gonna have to drop him. But yeah, I don't do comedy. Like, I never really meshed well with that. It's like, you know, the Indiana Jones and the guy coming in and flashing his sword and you just pull a gun out and shoot him. It's just that's me. Less is more."

What is Goldberg grateful for:

“My wife, my son and my health.”