8 Damning Things Goldberg's Universal Title Win Says About WWE In 2017
5. Match Quality Is A Secondary Concern
Goldberg’s return match at Survivor Series 2016 lasted just 85 seconds. He was in the Royal Rumble for 3 minutes 21 seconds before The Undertaker eliminated him, and at Fastlane, it took Goldberg 22 seconds to become WWE Universal Champion. Tallied up, this means Goldberg has mustered just five minutes and eight seconds of in-ring action since returning to the company last autumn.
If ever proof was needed that match quality isn’t a prime concern in WWE these days, there it is. Raw’s apparent “top champion” isn’t fit to compete for any longer than a couple of minutes, and it took until this week’s Raw before he finally took his first bump. At a time when athletes like AJ Styles are raising the bar for in-ring athleticism, Raw’s main event scene has become squash match central. We’ll be lucky if WrestleMania 33’s main event even comes close to scraping ten minutes.
WrestleMania is more about creating great moments and “making history” than individual match quality, but ending the show with Goldberg vs. Lesnar is an incredibly hard sell. WWE are likely going to close their biggest show of the year with a glorified angle rather than an actual match, something that will almost certainly alienate fans who value great matches above all else. It may potentially leave them feeling like WWE’s current product just isn’t for them anymore.