After 12 and a half years away from the WWE, former World Heavyweight Champion Bill Goldberg will be appearing on Raw this coming Monday to address Paul Heyman’s challenge laid out during the last episode of Raw. Turning 50 years old in December, “Da Man,” as coined to him in WCW by Bobby Heenan, is ready to come back to the wrestling business. While there are fans heavily critiquing Goldberg coming back, others feel that he is a much-needed injection to a diminishing WWE fanbase.
Via Twitter, Goldberg confirmed that he will be appearing in Denver for the next Raw. The last time he was on a WWE Raw show was, astonishingly, in a match against Kane on February 2, 2004. This alone shows the tremendous generation gap between current fans who were in their teens and twenties. Interestingly, the last time Goldberg was affiliated with WWE, they were little kids, or teenagers. However, in contrast, there are a number of fans in their 30s and 40s who know Goldberg quite well, and would be willing to tune back into wrestling with his return.
In an attempt to capitalise on this Goldberg run from the upcoming Raw until his projected match against Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, Goldberg has been scheduled for a number of dates leading up to the Thanksgiving tradition. Along with this coming Monday, it was recently announced that he will be appearing on the episode of Raw in Buffalo, NY, airing on November 14. This is the go-home show leading into Survivor Series. The latest date announced was October 31 in Hartford, CT.
Although the last match Goldberg had in WWE, at WrestleMania XX, left a very sour taste in the mouths of wrestling fans worldwide, having a legend appear always brings a spark to current WWE programming. Nowadays, WWE struggles to maintain their current fanbase, let alone gain more viewers. However, the return of Goldberg just might be what WWE needs to redirect the oversaturated concentration of the current base, to acquiring the casual audience who continues to diminish, seemingly by the week.
It should be very interesting how Goldberg’s appearance effects the WWE Raw ratings going forward, if at all.
