10 Weird Periods WWE Icons Would Like You To Forget

2. Goldberg (2003)

Goldberg is impossible to f*ck up. This should be one of the great guarantees of life, along the lines of death and taxes. You don't need to be a pro wrestling booking savant to understand the best way to use Big Bad Bill; he turns up, he smashes folks, he leaves. In and out.

For reasons that will never, ever be clear, WWE thought differently once Goldberg finally arrived in 2003. Sure, he trucked dudes like Lance Storm and Rosey on RAW, putting them away in two minutes or less, but the average length of a Goldberg pay-per-view match in 2003 was 14:10. 14 minutes, 10 seconds. You should be able to fit seven Goldberg matches in that sort of length.

Goldberg was relatively successful in his first year in WWE, winning the World Heavyweight Championship at Unforgiven 2003, but the aura around the man was ruined by long matches and lengthy bouts of selling. WWE just didn't get it. If you think Vince McMahon's senility is a recent development, think back to Goldberg's first WWE run.

His return in 2016 was much better, but it took 13 years away for that initial bad taste to dissipate.