WWE Wanted UFC Personality To Change His Name Had He Signed

During the latest episode of Wrestling INC. Weekly, former WWE Executive and President of MLW (@MLW) Court Bauer (@CourtBauer) and myself (@RajGiri_303) discussed the booking of Curtis Axel and if it will work. While discussing Axel's new name, Bauer noted how WWE wanted UFC play-by-play announcer Mike Goldberg to change his name when he almost signed with the company in 2005.

"It got very real back in '05 when UFC was heating up and WWE was kinda angry about how things had gone down with Spike, and they were in serious talks with [Mike] Goldberg from UFC," Bauer said. "Stephanie [McMahon] Levesque brought up the fact that if Mike does sign with WWE, and this was like in the late fall of 2005, that he would have to change his name to something else because there's already been a Goldberg in the company.

"I'm thinking to myself, 'that [Bill Goldberg in WWE] was last year, 2004, he's not with the company today and I don't think anyone in a million years would think that they're brothers, let alone the same person. But that's how weird they were about ownership of names, and thinking that the fans might be confused, that there would be product confusion... It just seems so peculiar as a philosophy, and unnecessary to dedicate a list of names for a guy that's an announcer, let alone a talent."

We also discussed The Shield's rise, Roman Reign's progression, Bray Wyatt and how to book The Wyatt Family and more. You can listen to the show on iTunes by clicking here, or on Stitcher at this link or below: