Report: Goldberg Expected to Return to WWE Next Monday on Raw, Likely WWE Championship Match at SummerSlam
It appears as if a big name in WWE is coming back for yet another championship match at SummerSlam on Saturday, August 21.
It was originally reported by Fightful Select that WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg is expected to have his second match of the year at SummerSlam against Raw’s WWE Champion Bobby Lashley. The report from Fightful noted that Goldberg was expected to return to WWE on Monday’s Raw from Dallas to set up the match against Lashley at SummerSlam.
Lashley will defend the WWE Championship against Kofi Kingston this Sunday at Money in the Bank. Assuming these plans are true, it likely means that Lashley will beat Kingston as most of us probably expect.
As we reported earlier this year, Goldberg has a deal with WWE where he will wrestle two matches per year for the company through 2023. Earlier this year, Goldberg lost clean in a WWE Title match to Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble and hasn’t been around since then. Goldberg is 54 years old and will turn 55 years old in December.
While a lot of fans might have wanted Brock Lesnar for this spot, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter remarked that Lesnar wasn’t going to just come back to lose because WWE likely sees value in Lesnar long term for a future big match against Roman Reigns. In other words, WWE wouldn’t want to weaken Lesnar.
Other matches that are expected for SummerSlam include Roman Reigns defending the WWE Universal Championship against John Cena and Edge vs. Seth Rollins. We should learn more in the weeks ahead.
TJR Thoughts: I am not a fan of this idea at all. I’m tired of Goldberg matches and I don’t know how they are going to justify giving yet another title shot to a guy that’s way past his prime that lost his last WWE Title shot clean. I’m sure WWE will just do it because they like the reactions that Goldberg gets and he’s a Hall of Famer they can use for Lashley to beat, but it really doesn’t interest me that much.