Steve Austin On What Motivated Goldberg's Return, What Went Wrong With Goldberg's First WWE Run
The following are highlights of Steve Austin's interview on a recent PWTorch Livecast episode. The 75 minute interview is available in its entirety here, they sent us these highlights:
Is Austin happy to see Goldberg return:
"Yeah, I was glad to see it happen. I don't think Bill had a good run in his first go-around in WWE."
What went wrong last time:
"He was coming off being paid by WCW, had a great deal over there, he was super super over in WCW. The window already closed, I was getting ready to get out of there, so Stone Cold vs. Goldberg never happened. All of these years that go by, because he was so over in WCW, he gets in the big leagues, whether it was the writing or he didn't really fit the system for whatever reasons, when he got back in the ring [on the Oct. 24 episode of Raw], and that crowd started going 'Goldberg,' he had tears in his eyes."
What worked this time around:
"It was about the crowd responding in such great fashion. I'm not sure Goldberg is the greatest promo guy that ever walked the planet that did business in the squared circle, but an A+ promo by Bill Goldberg handling the task at hand, all those emotions, it was completely real and authentic. I felt it was a great piece of television. If the ratings went up, it means he did indeed mean something to a lot of people. I'm excited for his opportunity and I'm glad to see him back. Whoever knows how long it's going to last, whether it's one match or two matches or whatever, it was a good piece of TV and Bill handled it about as good as anybody could have handled it."
What motivated Goldberg's return:
"Yeah, there's some dollars and some cents on the table that's going to go to Bill Goldberg and the WWE, but this wasn't about the money."
You can click here to read more of the interview including how he thinks Goldberg reacted emotionally to the reception he received in his return.