Were any WWE Superstars opposed to Goldberg's arrival in the company in 2003?
Who better to ask than former WWE Executive Vice President of Talent Relations Jim Ross?
During the latest recording of Grilling JR, current AEW commentator, analyst, and senior advisor Jim Ross discussed the WWE run of Hall Of Famer Goldberg.
Featured below are the highlights from the interview where "Good Ol' JR" touches on this topic with his thoughts.
On WWE talent being opposed to Goldberg's arrival:
“Probably not as much volume because talking about the NWO guys there is three of them. So, it’s whatever angst you have times three. Goldberg was a single entity not known to be overly social but a good guy to shoot the breeze with and you know he likes sports and cars and you know just the guy stuff. He wasn’t a student of the game or a fan of the business. I don’t look at that as a 100% ‘Well damn him he doesn’t love the business like a lot of us.’ It’s all about how much money you can make. You can make a living because it’s a job. So all Goldberg wanted to do is maximize his opportunities maximize his minutes and we wanted to do that and pay him as much as we could afford to pay based on our availability to use him and he finally got that point.”
On the reason he felt "disappointed" by Goldberg's Raw debut:
“I guess disappointed is a good word. It was what it was. We got him signed we’re just getting started. Again, it’s the Austin element of his last match had a bigger effect on things going on to me than we want to give credit. The Austin element, the Austin aspect of this whole equation rarely is discussed. People were not ready to say goodbye to Austin. So, now we’re asking them to make a seamless transition ironically to a guy with a guy with a bald head and a goatee. I think that’s a bigger issue than we’ve been acknowledged in general. Disappointing is a good word, but it wasn’t a bad rating for what we were doing at times, but still I refer back to this we were just getting started and hopefully everything is going to evolve and grow. Goldbeg is going to get over the situation between he and Rock was going to be intriguing enough for people to tune in. When you look at it that way it’s easier to keep your sanity as a talent relations head.”
