Eric Bischoff Talks Goldberg Defeating The Fiend, How Hot The Fiend's Merchandise Sales Were
Goldberg surprised many wrestling fans at WWE Super ShowDown last week when he defeated The Fiend to become the new WWE Universal Champion. The main event match at the Saudi Arabia show lasted under three minutes with Goldberg defeating The Fiend after a jackhammer.
His world title victory caused a backlash many WWE fans including actor Macauly Culkin, who said that he cancelled his WrestleMania 36 tickets.
Many wrestlers have given their reaction to Goldberg's victory including Ryback and Chris Jericho, who congratulated Goldberg on his world title victory. Eric Bischoff gave his reaction to Goldberg defeating The Fiend on the latest episode of 83 Weeks.
"I'm surprised, honestly, for a couple of reasons," Bischoff admitted. "At least when I was in WWE, I don't know what the situation is now, his merchandise, they couldn't produce it fast enough. It appeared to me at least that Fiend was going to be one of those characters that could be an Undertaker-esque character over the long term."
Bischoff noted that while he can't sit through an entire show of WWE RAW, he still makes time to keep track of storylines and watches some of his favorites wrestlers like Randy Orton, Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus. He said that he wanted to work with them when he was with WWE but was not able to. He talked about how while he was at WWE, there was a lot of buzz for The Fiend, making his loss at Super ShowDown even more surprising for him.
"Given the trajectory of The Fiend character, I was really surprised," Bischoff said. "Nothing against Bill. He's not a full-timer. He's a part-timer, and Bill pretty much s–t the bed last time he was in Saudi Arabia so I found that shocking particularly as quickly as they did it. A lot of that may have been due to the fact that Bill is not really the right guy to go out there and have a 20-minute match with a guy like The Fiend. I don't know. It's interesting though."
Goldberg will defend the WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 36 in Tampa, FL.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.