Cody Rhodes Shoots Down Rumor That AEW Was Trying to Book Goldberg

Jim Cornette made a bold claim on a recent episode of The Jim Cornette Experience podcast when he said AEW had originally attempted to bring in WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg into the company and build him up with an undefeated streak similar to his famous WCW run back in the late 90s. Cornette said, "He [Tony Khan] wanted Goldberg to come out and do the streak over again," before adding that Goldberg's price would probably be obscene even if it was for a quick squash match.

How Cornette, a vocal critic of AEW's product, got the supposed inside scoop on something like that is unknown. But a fan did bring the report to Cody Rhodes' attention.

This isn’t real. We had no contact ha.

— Cody (@CodyRhodes) August 18, 2020

Goldberg revealed on a new episode of The Pop Culture Show that his current WWE contract will have him working two matches a year until 2023. He's already wrestled twice in 2020 — once at Super ShowDown against Bray Wyatt and again at WrestleMania 36 against Braun Strowman.

"I am contracted with the WWE for the next two years through 2022, '23. I've got two matches per year. I've exhausted my limit this year quite early on April the fifth with WrestleMania under these really weird circumstances. But I've got a couple other extremely interesting projects right on the cusp, but as you guys know in the entertainment business right now everything's on hold unless it's a production of 10 or under pretty much.

"We got a lot of cool things that people are going to find out about pretty soon," he continued. "My WWE commitment is still going strong. At 53, I never would've imagined especially after making fun of Flair when he was doing it in his early 40s."

There was some speculation that Goldberg might make the jump to the young company back in 2019. Reports of him being high on AEW's "wish list" were popping up back then, and fans noticed he had started following a few AEW accounts at the time. However within months he was back in WWE for his two-matches-a-year schedule, starting off with the infamous Super ShowDown match with The Undertaker followed by a quick squash match against Dolph Ziggler at last year's SummerSlam.

Rhodes will defend his AEW TNT Championship against Brodie Lee on this week's edition of Dynamite, which has been moved from its usual timeslot to 6 p.m. EST on Saturday night.