WWE Star Goldberg Possibly Returning For WrestleMania 37

WWE may be reaching deep down into its bag of part-timer tricks once again.

According to a report from Inside The Ropes, former Universal Champion Goldberg is expected to factor into WWE’s plans for Royal Rumble and WrestleMania following his appearance inside WWE’s “ThunderDome” on SmackDown last week: “WWE sources have told Inside the Ropes that Goldberg’s return on Friday was designed to give SmackDown a boost in the ratings for its premiere episode and with the view to putting some wheels in motion for Royal Rumble/WrestleMania season. That would suggest that Goldberg is going to factor in to the futures of [Roman] Reigns or [Braun] Strowman.”

Despite Goldberg revealing that he would be in the ThunderDome for SmackDown, which featured a marquee Universal Championship between Reigns and Strowman, the show had a considerable decrease in viewers (200,000 to be exact) from last week’s special draft episode. That number for such a stacked episode of SmackDown—one that also featured Daniel Bryan’s return, a contract signing between Bayley and Sasha Banks as well as a tag team title match—has to be considered a disappointment, but that hasn’t prevented WWE boss Vince McMahon from remaining a big fan of Goldberg.

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Inside The Ropes also notes that the WWE Chairman and CEO still sees Goldberg as a draw for the company: “If there was a Saudi Arabia show next month, WWE would have almost certainly used the four-time world champion for the third time this year, we’re told…We’re also told ‘Vince McMahon couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about him using Goldberg’ and the head honcho still believes there is value in the Goldberg name.”

Since 2017, Goldberg has wrestled just four matches for WWE, but he’s drawn widespread criticism both for the poor quality of those matches and the lucrative paydays he’s been receiving for them. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Wrestling Inc), Goldberg and other high-profile part time stars such as The Undertaker “have been paid well into the seven figures” to wrestle at WWE’s special events in Saudi Arabia, where the WCW icon and former Universal Champion has recently delivered two controversial performances.

The first came in June 2019 when Goldberg lost to The Undertaker at Super ShowDown in a disastrous match that was one of the worst pay-per-view main events in WWE history, with Goldberg nearly seriously injuring “The Deadman” with a botched Jackhammer attempt. More recently, WWE raised some eyebrows when Goldberg squashed “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt in just three minutes at Super ShowDown back in February, with Goldberg becoming Universal Champion and effectively ruining months upon months of WWE building up Wyatt to be its next unstoppable superstar. Goldberg was originally supposed to defend that title against Reigns at WrestleMania 36 until Reigns withdrew from the show, and instead, he lost the title in lightning quick fashion to Strowman at the audience-less event.

No surprise here: The common thought is that Goldberg’s appearance on last week’s SmackDown could reignite his feud with either Strowman or Reigns, with the latter being more likely after WWE was unable to deliver on that supposed dream match at its biggest pay-per-view of the year. Although Goldberg’s recent lackluster in-ring performances had led to increased speculation that he was done for good, he has since revealed that he’s under contract with WWE through 2023, which means he will probably wrestle for the company again depending upon the circumstances.

Goldberg is most likely to wrestle at WrestleMania and/or WWE’s Saudi Arabian events, both of which are up in the air due to concerns over Covid-19. However WWE has still begun laying the framework for Goldberg’s potential in-ring return, which is sure to result in groans from many fans given his recent subpar matches, hefty paydays and metaphorical burial of Wyatt.