Goldberg Says A Match Against Roman Reigns Still Almost Happened After WrestleMania Was Taped
Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Goldberg’s highly-anticipated showdown against Roman Reigns got called off due to concerns over the coronavirus, but it appears that we almost got a second chance at seeing that match happen.
Speaking on the CarCast podcast, Goldberg was talking about his recent schedule with WWE and said he was going back and forth between taping in Orlando and quarantining at home, and later revealed that the decision to take Roman out of the match really was a last-minute decision.
“I go to Orlando, I tape, I come back here and quarantine. It’s just been like ‘Groundhog Day’. Obviously I had a change of opponents at the very last moment, Roman Reigns, everybody knows he has leukemia, he’s in remission and obviously his immune system is down. I don’t know why it was even considered in the beginning besides he’d invested the time and WWE invested the money in the angle, the match,” Goldberg said, “so literally until the 23rd hour, it was still a possibility that he and I were going to wrestle. Plans changed at the very last minute. I did my match with [Braun Strowman] and it was possible that I could do a match with Roman again before the 5th, that obviously fell through.”
Goldberg confirmed that he met his obligations with the company for the year and said he’d gone home and stopped training since he was done, but he ended up getting a call that the original match was still possible on Roman’s end until they’d learned someone else was sick. It’s unclear how the match would have factored in if it happened since Braun Strowman already beat him at the taping, but Goldberg took time to credit Roman for still making the effort to make the match happen.
“It was still a possibility on his end that he could go through with the match. We went to the [WWE Performance Center] and our temperatures were taken when we walked in, the place was scrubbed up and down, there were a limited amount of people allowed in and out of the building, it was very controlled.
“I think what happened was somebody was sick and Roman had heard about it. They just had the flu, but just the fact that someone was sick under those circumstances, at the end of the day he just couldn’t do it. More power to him to continually want to get it done, whether that’s realistic or unrealistic from a person in his shoes are concerned but you’ve got to love the guy because up to the 11th hour, he was still willing to do it.”
If you use any portion of this transcription, please credit Bill Pritchard of Wrestlezone.com
While Goldberg didn’t name anyone specifically in this interview, it’s worth noting that PWInsider.com and F4WOnline.com did report The Miz had been sick that week and ultimately did not work the WrestleMania tapings. The reason for Miz’s absence was not given in the PWInsider report but F4W’s Dave Meltzer reported he was told The Usos were not happy The Miz was sick, which influenced their cousin Roman Reigns’ decision to remove himself from WrestleMania 36.
Read More: Backstage News On Goldberg’s WWE Status, Original Plans For His Match With Bray Wyatt