One AEW wrestler who has been drawing Bill Goldberg comparisons over the past year is current TNT Champion Wardlow. A lot of this is deliberate — his entrance began resembling “Da Man’s” classic WCW entrance during his feud with MJF (and even did a better job of explaining the security guards that accompanied him to the ring) and his moveset instantly drew comparisons to the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion and WWE’s Batista. During a new interview with Bleacher Report‘s Graham GSM Matthews, Goldberg responded to the comparisons.
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“I understand the comparisons. I’ve heard of him for sure. I’ve seen pictures of him. I haven’t seen him work that much. But, hey, man, more power to him,” Goldberg said. “There needs to be more characters like that. There needs to be serious intensity out there. There’s people that slice meat and there’s people that eat meat and he needs to be eating meat — now Big E is going to come into it. But yeah, man, I don’t know. I’ve never read anything about a comparison from him and how he passes judgment on it. But at the end of the day, anybody that’s close to the top in their prospective business to be compared with myself. That’s an honor and a privilege.”
Wardlow himself addressed the Batista comparisons back in March while speaking with Bleav in Pro Wrestling — “It just makes me smile. You know, I, being a junior in high school, I just started growing. I’m 170 pounds and I’m like, ‘alright, I’m finally starting to grow some muscle.’ But you look at somebody like Batista and you’re like, ‘I can never. I’m going to try to get as close to that as possible, but like, what are the realistic odds?’ So I worked my butt off to get to as close to a Dave Batista level as possible.
“To go on Twitter and, you know, see side-by-side pictures and comparisons, and people comparing me to him is, it’s just such a cool feeling,” he continued. “You know, Dave is somebody who I haven’t met and would love to meet him to thank him, because he’s still somebody to this day that motivates me, you know? He’s still doing big things in life and he still motivates me and pushes me to this day without him knowing it.”
