8 Wrestlers Who Tried To Look Cool (...& Immediately ATE Sh*t)
2. Goldberg’s Entrance At SummerSlam
Wrestling entrances are a bit silly.
The fictional idea is for the wrestler to convey their character to the audience. If they’re a cocky heel, they might flex their bicep. If they’re an underdog bayface, they might slap hands with the fans stationed by the aisle to draw on their support.
The reality is that they exist so that children can mimic them. This is less than ideal when a wrestler resembles a child by doing their entrance and doing it pitifully. This was the fate of Goldberg at SummerSlam 2003.
The final phase of Goldberg’s multi-part entrance was always a bit daft to begin with. The walk-out from the locker room was brilliant. It felt like a legit combat sports entrance, and had the additional benefit of getting more ‘berg for your buck without him having to actually wrestle for longer than was necessary. The pyro shower was great too. But he could shadow box as well as he could execute a double rotation moonsault. It was weird. He could do a decent kick, but then it looked like he was throwing uppercuts to nobody. Maybe he was trying to limber up? That’s generous. It looked like a small but lethal animal had landed on his back and he was trying to shake it off. At SummerSlam, he fell on his arse after attempting the final shadow kick in a GIF that would last 10 hours if Bret Hart watched it.
It really says something about Goldberg’s conditional brilliance that he recovered his aura in record time to become 1998 Goldberg for a few delirious minutes in the Elimination Chamber.