If there's one decision the WWE probably wishes they could do differently over the past few years, at least in the ring, it's probably having Bill Goldberg defeat “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt at their Super ShowDown show in Saudi Arabia.

The Fiend was smoking hot, winning the WWE Universal Championship over Seth Rollins in a Falls Count Anywhere match and went on to defeat everyone from Drew McIntyre to Braun Strowman, The Miz, and Daniel Bryan, plus the duo of The Miz and Daniel Bryan, so few expected to see any other outcome at Super ShowDown 2020 live from Saudi-Arabia but Wyatt adding another notch to his Tom Savini-produced championship belt with a win over wrestling legend Bill Goldberg.

On paper, the match had everything going for it to really put over Wyatt; Goldberg, through an older part-timer, remained one of the more imposing performers in wrestling thanks to his spear, and since he wasn't going to stick around and defend the belt weekly at house shows and on television, it felt right to use him as a step ladder to elevate the current champion to an even higher plane.

But then… it happened. In less than three minutes, Goldberg got the win and took almost all of the mysticism away from an act that wasn't always universally popular but didn't deserve to be outright squashed on an international stage.

Bill Goldberg clarifies that he didn't ask WWE for a win over The Fiend.

When Bill Goldberg was interviewed on the SHAK Wrestling YouTube channel on July 16th, he was asked one simple question: Did he ask to be put over “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt at Super ShowDown? Here's his response as dictated by Vatsal Rathod at Sportskeeda.

Let's put it this way. I've never said anything that wasn't true in the wrestling business. I'm a talent and I do what the boss tells me to do. I flew to Saudi Arabia knowing that I was gonna lose. Then somehow it changed and the finish was different. And it surely wasn't me. Because it's an extremely selfish move, number one, to do. Number two, then truly it wouldn't be about the business, it would be about myself. And number three, who the hell am I as a part-time guy to come in and demand anything. Truly I mean I'm not,” said Goldberg. “Vince gave me opportunities that, you know, maybe I didn't deserve in the past. And I owe that man just about everything. First and foremost, I've never said no to put anybody over. Maybe back in WCW I didn't agree with Jericho over or something like that, if I can remember correctly. Cause I didn't think it was time for the character to be involved in any comedy. But not in a million years in that Fiend situation in Saudi would I have done that. No way in hell! And I'd love to get on the phone with Bray and tell him, I'd love to see him face-to-face and make sure there's not one percent of his being that believes that I changed that match,” 

Hmm… a lot to unpack there.

In Goldberg's defense, his stance is pretty easy to prove to be consistent; he has put others over in the past, both before and after his match with Wyatt, and he has shown a willingness to talk to folks at all points in their careers about his wrestling journey. He also had very little say over how he was booked in WWE at the time, instead taking a massive paycheck to get a nostalgic pop from the 90s-obsessed fans who still paid $50 at the time for Pay-Per-Views, as his losses to the Undertaker, Braun Strowman, Brock Lesnar, and Drew McIntyre clear show.

No, in this writer's humble opinion, it seems incredibly likely that Goldberg did, in fact, get on the plane to Saudi Arabia with the intention of doing the job for his paycheck – as so many people do – and he was informed that he would be going over later in the day.

Why? Because the higher-up Saudi Arabian officials who were bankrolling the show are clearly big fans of the Attitude Era and would have probably preferred to see a throwback Goldberg win over the continued elevation of a Fiend character they likely had no connection with. Recall, if you will, that said show in 2020 also featured The Undertaker winning the Tuwaig Trophy Gauntlet in his final in-ring performance before he called it a career with the Boneyard Match, as well as a WWE Championship match that saw Brock Lesnar with Paul Heyman squash Ricochet like an OG Goldberg match, too. Taking things back even further, WWE booked other Attitude Era-style matches like D-Generation X versus the Brothers of Destruction at Crown Jewel 2018, Shane McMahon versus Dolph Ziggler at Crown Jewel 2018, Randy Orton versus Triple H at Crown Jewel 2019, and the Undertaker versus Goldberg match many a fan has wanted to see for decades at Crown Jewel 2019.

As these things often go, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt may not have fallen victim to an over-the-hill star, but instead a few out-of-touch fans with near-bottomless pockets who wanted to see their favorite performers of the past in the ring once more.