Goldberg Says He Had COVID When He Got The Call For Roman Reigns Match

Goldberg stepped into the ring one more time at WWE Elimination Chamber, taking on Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship.

The bout was Goldberg's last match on his current contract and it is unknown if he will wrestle again.

CMLL Sábado De Coliseo (11/30/2024) Results: Blue Panther vs. Último Guerrero Headlines, More Set

Speaking on his Car Cast podcast, Goldberg reflected on the bout.

"Roman is a great dude. It would have been nice for me to do it in my 40s, but I had to do it at 55. I think they planned it out so he had more of an opportunity to beat me. Let's be perfectly honest, I would have squished him 15 years ago, but now, it's a different story. I'm 55, I do two matches a year, what am I going to do? Come in, one of the bigger pay-per-views, and I'm going to beat the WWE Universal Champion and take the belt home for six months and come back? I don't write the script, I just kind of follow it. Kind of follow it. One of the reasons I came back is to give back to the business. If I can set Roman up and make him look like a million bucks going into WrestleMania against Brock, that's my job," he said.

Goldberg was asked how tough it can be to perform when the majority of the audience knows the outcome as most fans didn't expect Goldberg to win given Reigns' run and Goldberg's status.

Goldberg replied, "I'm behind the eight ball. Not only do a plethora of people understand what the outcome will most likely be, but I obviously have an extremely short period of time to get ready for it. I hadn't trained for three months, I have COVID when I get the phone call to go. I literally had two weeks in the gym to get ready for this. What people don't understand, and it will come out in the documentary, is it's tough to do that as a 20-year-old, it's more difficult as a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old, it's almost impossible, a 55-year-old, I'm one of the .003% humans on the planet that can pull something like that off. In doing it, it's very tough mentally to keep yourself in a positive space because you have so many negatives going against you. Then, 90% of them understand what the storyline is going to be. I'm fighting an uphill battle the whole way, but at this point and throughout the years I've been able to do this on a short schedule, you go out, you do your job to the best of your ability, you can't contribute to the creative because that's not my job. I just go out and try to perform the best I can and hope people appreciate it in some shape or fashion."

Goldberg said he got through the match with no problem, but did say he pulled a hamstring running at the airport and seemingly joked that he gigged himself on his backpack.

If you missed anything from WWE Elimination Chamber, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.

Get exclusive pro wrestling content on Fightful Select, our premium news service! Click here to learn more.