Goldberg continues to prepare for his final match under the WWE banner, offering updates through media appearances and his CarCast podcast.
On the latest episode of CarCast, Goldberg revealed that he already knows when his retirement match will happen, although that information hasn’t been made public. He noted that training for this match has been a challenge, and admitted to sustaining a few injuries over the last three months as he tries to meet the high standards he’s set for himself—even if they may no longer be realistic.
“I know the date (of my retirement match). No one else knows the date public-wise, and so, at my age, you obviously have to do a lot of different things to get yourself prepared for what I’m about to embark upon and I mean, it’s uncharted water because not many people my age have done this, and I’m not just showing up to show up. I need to show up and be me and I’ve tapped into me a little bit more as of late and my training, with all injuries and with my age, it makes it extremely difficult to get prepared without going overboard… I hurt myself a couple times in the past three months,” he admitted. “But, I pulled back and it’s really tough to have the mentality I do but to have the body that I do now, with the mileage on it and then go into the Muay Thai gym and hit the pads and not go crazy and then blow (your) shoulder out and blow your bicep out and pull your hamstring from throwing a high kick. There’s a huge balance and I’ve been in the ring a couple times. I’m gonna get in the ring again today and it’s just tough, man. It is tough. Me doing that right there, that was the first day that I felt really good.”
He also discussed his struggles with bulking up for the match and how it impacted his health.
“It’s just tough. I’ve got a very high bar to set that I set for myself and 99 times out of a hundred, it’s unrealistic,” Goldberg said. “I’ve gotta be in a certain place mentally and physically to be able to accomplish what I’m about to embark upon and it’s really tough. It’s really tough. I mean, take every single thing out of it. Let’s just talk about food. Let’s talk about how much I have to eat to gain weight at this age and to gain good weight. Not just around my stomach. I freakin’ eat eight times a day, and I walk around and I feel like I’m about to throw up at any given moment because I’m just completely full of frickin’ food, and I had to back off. I gained some good weight. I was almost up to 270 and I had to back off because I could not function. I just couldn’t do it. I felt horrible, I wasn’t able to move around. I (was) just sluggish, you know? And so, I changed the diet back a little bit… Man, I’m never gonna be the way that I used to be by any stretch of the imagination. But dammit, for a 58-year-old guy, I’m gonna be in some seriously freakin’ awesome shape and I’m gonna freak some people out I believe and hopefully my performance is equal to my appearance which hopefully, you know, is okay. I’m terrified to put those underwear, those trunks on again. I may even go with different kind of trunks, for the only time in my life.”
Goldberg further revealed ongoing issues with his left knee and right shoulder, both of which have complicated his training. Despite the pain, he’s been working around these limitations as best he can.
“And then there’s another thing. I’m extremely limited because of my left knee. I can’t run. I mean, I can run but, it hurts. So I’m not gonna exacerbate the pain by going out and running. I’m on a sprint bike and I’m doing different stuff for my cardio. The kickboxing doesn’t hurt that much because I’m not running. But, you find ways around things and I mean, the scenario’s not perfect by any stretch so you gotta work around stuff,” he said. “Hell, I’m working around my shoulder that you remember six months ago, I couldn’t do this (lift my arm). I’m pretty frickin’ strong now, I mean, comparatively and it’s funny because ever since we moved here, I haven’t been able to use my arm for five years. I just didn’t use it because it hurt so bad and I’ve had to retrain myself to do the normal, daily things and use my arm, and that’s what’s gotten me back into it. It’s just not favoring it by any stretch and not having it be a hindrance by any means and going out of my way to do everything with my right hand as opposed to before; everything with my left hand… I became a lefty as a kid because I broke my right arm.”
In a past media interview, Goldberg stated that his retirement match would take place somewhere in the southern United States. WWE is currently scheduled to run Saturday Night’s Main Event from State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia on July 12th, which some have speculated could be the venue for the match.
(H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.)
