10 Wrestlers Who Defeated The WWE Machine

10. Goldberg

Goldberg and WWE were a poor fit in 2003.

He was stupidly jacked and immensely popular, but as is so often the case, that popularity worked against him. He had the audacity to get over in a different promotion, for which he was belatedly recruited and resented. That logic is unfathomable. So too was his booking; Goldberg was exposed in merely good lengthy matches lacking entirely in the explosive intensity with which he made his name. It reeked of either intentional sabotage or miscomprehension. His subsequent feud with Triple H all but confirmed the former.

Not for the first time, the outcast - who not surprisingly was deeply irritated by his brief run - was welcomed back into the fold as a result of the company's inability to create new stars. Or an unwillingness. Either way, the result remained the same: Goldberg, in a deal in part brokered by video game company 2K, returned to WWE for a Brock Lesnar rematch at Survivor Series 2016.

Happenstance, as much as anything else, dictated a return to the Goldberg of old; he defeated Lesnar in a shocking squash because he wasn't capable of doing much else - though he had also waited long enough to ensure his negotiating hand was more powerful.