The decision of Roman Reigns to pull out of WrestleMania 36 due to health concerns after the coronavirus outbreak made a lot of headlines before the PPV event and it still remains a hot topic of discussion. The other part of this equation was Goldberg who ended up defending his Universal Championship against Braun Strowman at the Show Of Shows after the Big Dog decided not to work the event.
Goldberg opened up about this change for the first time since WrestleMania 36 when he recently appeared on the Carcast podcast. The former WCW star first mentioned how everybody knows about Reigns’ leukaemia diagnosis and how he is in remission now. He then claimed that he doesn’t know why the match was even considered despite the public knowledge of this situation:
“I don’t know why it was even considered in the beginning, except for the fact that we’d invested time and WWE invested the money in the angle, in the match, you know. So literally until the 23rd hour, it was still a possibility that he and I were going to wrestle. So plans kind of changed at the very last minute. I did my match with Braun, and it was possible that I could do a match with Roman again before the 5th [the night the match aired]. That obviously fell through.”
Goldberg Reveals His Reaction To Roman Reigns’ Decision
The now-former Universal Champion also detailed the precautions WWE was taking with the people entering the Performance Center and mentioned that he was told the match was still a possibility until the last minute. The former Champion then discussed the reported incident with The Miz that led to Reigns’ decision and when asked about his reaction to the whole thing, Goldberg said that you have to love the guy because he was still willing to go through it up until the 11th hour:
“I think what happened was, somebody was sick and Roman heard about it. They didn’t have [COVID-19], they just had the flu. But just the fact that someone was sick in those circumstances, at the end of the day he just couldn’t do it. You know, 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.”
During the interview, Bill Goldberg also revealed that he had signed a 2 match contract with WWE and so his obligations for the year are done after he taped his match with Braun Strowman. Though this doesn’t necessarily mean that the former Champion is done for the year and it’s likely that the company will call him up again when they feel the need to add star power to any of their shows down the line.
