Goldberg has had a strange relationship with WWE. This year, he’s being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as the headline attraction, but things were not always so rosy between them.
Case in point, his initial WWE run in 2003. When WCW folded in 2001, Goldberg was not one of the people who moved over to WWE as a part of the “Invasion” story, since he had signed a very lucrative multiyear deal that literally paid him more money to sit at home than he would have made wrestling for Vince McMahon.
After the entire WCW relaunch concept died for good in November 2001, McMahon began negotiating with Goldberg more seriously, looking for something to juice his business again. This was, seemingly, an easy formula: bring in Goldberg, match him up with Steve Austin, count the money, right?
MORE: Seven WrestleMania matches that failed to deliver or didn't happen
Things went immediately wrong. A match with the Rock at Backlash 2003 didn’t deliver the kind of money that was expected of them, and it was clear that McMahon didn’t understand the Goldberg character at all.
Instead of the natural feud with Austin, he was paired with Triple H in a less thrilling clash. He was also put in silly backstage segments, like one where he famously interacted with Goldust and looked like a complete goof.
Although he eventually won the World title from Triple H in September 2003 — and lost it back a couple of months later — it was clear the magic was not there. Goldberg was unhappy with his place in WWE and wanted out.
MORE: Follow SN Wrestling on Twitter for the latest news, notes and ridiculousness
His contract was a short-term one, expiring after WrestleMania 20, and it was the worst-kept secret in wrestling that he was leaving. He was going to face Brock Lesnar in one last dream match — which he would lose — and then depart the company for good, and everyone knew it.
And then a funny thing happened.
Lesnar's relationship with Vince McMahon was deteriorating by 2004. After more than a year at the top as “The Next Big Thing," Lesnar decided that maybe the wrestling business wasn’t for him. He lost the WWE title to Eddie Guerrero at No Way Out 2004 in a classic match and was set to beat Goldberg at WrestleMania and move on.
But a week before the biggest show of the year, he gave notice; turns out that Lesnar suddenly had dreams of being a football player, specifically with the Minnesota Vikings, and McMahon was holding him back from achieving his lifelong goal by keeping him under contract.
Now, normally this would have been not such a big deal, since wrestlers come and go all the time, but WWE had just invested a lot of money into him via a multiyear contract that he signed weeks before his decision. He was supposed to figure into the top of the card for the next seven years as a replacement for the retiring Austin and departing Rock, and now he wanted to play football with no prior experience.
This all led up to Goldberg taking on Lesnar at WrestleMania 20 in — what was supposed to be — a featured co-main event, with Austin as special referee and a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. Instead of a classic match, we got one of the most bizarre social experiments ever to appear live on PPV, as the crowd all knew that both guys were leaving and resented them both for it.
It was like John Cena wrestling Roman Reigns on a larger crowd-reaction scale, with 20,000 people booing literally every move in the match and chanting “You Sold Out” to two people who were just recently the biggest babyface stars in the promotion and world champions.
MORE: The greatest WrestleMania matches of all time
The reaction was so vitriolic that WWE essentially called an audible before the match and changed the finish to Goldberg winning cleanly via Jackhammer, after which Austin laid them both out with stunners and celebrated as the only one who was still beloved by the crowd. Not to mention, Austin was a guy who himself had recently walked out on the company after domestic abuse charges.
Regardless, the match was terrible, with both competitors completely phoning it in and the crowd not reacting to anything but their own abusive chants. The only real cheer came when the match was over, because, well, the match was over. Had the show not been saved in a big way by the two World title matches that closed the show, it might have actually sunk the historic 20th WrestleMania. Luckily, it didn’t, even though the later deeds of Chris Benoit mean that they we don’t often see this particular show celebrated by WWE to this day.
As for Lesnar, his quest to play football was unsuccessful, but escaping his Draconian contract was another matter. After WWE tried to block his attempts to wrestle in Japan and fight in the UFC, Lesnar took it to court and won a historic case that determined WWE’s non-compete clause to be in violation of right-to-work laws in the U.S. He was thus free to pursue his dreams of smashing people in the face, and he did pretty well with it.
Goldberg continued staying away from wrestling and making money in the meantime, and in 2016 an unlikely video game deal brought them back together again.
This time, it went a little bit better for all concerned, to say the least.
