The decision to put the big blue belt on the 53-year-old was met with distain and anger by many WWE fans. At one point on Thursday night, the term #Oldberg actually began to trend on Twitter as fans commented on Goldberg managing to defeat The Fiend in the three minute match.
Goldberg is not the only older champion in the wrestling world to have a highlight on him this week. Just a few days ago, Chris Jericho lost his All Elite Wrestling World Championship to Jon Moxely at AEW Revolution. Jericho is 49-years-old and has held the championship since May 25th 2019, defeating Adam Page at All Out, becoming the inaugural champion.
With that being said, the two similar aged champions have seen a much different reaction to their winning of the championships. Jericho has been hailed as the great re-inventor. A character man who is the perfect choice for the first champion in AEW. With all the mitigating factors in regards to both wins, is there a hypocrisy in the wrestling community when it comes to the older champions?
It is important to establish that Goldberg's age is not the sole reason that people are angry and upset with the decision to make him the champion on the Road to WrestleMania. Bray Wyatt has become a highlight of SmackDown with The Fiend character garnering many positive reviews. Wyatt has established himself once more as a main event calibre guy. With feuds with Finn Balor, Seth Rollins, The Miz and Daniel Bryan, The Fiend dominated the last half of 2020 looking like an unstoppable machine.
With many believing that The Fiend deserved the spot at WrestleMania 36, everything looked as if we were on the road to The Fiend vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. The Wyatt character appeared unstoppable, and Reigns has proven in the past that he can have a great match with Bray Wyatt if given the opportunity. With these plans seemingly set in concrete, WWE threw a massive swerve with Wyatt losing to Goldberg.
With WWE clearly believing that Bray Wyatt is not as big of a drawer as Goldberg, the Mania plans now have Goldberg defending the Universal Championship against The Big Dog, Roman Reigns. With that being said, a similar thing could be said for Chris Jericho becoming the AEW World Champion. With a brand new company, and a completely new roster assembled, the decision was made to award the title to the biggest drawer - and that undoubtedly was Jericho.
One of the main differences at the minute between Goldberg and the now former AEW Champion, is that Jericho is widely regarded as the better wrestler. In recent Goldberg matches, the 53-year-old has struggled to hit his finishing moves and the matches have received criticisms for the amount of botches and mistakes.
Regardless of Goldberg's ability in the ring, the star is still a box office attraction. Goldberg is money and the WrestleMania 36 card now has a huge marquee match as a result. With that being said, it could be argued that Goldberg is the right choice for the Universal Championship right now. Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns is a dream match for many fans - a dream match that we are finally going to get to see.
While it is always important to build new stars, having the strong veterans there that will eventually lose to these new stars is important as well. Take Brock Lesnar, for example. The odds are suggesting that Drew McIntyre will defeat Lesnar at WrestleMania 36 to become the new champion, therefore making a new star. The odds suggest that Goldberg will lose to Roman Reigns, cementing Roman Reigns as a star, and perhaps even the Master of the Spear. Over in AEW, Jericho has just lost his AEW Championship to Jon Moxely, helping to secure Moxely as the guy in All Elite Wrestling.
The hypocrisy is that in reality age has nothing to do with this. It comes down to star power - and that is something that people seem to forget. They praise Chris Jericho becoming the champion, yet find it awful that Goldberg becomes the champion.
Goldberg is a star that will make the WrestleMania 36 buy rate expand. Same as Chris Jericho and any AEW show that he is on. Despite the men's different abilities, that fact remains true.
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