It sounds like Bill Goldberg can’t wait to ride off into the sunset.
Goldberg, one of the biggest wrestling stars of the late 1990s and early 2000s, returned to WWE in October after 12 years away from the squared circle. He’s now the WWE Universal champion and is slated to main event WrestleMania 33 this Sunday at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.
Life must be good, right? Eh, not so much.
“I’ll be honest, I’m miserable. I’m absolutely miserable,” Goldberg recently said on the debut episode of “E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness” of his current WWE run, per Yahoo! Sports. “Nobody get me wrong when I say I’ve been miserable throughout this, but I am. I’m miserable. I’m bloated 24 hours a day. I’m stressed 24 hours a day. I don’t sleep, but it’s a small price to pay.”
Goldberg’s match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33 will be his fourth since returning to WWE. He defeated Lesnar at Survivor Series in November in his first match back, competed in the Royal Rumble match in January and then defeated Kevin Owens for the Universal title at WWE Fastlane earlier this month. It’s been a wild ride, to say the least, especially given how long it’s been since his first successful go-round in WCW and then WWE.
“People are expecting me to be able to do exactly what I did back then,” Goldberg said. “I am nothing but a machine now. I get up in the morning. I eat. I train. I eat. It’s the toughest thing I ever embarked upon, guys. I’m 13 years removed from the business. I can’t name a power wrestler who has come back 13 freaking years afterwards. And then, within 20 pounds of what he was back then.”
In spite of the misery, Goldberg doesn’t sound like a man who regrets his decision to return to wrestling. The struggle is all part of the sacrifice.
“My family’s having fun, man,” Goldberg said on the podcast, via Yahoo! Sports. “And, hey, at the end of the day, if I want to smile, I’ll buy a car. That’s how I’m happy. I did, I bought one on the way back from (Survivor Series in) Toronto because I worked my ass off.”
What’s that expression; no pain, no gain?
