"I was like, oh my God" - The Rock discloses details of intense first backstage meeting with Goldberg in WWE

During a recent Instagram live stream with Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch, Dwayne The Rock Johnson and former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz told the story of when they first met Goldberg.

The meeting occurred before Goldberg's WWE debut on RAW in 2003 when he came out and confronted The Rock before hitting him with a Spear. The Hall of Famer wrestled him at Backlash in his in-ring WWE debut, winning the match after hitting the Jackhammer.

Speaking about meeting Goldberg for the first time, Gewirtz recalled it being a little awkward, and The Rock agreed. Goldberg was quite intense during the meeting while Gewirtz was pitching ideas for their segment:

"It’s the simplest promo you could ever have. Rock’s running his mouth, I’ve done all there is to do. I’ve beaten everybody and Goldberg comes out and spears him, that’s it, you know? And people anticipated this because this was the day after Mania [19], after the big Rock/[Steve] Austin match... I’m like, great. You know, ‘Oh, you know what we could do? We do this great thing, we did this thing with Rock and Hogan in Chicago where they’re standing face-to-face and they’re each looking at the crowd and it’s this iconic moment’ and Rock’s like, ‘Yeah, we can do that. Sounds good’ and Bill’s just like, ‘Yup. There’s just one problem. I ain’t Hulk Hogan.’ Intense stare and Rock and I do the little look to each other," Gewirtz said.

The Rock chimed in:

"Bill stared a hole through Brian... I was like, oh my God... But by the way, when Bill said, ‘I ain’t Hulk Hogan,’ of course me being me, I turned to Brian, I go, ‘I f*cking told you he’s not Hulk Hogan…’ Brian’s like, ‘No, I know. I shouldn’t have done that. Okay, okay, I got something else.’"

Gewirtz pitched another idea, with Goldberg stalking The Rock in the ring. However, that also fell flat:

"I go, ‘You know what? That’s no problem Bill. This is gonna be perfect because what we could do is you could stalk him on stage. You could have this big pacing back and forth while he’s running his mouth in the ring because we did this promo with Rock and Jericho where Rock was going on and on.’ I could see Rock going like, I don’t think it’s a good idea and then Bill’s like, ‘Mhm, mhm, mhm. There’s just one problem, I ain’t Chris Jericho.’ Again, intense stare and this literally could have gone on for hours… First time I ever interacted [with him]," the former writer said. (H/T: POST Wrestling)

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Bill Goldberg's first run in WWE ended up being rather lackluster

Goldberg's first run in WWE started with a bang as he won a feud against The Rock. However, the run did not live up to expectations.

Goldberg went into a rivalry with Triple H and failed to win the World Heavyweight Championship in the Elimination Chamber match after 'The Game' used a sledgehammer. The Hall of Famer ended up putting his career on the line at Unforgiven 2003 but beat The Game to win his first world title in WWE.

Goldberg's world title reign ended after only 84 days when Triple H pinned him to win the title at Armageddon. Goldberg's final WWE match of his first stint was against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 20, where both men got booed as they were set to leave the promotion after the match.

Did you know of the story of the first interaction between The Rock and Goldberg? Sound off in the comments below.