10 Wrestlers Who Shouldn't Return For WWE's Brand Split 2016 This Week
2. Goldberg
Another ex-WCW’er who skipped the Invasion and debuted later, Goldberg’s long-awaited WWE run should’ve been impossible to mess-up but, lo and behold, they found a way.
WWE rushed Goldberg straight into a high-level program with The Rock and tried to present him as the monster of old, but the fans couldn’t buy into it. Booed in his first match with The Great One, throughout his feud with Chris Jericho, and even while working against the company’s top heel, Triple H, Goldberg’s “monster face” persona failed miserably.
Goldberg’s appeal came from his look, presence, and power. These are the qualities that helped get him over throughout his supposed 173-match WCW winning streak, but fan interest started declining as soon as the streak ended. “Unstoppable” has a shelf-life, and Goldberg’s had long since expired.
Bowing out with an infamously bungled WrestleMania XX match against Brock Lesnar, throughout which both wrestlers were booed relentlessly, Goldberg’s WWE run was an unmitigated disaster on the whole. The thing that made him special in the first place - his mystique - died a long time ago, and he was always a basic, un-engaging wrestler in the first place.
There’s no reason to bring Goldberg back at this point, particularly if it’s going to be at the expense of the younger, more exciting wrestlers currently sitting atop WWE’s card.