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Bill Goldberg is not the answer to WWE’s problems

By Raphael Garcia

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 04: Bill Goldberg attends WWE 20th Anniversary Celebration Marking Premiere of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX at Staples Center on October 04, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 04: Bill Goldberg attends WWE 20th Anniversary Celebration Marking Premiere of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX at Staples Center on October 04, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images) /
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With fans finally coming back, WWE is looking to pull out all the stops to get crowds exciting for what is to come. Fightful Select broke news on Thursday that WWE is going to its “in case of emergency” option and looking to bring back Goldberg on Monday Night Raw, and make him a top contender for WWE Champion, Bobby Lashley. The criticism to that potential news was heard far and wide: wrestling fans do not want Goldberg back in any capacity.

When things get back, WWE constantly looks to the past to correct the ship. Whether it is retro shows, Legends’ Night, or other gimmicks that bring up yesteryear – WWE has an addiction to nostalgia. Television ratings for Raw continue to plummet, while both NXT and SmackDown have stagnated, lacking any long-term growth. Goldberg’s frequent returns are a product of that and fans of professional wrestling are tired of it.

At 54-years of age, Goldberg has been used sparingly since 2016. He will pop up a few times a year, and frequently inserted into the title picture. Fans were especially upset when he was used to end Kevin Owens’s Universal Championship run in 2017 and again when he was used to defeat The Fiend in 2019. When Goldberg’s name pops up, fans roll their collective eyes and groan because its going to be more of the same. And that is one of the major reasons why the WWE product is continuing to suffer.

Vince McMahon has said during investors’ calls that the return of fans will be a boost to the product. Yet, there’s extraordinarily little faith to be had in that statement. Everything from the lackadaisical booking of the women’s divisions on Raw and SmackDown, to the overreliance on older names cuts into that potential faith. It has been decades since Goldberg was the answer, and he is certainly not going to be a long-term help this time around.

WWE fails to properly build up young talent

Look what is happening over on All Elite Wrestling. AEW continues to leverage their younger performers, building them into the stars that fans want to see. This past week, AEW Dynamite broke the one million viewers mark, with the Britt Baker promo, Adam Page and Kenny Omega segment, and the Darby Allin match against Ethan Page in the main event as the highest drawing points of the show. Baker, Page, and Allin are 30, 29, and 28-years old, respectively. Along with other names on their roster like MJF and Jungle Boy, AEW continues to build stars that can be utilized for years to come if needed. WWE has some of their own youthful names like Sasha Banks, Rhea Ripley, and Austin Theory, but WWE does not look to them the same way that AEW consistently offers their names the best booking.

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Will Bill Goldberg’s return get more viewers than Raw has earned recently to tune in? Most likely. Is it the answer to the conundrum within the promotion as it struggles to give fans new names to watch? Absolutely not. Goldberg is not the answer, even if the result is seeing him get rag-dolled while Bobby Lashley holds him in the Hurt Lock.

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