10 Fascinating WWE WrestleMania 36 Facts

9. Goldberg Makes Hall Of Fame History

Braun Strowman Goldberg
WWE.com

WrestleMania 36 really was a mess. At the beginning of the year, everything was set up for a main event featuring Roman Reigns overcoming the evil Fiend, only for Vince McMahon's obsession with the past to rear its ugly head. It isn't really accurate to call Goldberg a shiny object, is it? Either way, Billy dethroned Bray Wyatt in Saudi Arabia, which in turn led to Reigns challenging the new Universal Champion for a title match at WrestleMania 36.

All of this led to Braun Strowman defeating Goldberg for the WWE Universal Championship at the Show of Shows.

There's no reason to go into the minutiae of why Strowman eventually faced Goldberg (something something COVID-19), but the important fact from a historical point of view stems from Goldberg's holding of the title going in. In defending that coveted (chortle) championship, Goldberg became the first Hall of Fame inductee to defend a world championship at WrestleMania. In fact, he became the first HoF chap to defend a world title on a WWE pay-per-view of any kind.

And yet, he lost to Braun Strowman in just over two minutes. In fairness, he did prepare for Roman...

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.