Bill Goldberg says if circumstances were different, he would have become an MMA fighter.
Today, MMA is a very well-known and respected sport. However, in the mid-1990s when Bill Goldberg was getting his start with WCW, the UFC was only in its relative infancy and there were many unknowns surrounding “Ultimate Fighting.”
Speaking on the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast with Tim Green, Goldberg admitted that he would probably have become an MMA fighter if the pay scale back then was what it is today.
“100000% percent. No question,” Goldberg said. “Back in the day, the guys who were fighting at UFC were training at my gym. I owned a gym after Main Event Fitness called Obaki Fight School in Atlanta. It was the largest MMA gym in North America. Those guys were training at my gym. Randy Couture, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman. I got to be good friends with them and we were talking about what they were making, as I was trying to decide what I was going to do. That option went completely off the table once I heard they were making 2 to 3 or $5,000 a fight. Absolutely ridiculous. Obviously, nowadays, it’s changed exponentially. I would have probably chosen mixed martial arts if the payscale was where it is now.”
Ultimately, Goldberg incorporated some MMA elements into his wrestling character and moveset captivating WCW audiences during the Monday Night War.
Elsewhere on this podcast, Goldberg spoke about having issues with Triple H upon his arrival in WWE in 2003. Learn more here.
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