The War Report - March 17 2021: Blood. Thumbtacks. Ripped Jackets.

Goldberg has been in talks with New Japan Pro Wrestling about making appearances at big events, according to Dave Meltzer in the

.

Meltzer stated:

'I don’t expect anything to happen right now, given Bill Goldberg is going into the WWE Hall of Fame and usually that requires signing a short-term deal, but he was in talks with New Japan about coming in for big shows.'

Despite his skeptical tone, the acknowledgement that Goldberg was even in talks with NJPW is somewhat mind-boggling. The Japanese promotion have had tremendous success with the recent signing of Chris Jericho, and his match with Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 was very well-received. However, Goldberg must be considered a different sort of move altogether.

Presumably, like in WWE, he'd be brought in to have short matches against high profile opponents - but while NJPW has no shortage of popular wrestlers, short bouts aren't too common at all.

As Meltzer points out, Goldberg will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame at WrestleMania weekend this year, and remains the only name announced for the class of 2018 so far. Given his stature and historical importance in the industry, he is widely thought to be headlining the class.

When wrestling for WCW in 2000, Goldberg was originally booked to be on a NJPW Tokyo Dome show, but injured himself in an angle where he smashed the windows of the nWo's limousine. He would have faced Manabu Nakanishi.

In between the closure of WCW in 2001, and his initial signing with WWE in 2003, Goldberg wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling - even facing the highly-respected Satoshi Kojima at one point.

Goldberg is now 51 years old. That may only be four years older than Jericho, but Y2J has never taken as sustained a period away from the ring as Goldberg - and will be far more used to wrestling longer matches throughout his career.