While much of the billing for WWE’s Saturday Night’s Main Event revolved around Goldberg’s retirement match, the sendoff he got seemed abrupt.
Shortly after Goldberg was defeated, NBC went to a commercial break. When SNME returned, Goldberg was in the ring with many friends and family, who were there to support him.
“Tonight, it’s all about you,” Michael Cole said to Goldberg before handing the microphone to him. But roughly 30 seconds after Goldberg began his speech, the broadcast ended.
Thank you Goldberg. 👏👏👏@nbc | @peacock pic.twitter.com/QTxec1YzMM
— WWE (@WWE) July 13, 2025
That frustrated some of the fans watching.
this is so messed up. They really cut off Goldberg during his retirement speech in his own hometown
Do better guys
— Jake Reigns Hive 💥 (@left2reigns) July 13, 2025
Why did you guys cut the commercial directly after the match. Then you come back from commercial with one minute left giving Bill about 30 seconds to try to talk and then you cut the feed off lol
— Just Joe (@joeyjo35t) July 13, 2025
You guys did him so dirty. I understand Goldberg gets a lot of crap but he’s still a legend.
— Peace (@Necr0n_99) July 13, 2025
He deserved better. We all deserve a better creative team.
— D-Fens (@the_coolwayne) July 13, 2025
Couldn’t even show the whole speech, like wow, what an absolute disaster
— IBPIR (@IBPIR24) July 13, 2025
It certainly looked weird. So, what happened?
In this case, the culprit was most likely the injury suffered by Seth Rollins in the night’s penultimate match.
Rollins appeared to injure his knee after a pair of springboard moves in his match against LA Knight. Rollins remained on the ground in the corner while his knee was being looked at. He quickly rose to his feet, took LA Knight’s finisher and was pinned.
Seth Rollins’ injury is legitimate – he was originally planned to beat LA Knight tonight at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event
Knight winning was a last-second change after the Rollins injury
(PWInsider)pic.twitter.com/u7jAFyPK2U
— WrestleTalk (@WrestleTalk_TV) July 13, 2025
While we don’t know if this is what led to the timing issue, Goldberg’s match against Gunther went 14 minutes. For reference, in Goldberg’s prime, it was not uncommon for three of his matches to last less than 14 combined minutes.
Rollins’ injury and the abrupt end to that match likely caused the remainder of the show to be rebooked on the fly, leading to the timing issues in Goldberg’s farewell speech.
