“I Wanted His Retirement Match …”
Bill Goldberg is back, and returning to in-ring action one more time when he challenges WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event on July 12 in Atlanta, GA.
For Big E., although his own in-ring career was forced to end early, it’s still a bummer to know he won’t be the man standing across the ring from Goldberg when the WWE Hall of Fame legend has his final pro wrestling match.
During his appearance on the Raw Recap podcast with Sam Roberts and Megan Morant for the June 16 show, which featured Goldberg’s surprise return and match announcement, the former WWE Champion and New Day member gave his thoughts on Goldberg’s return.
“Look, it was like I was 13 years old once again,” he said. “It was like, I hearken back to him winning the title at the Georgia Dome. I met this man at a Walmart signing like 25 years ago. Like we got to do a Hot Ones together.”
Big E. continued, explaining how he was bummed out that it wasn’t him having the retirement match with Goldberg, noting it was something he wanted in the past.
“This man, my wrestling fandom is so deeply connected to this man,” he said. “My most famous promo of all time has to do with that man. I wanted his retirement match. That’s obviously off the table.”
From there, Big E. spent some time focusing on the match that will happen, and his thoughts on a Goldberg vs. Gunther showdown in Atlanta, GA. next month.
“I will say, if this is indeed it, Gunther is so intriguing,” Big E. said. “I love the clash of eras. I think, and this is, I want to see, obviously, seeing Jey not have the title is disappointing. But I want to see Gunther be in the ring with the biggest fish. Sometimes that’s the best guys in the roster, but like us, I think back to when we were really rolling with the New Day and the Dudleys came back. So you’re not only getting an opportunity to share the ring with the best of your time, but you’re also getting to share the ring with legends, and when you look back, look, I think a lot of our hardcore fans might roll their eyes and say, why Goldberg?”
He added, “But if you’re a Gunther fan, I think when it’s all said and done, you want to look at the list of names on his resume that he’s beaten and it’s going to have guys from who had their heyday 20 years ago guys now younger guys who are going to be future world champions so I think it’s such a great test for Gunther I think, honestly, I think for a lot of fans, they want to see Gunther move on from Jey and this is such a unique out of the box (idea). My fianceé was asking me, who do you think is up next for Gunther? I had forgotten about the whole Goldberg thing and I didn’t know that we were just quick balling, and when his music hit, it was like, oh. That’s so fun. Yeah. That’s what I love about our industry is you get to make these matches and these moments that a lot of times you would never expect.”
(H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.)
