{"id":109518,"date":"2022-02-04T20:34:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T01:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=109518"},"modified":"2022-02-04T20:34:19","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T01:34:19","slug":"goldberg-returns-smackdown-roman-reigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/02\/04\/goldberg-returns-smackdown-roman-reigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Goldberg Returns on SmackDown, Challenges Roman Reigns at Elimination Chamber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/02\/04\/preview-wwe-smackdown-ronda-rousey-appearance\/\" target=\"_self\">This week&#8217;s<\/a> <strong><em>Friday Night SmackDown<\/em><\/strong> opened with <strong>Paul Heyman<\/strong> accompanying SmackDown Tag Team Champions <strong>The Usos<\/strong> and Universal Champion <strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong> to the ring. Heyman addressed the crowd in attendance, explaining his actions at the <strong><em>Royal Rumble<\/em><\/strong> event the weekend prior. He made his allegiance to <strong>The Bloodline<\/strong>, and specifically Reigns, clear. Just as the segment was about to come to a close, the familiar theme music of <strong>Goldberg<\/strong> played. The <strong>WWE<\/strong> Hall of Famer, Goldberg, made his return to <em>SmackDown<\/em>, confronting &#8220;The Tribal Chief. &#8221; Goldberg stated that he acknowledged Reigns, following up by stating that he acknowledged Reigns as his next victim. From there, Goldberg challenged Reigns for the Universal Championship at the <strong><em>Elimination Chamber<\/em><\/strong> event on February 19.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI acknowledge you as my next victim!\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Goldberg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Goldberg<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SmackDown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SmackDown<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWERomanReigns?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WWERomanReigns<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HeymanHustle?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@HeymanHustle<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tSHgBpSaTC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/tSHgBpSaTC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE (@WWE) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE\/status\/1489771708013858817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 5, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Goldberg Returns on SmackDown to Challenge Reigns<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>What to Know Heading into Elimination Chamber Event<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The <em>SmackDown<\/em> return of Goldberg marks the former <strong>WCW<\/strong> World Heavyweight Champion&#8217;s first WWE appearance since October. He previously appeared at last year&#8217;s <strong><em>Crown Jewel<\/em><\/strong> event, where he bested <strong>Bobby Lashley<\/strong> in a No Holds Barred Falls Count Anywhere Match. Since making his return to the company in 2016, <strong>Goldberg<\/strong> captured the Universal Championship on 2 occasions and picked up victories over such notable names as <strong>Kevin Owens<\/strong>, <strong>&#8220;The Fiend&#8221; Bray Wyatt<\/strong>, and former WWE Champion <strong>Brock Lesnar<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>As stated by Michael Cole on commentary, Goldberg was originally scheduled to face Roman Reigns at <strong><em>WrestleMania 36<\/em><\/strong> in 2020. At this point, Goldberg was the Universal Champion. However, due to concerns related to COVID-19, Reigns was pulled from the event, <strong>Braun Strowman<\/strong> serving as his substitute.<\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;18864&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week&#8217;s Friday Night SmackDown opened with Paul Heyman accompanying SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos and Universal Champion Roman Reigns to the ring. Heyman addressed the crowd in attendance, explaining his actions at the Royal Rumble event the weekend prior. He made his allegiance to The Bloodline, and specifically Reigns, clear. Just as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3354,"featured_media":109521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2192,26,3],"tags":[267,77],"class_list":["post-109518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-goldberg","tag-roman-reigns"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}