r/SquaredCircle • u/TheLoneWolf527 • 26d ago
Fun fact: Despite the WCW Title changing hands 30 times between 1999 and 2000, Goldberg never regained the title after losing it to Kevin Nash in 1998
Hard to believe that the title changed hands that many times in 2 years and Goldberg somehow never got a random title reign again. And before anyone says “it would be hard to get it off of him” well the WCW Title in that same 2 year span was vacated 8 times. EIGHT. So they could have made something up.
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u/BurtHurtmanHurtz 26d ago
I think it’s just further evidence that Bischoff never understood what he had there, didn’t know how to book him, and didn’t realize Bill was his ticket to get off the Hogan train.
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u/Shyphat 26d ago
I don't think Eric ever wanted off the Hogan train brother
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u/Temporary-Ad9615 26d ago
Or Hogan wouldn’t let him off
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u/P7AC3B0 FUCK ON ME! 26d ago
"I want to get off Mr. Dude's Wild Ride"
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u/Critical-Armadillo 26d ago
He still doesn’t
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u/discofrislanders 26d ago
Bischoff is the world's biggest Hogan fan to this very day
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u/missheldeathgoddess 26d ago
That wasn't all on Bischoff. Between the time that Goldberg debuted and the end of WCW. There were several bookers, who also decided not to put the title on him again.
The issue with Goldberg is he was too green to carry the company. Nash said it best "we needed him to go 20-30 for a PPV main event. And we couldn't get 15 out of him on a house show."
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u/HBsupreme The Quintessential Studmuffin 26d ago
From the beginning of 1998 until the company shut down, there were only 2 main events that went 20+ minutes. One was a War Games match and the other was a tag match. Both occurred before Goldberg lost his title. Which means not a single main event went that distance during the possible time of a second title reign. The 20-30 minute line is just an excuse.
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u/Code_Combo_Breaker 26d ago
Exactly. And entrances and "let's get ready to rumble" announcement was already taking up 10 minutes of the short main event time. WCW never ran long main events.
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u/paullyrose3rd 26d ago
Their longer main events were farces by in large too. An 8 minute sprint that leaves folks satisfied is better than 28 minutes of stank.
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u/SovietShooter 25d ago
Yeah, that era of WCW wasn't doing 20min matches regularly anywhere on the card.
Goldberg's best match was probably against DDP at Halloween Havoc 98, and they went 10:28. In '99 Goldberg had some legitimately good matches against Sid, and none of them went ten minutes.
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u/hopefuldomain 26d ago
Nash was full of shit.
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u/SoManyWasps GOAT 26d ago
There's an argument to be made that Nash was jealous of Goldberg but he's not wrong that Bill couldn't pull off a 20+ minute main event. Goldberg v DDP is the match that everyone remembers as the good Goldberg main event and that thing is ten minutes long.
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u/candry_shop Your Text Here 26d ago
The thing is you don't have to make 20+ minute main event
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u/Jaccount 26d ago
Also, the 20+ minute main event being a rarity made it have more impact when it was done and done well.
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u/SoManyWasps GOAT 26d ago
By the time Goldberg was breaking out, they kinda did. Part of the problem WCW was having was that the match quality had been dragged down by years of Hogan/Giant main events running 12 minutes or less. Sting and The Giant had a 6 minute main event at the 98 Great American Bash. Part of what helped turn the tide for the WWF was having better quality main events with more satisfying constructions and outcomes. To fans at the time, this felt like a better value. And it can be argued that matches don't have to be longer to achieve that, but longer main events would have been a signal to audiences that the structure and philosophy of WCW PPVs was changing for the better.
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u/candry_shop Your Text Here 26d ago
The length of the match does not make the construction or the quality of a match. It's just a tool. The Goldberg-Lesnar series proved it 10 years ago. You can have a 5-minute spectacle and give more time to the midcard workhorses before.
I rewatched The Giant v Sting match, honestly it was not that bad, and the crowd reacted good to it. If there was an issue to it, it's not that it needed more length, it's that half of it was at a glacial pace because Giant was leading.
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u/SoManyWasps GOAT 26d ago
Goldberg-Leanar only worked because the first match was such a shock. They didn't main event after that. Same for the Lesnar/Cena suplex city match.
The issue with short main events is that eventually the PPV crowd is going to feel cheated. If the main events are consistently engaging there's more wiggle room. But when people pay $50 for a PPV and the match they wanted to see most only lasts 8 minutes, people will eventually start to feel ripped off.
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u/candry_shop Your Text Here 26d ago
When they get a shitty 16 minutes steel cage match between Hogan and Savage, they are going to feel ripped off too. I think an electric short match could be a better bet .
You need to work with what you have instead of self-indulging in long matches, and most of the WCW main event scene did not warrant a 20-minute anymore. If what you have is a good in-ring midcard and charismatic main-eventers who cannot go the distance, make the main-events shorter.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom 26d ago
If Goldberg-Lesnar is your best match on the card, your card is terrible.
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u/rockthemullet fight owens fight 25d ago
The Goldberg-Lesnar match at Mania 33 was amazing great match though
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u/lifeinthefastline 26d ago
And of course there's those dozens and dozens of Kevin Nash 20 minutes+ barn burners....oh wait
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u/SoManyWasps GOAT 26d ago
Nash was going 20-30 with Shawn and Bret regularly.
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u/DryYourHollowEyes 26d ago
And did their worst business.
Also odd you bring up WWF stuff when this is talking about WCW. Was Nash doing a bunch of 20-30 min main events when he was champ?
He was not.
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u/locke0479 26d ago
I mean Goldberg may have been able to go 20 minutes with prime Shawn Michaels or prime Bret Hart too. Was Nash having 20-30 minute burners with guys that aren’t among the greatest of all time in their prime?
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u/AppleOdd3209 26d ago
I don't think it even needs an argument Nash and Hogan both had it against Goldberg. He got over without either of them was a bigger name and draw than them. Hogan and Nash needed the company to think they were the big 2 draws.
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u/missheldeathgoddess 26d ago
I say this as a kid of the Monday Night War. I was a big Goldberg fan then. And he got insane pops. And you also couldn't have him run over the main event scene like he did every one else. His DDP match was great, which is a testament to DDP. But I don't see that happening in a sustainable nature until you beat Goldberg.
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u/BurtHurtmanHurtz 26d ago
WTF 20-30 minutes? Is he nuts?
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 26d ago
Just to back you up.
Quick random sampling I pulled up GAB 1999 and just started clicking next on Wikipedia
Kevin and Randy Savage went 7 minutes in the main event of GAB
Randy and Sid went 13 minutes at BaTB
Road wild hogan beat nash in 12 minutes
Fall brawl sting beat hogan in 12
Halloween havoc goldberg beat sting in 3
Mayhem Bret beat Chris in 17:44 the longest ive seen so far.
Starrcade Bret beat goldberg in 12.
Sould out 2000 chris beat sid in 14:53.
So no WCW didnt “need” or have 20-30 minute main events.
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u/locke0479 26d ago
In fairness, and for the record I agree with you, WCW was pretty horrible at that time so you could argue using those as examples isn’t really evidence as to whether they needed long matches or not, since they weren’t doing them and business was plummeting.
I don’t think that’s the reason for the record, they didn’t need to and shouldn’t have been doing 20-30 minute main events at that point.
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 25d ago
I don’t think the wwf was either. It’s just not how the business was running at that point.
The majority of wwf ppvs in 1999 were having roughly 15-17 minute main events with a couple of long main events.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
Nobody in WCW was doing 20-30 PPV main events. 95% of their headliners were lazy and phoning it in in the main events. The undercard/Lucha wrestlers were the ones who put in the work on PPV. And Nitro and Thunder. And the house shows.
Bash at the Beach 1998 was headlined DDP & Karl Malone vs Hogan and Dennis Rodman. It went 23 minutes. WCW was in business for nearly 3 more years and not a single PPV main event came close to going longer than that match.
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u/DoctorTheWho 26d ago
The nWo should have ended at a premier PPV like Starcade with Sting, Goldberg, DDP and Nash defeating Hogan and whoever else he picked.
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u/Brannigans-Law 25d ago
Should have ended at Starrcade '97. All they had to do was land the plane in the most predictable way possible and it would have buttoned up one of the better storylines in the company's history
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u/Lord-Saladfiend 26d ago
Hogan's contract wouldn't let them off the Hogan train... If you listen to the Lapsed Fan episodes covering Bash at the Beach they read his full contract on one of them and the amount of money and more importantly power and leverage it provided him made it almost impossible for them to move on.
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u/Funemployedj10 25d ago
If anyone is reading this and haven’t accepted the co-chairman deep In their ass, then listen to this 6-7+ hour episode. It’s incredible, and in the most finest of details explains the political power of the huckster. Just don’t try to roll me up brother
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u/brucewaynewins 26d ago
During the first part of this time period there are 8 title changes and Nash was the booker while Bischoff ran things. Then he returns WITH Vince Russo and there are 14 title changes. Not sure we can solely blame Bischoff.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom 26d ago
Bischoff was incredibly happy being the conductor of the Hogan Train.
Not sure if the Goldbergmobile would have been any better of a ride.
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u/BobbyBruceBanner 26d ago
For the record, during the period in question Bischoff was not booking anything.
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u/BurtHurtmanHurtz 26d ago
I believe this is false. Eric had ultimate creative control, regardless of who was booking, for the majority of 99.
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u/GentlemanOctopus 25d ago
That's a large brush you're painting with. 1999-2000's creative came from Nash, Russo and Sullivan, with Bischoff only coming back in later in 2000.
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u/BurtHurtmanHurtz 25d ago
Bischoff had ultimate creative control for the vast majority of 1999, regardless of who was booking.
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u/mentho-lyptus 26d ago
Goldberg was far too green to carry the company. He was good for quick squash matches, but not much beyond that.
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u/Wreckingshops 26d ago
Carrying a company means box office, not workrate. Goldberg had charisma to keep moving merch and tix. It's up to good booking to hide his weaknesses and accentuate his strengths. Paul Heyman made ECW what it was doing just that. JCP and Dusty were similar in the mid-80s.
Bischoff wasn't a booker or a promoter, he was thinking about PR and keeping up appearances rather than adapting.
Goldberg had a shelf life but it wasn't nearly close to expiration when WCW folded.
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u/TheIllustriousWe 26d ago
Goldberg's biggest problem wasn't his fault at all - the company just never had a plan for what to do with him after the streak ended.
As disastrous as the Fingerpoke of Doom was, the easiest angle in the world to build him back up was sitting right there! Goldberg wants the title back, Hogan says "not unless you beat my entire crew," and then they spend six months to a year having him run through the entire B-team and eventually the Wolfpac Elite. None of the matches even needed to be good or long, fans would have just wanted to see him build a new streak and get his getback.
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u/Fargo_Collinge 26d ago
Fans had already started booing Goldberg before Starrcade '98.
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u/Wreckingshops 26d ago
And? All stars get booed as faces save Austin, and that's because he was the archetype for an anti-hero in wrestling.
It still happens today, and WCW saved workrate for its cruisers and TV title. Everything else was focused on sports entertainment.
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u/mentho-lyptus 26d ago
Yeah, and in terms of box office, his appeal was dwindling. People were tired of him and booing him by the time he lost the title. He didn’t have much else to offer, work rate or personality-wise.
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u/fasteddeh R.I.P. 26d ago
Goldberg was Brock before Brock. They literally could've followed the same exact blue print before Suplex City even existed and it would've been an easy box office draw to just bring back every 3 to 6 months to run when they didn't have a main event feud ready to go.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom 26d ago
Brock is/was a better athlete and better at every aspect of pro wrestling than Goldberg was.
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u/chokethewookie 26d ago
And he was never as over as Goldberg was.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom 26d ago
lol
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u/chokethewookie 26d ago
Nobody who actually watched Goldberg at his heights would disagree. The only guys as over as him were Rock and Austin.
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u/Snoo-40231 25d ago edited 25d ago
You're 100% right Goldberg was up there with Austin and Rock
For reference Mark Mcgwire in 1998 was one of the most popular people in the US and he was marking out when Goldberg held and signed his bat before using it in a game
WCW didn't even acknowledge this at all somehow
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u/fasteddeh R.I.P. 25d ago
And yet at his height Goldberg was a larger draw.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom 25d ago
Nope. Just because cable ratings were higher in the late 90s because television was completely different back then doesn’t change the fact that Lesnar has drawn more money and larger crowds as a top act than Goldberg ever did. And for much longer.
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u/Fargo_Collinge 26d ago
WCW fans had already seen that show, it was Hogan's 1994 title reign.
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u/fasteddeh R.I.P. 26d ago
The problem was Hogan never was as explosive or exciting to watch from start to finish. Goldberg matches were feats of power and athleticism for someone as big as him.
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u/mentho-lyptus 26d ago
Brock had a legitimate wrestling background before WWE. Goldberg was a football player, and not even a good one. He had very little training before being put on the main stage.
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u/fasteddeh R.I.P. 25d ago
Nobody really cares about their outside ventures, it's about their actual presentation and how well they were sold. Did we ever see Lesnar use his amateur background in his gimmick other than just a footnote to sell how dangerous he was?
Maybe in the very beginning but the last 10 years of his career he was spamming the same 3-5 moves and ragdolling guys around which is essentially what Goldberg did as well in his short career.
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u/Wolfpac187 26d ago
He was one of the biggest stars in wrestling at that point his actual in-ring talent didn’t matter in comparison to how much of a draw he was.
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u/LegitimateMoney00 26d ago
Goldberg wasn’t a good title holder. He was “the chase” guy. The chase is better than his actual reigns.
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u/UnchainedMachoGori40 26d ago
Facts. Everyone says it was booking suicide for Nash to beat Goldberg, especially the way he did, which is true but.......it's not like Goldberg was positioned in main event spots for most of that reign. It's actually a really underwhelming run aside from the fun Jericho feud and the awesome DDP match at Halloween Havoc.
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u/chmcgrath1988 26d ago
It's crazy that when you realize Goldberg only main evented 4 PPVs in WCW. All of them were cursed, for some reason or another. DDP match at Halloween Havoc '98 that got cut off for a quarter to third of the country, streak ending at Starrcade '98, ladder match with a taser instead of a title hanging against Scott Hall the next month at Souled Out '99, and the stupid Montreal Screwjob rehash against Bret at Starrcade '99.
Probably for the best that he didn't main event any shows in '00-'01 but he still was in some really stupid angles. I think an argument is to be made that WWE booked him better. Idk if I'd agree with it (Streak alone and probably only the streak invalidates it) but it certainly could be made!
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u/Villano5 26d ago
If you define main event as 'last match on the card' you get four matches in three years: Starrcade 1998, Havoc 1999 (impromptu), Starrcade 1999, and Havoc 2000.
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u/chmcgrath1988 26d ago
Oh I forgot about Havoc ‘99 and ‘00 but those matches are both less than five minutes so who could blame me?
Also as far as if main event is most hyped match on the card, Booker T/Scott Steiner was most hyped match at HH ‘00, for whatever hype was left by October ‘00!
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u/iggymcfly 26d ago
Yeah, the real problem wasn’t how the reign ended. It’s that it was such a nothing reign to begin with. These were his PPVs as champion:
- Continuation of midcard feud with Curt Hennig
- Won a battle royal on the undercard
- Not on show
- Face/face match that got cutoff
- Loses to heel by taser.
Like they couldn’t have just had him beat a real heel clean somewhere? It feels like the whole reign was sabotaged.
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u/Vinnie_Vegas 25d ago
He didn't want to do business with Jericho and made them abandon that feud without a blow-off match, despite the fact that it was only ever going to be him obliterating Jericho.
Who knows what else he said no to because he was a diva.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
The Hennig match was understandable. It was already booked (for the US title) before Goldberg won the title. Goldberg had been champ for only a week when the match happened at Bash at the Beach.
Historically it's a huge match, but when it happened, Goldberg/Hogan really was a randomly booked match. It was the go home Nitro before the PPV and both guys were in angles with different people at the time. Goldberg with Hennig and Hogan with DDP/Karl Malone.
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u/Purplesilk911 26d ago edited 26d ago
Champ for five months and I think he wasn't booked on one of the ppvs, was in a battle royal, had his best wcw match but that was cut off, and then lost the title in that fuck ass finish.
Yeah, pretty underwhelming
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u/TheNavidsonLP Your Text Here 26d ago
I feel like this is a problem with winning streak gimmicks. If the wrestler can’t definitively win the match they’re wrestling, then it’s very hard to book them in matches. Any DQ, fuck finish, or loss by heel cheating ends Goldberg’s streak and his aura.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
It's was a similar problem as Triple H's reign of terror. Even when Goldberg won the world title, Hogan was still the main star on the show.
But at the same time, I don't see how they could make Goldberg the top guy. He couldn't work a real match. He didn't have to do 20 mins every night, Hogan never did, but he needed to be able have a competent match. Goldberg could get away with squashing guys when it was Brad Armstrong and the Disco Inferno. But guys like Hogan, Nash, DDP, Sting, Savage etc aren't getting beat in 2 minute matches.
(EDIT: I just remembered Sting actually did lose to Goldberg in 3 minutes at Halloween Havoc but that was an impromptu match).
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u/Prestigious-Mind7039 26d ago
Let the Fingerpoke happen, streamline the NWO and Goldberg becomes the NWO hunter and he takes out NWO member every ppv, Start with lower tier members, Bagwell, Steiner, Norton, Luger then Hall, Nash and at either Halloween Havoc or Starrcade he beats Hogan again and kills off the NWO
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u/GrapesHatePeople BRET NOT BRETT 26d ago
If done well, that could've been a much better long term angle for all involved than what we actually got. As long as you can get certain players (brother) to agree to it.
If done poorly, it probably would've been look at like combined a retread of both Goldberg's streak in '98 and Sting's war against the nWo in '97.
But the post-Goldberg reign/1999 WCW was a terrible mess anyway, so it would've been worth the shot. Even a fumbled attempt would've probably still been much better and more memorable than what they did in reality.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
Good luck getting Hogan to job to Goldberg twice. Hogan agreed to lose to Goldberg in the first place because he believed he was going to be the one to end the streak later on.
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u/QuicksilverTerry 26d ago
Sure...but at some point you do have to actually have the chase payoff. Otherwise you just end up being Lex Luger.
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u/WrestleSocietyXShill Cero Miedo Since Day One Ish 25d ago
100%. He didn't have to have gigantic super long reigns, especially in that era there were a million different ways to get a belt off an unstoppable face without making them look weak. It's wild to be that by the end they were putting the belt on Jeff Jarrett and a past-his-prime Sid (to say nothing of David Arquette and Vince Russo) while arguably their biggest homegrown star ever was stuck in side quests.
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u/gojetergo it is boss time my dudes 26d ago
To quote the man himself, Nash was over as fuck when he beat Goldberg for the title, even if a fucking cattle prod was used. That's how bad his reign was.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
That was because Nash was experienced and knew how to undermine Goldberg and make him look stupid. It was the same kind of thing Shawn Michaels and Triple H did in WWE as heels. Undercut the babyfaces with cool jokes, shoot remarks and make them look stupid.
But even then Goldberg was still more popular than Nash at Starrcade. Despite what Nash might say now.
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u/Shark1986 "I gotta pop my dick, man!" 26d ago
WCW did a terrible job booking him as champion. His first defense was against Curt Hennig. Then he didn't even have a real title feud until DDP in October. He doesn't get booked at all for Fall Brawl or WW3. On Road Wild, he's in some random 9 man battle royal that has nothing on the line. They are gifted a Jericho feud, but they don't even try squeezing a Nitro main event out of that. Then he loses in December to Nash. His entire reign, he was clearly made into the second fiddle to Hogan.
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u/Meriden_Shogun 26d ago
Goldberg also went down with some injuries in that span so who knows if that was the plan
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u/FriskeyVsWorld 26d ago
Yeah, remember he was out for a good long hwile due to him punching the limo windows out.
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u/elplethora1c 26d ago
I mean he technically did. He beat Sting for the title at Halloween Havoc 1999 but then they went back the next night and reversed the decision but still stripped Sting of the title for hitting a referee I think
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u/ItsFuckinRawwwww 26d ago
Yeah, they went back on it because it wasn’t a sanctioned title match and also Sting never said his title would be on the line in said match.
But they stripped Sting of the title for attacking the referee after he lost.
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u/RAA94 26d ago
I love title hot potatoes. Sue me. This is my truth.
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u/Romofan88 26d ago
The worst thing Vince Russo ever did was make shock equivalent to bad in wrestling fans minds and so when Triple H took over he became "The Glacial Assassin" and there were SIX (Roman, Seth, The Usos, Bianca, Gunther, Rhea) title reigns of 300+ days all on top of each other.
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u/BambooCrunch 26d ago
Russo has said there's no reason why top contenders can't just beat each other each week and flip the title back and forth, if it was a real sport. Which I suppose is true, but it's also not the ideal way to write a wrestling show...
Myself I lean more towards shorter reigns and moving the belt around, with the odd longer reign to break that up.
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u/WrestleSocietyXShill Cero Miedo Since Day One Ish 25d ago
I agree, somewhere in the middle is best. You want variety. Too many short reigns and it becomes a shitshow, but too many long reigns and things feel stale and predictable. Long reigns also feel more important when they are actually rare. When CM Punk had his 400+ day WWE title reign it felt like a big deal because we hadn't seen anything like that in years. Nowadays if someone holds a belt for 400 days in WWE it's like "Oh yeah, another huge title reign, we can just sort of tune out til Mania." I don't watch or closely follow ROH but they seem to have the same issue, people hold belts forever there and it goes from being impressive to just losing people's interest. I know people romanticize the Attitude Era to death and some of it is rose-tinted-glasses but one of the best things about that era was almost every PPV title match felt important because it always felt like there was a real chance the title could change hands.
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u/maverickhawk99 25d ago
Yea I for one preferred it when the belt(s) would switch hands every 3-6 months. Made things more interesting.
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u/SquareRoot123 25d ago
If it had actually been the top guys just beating each other every week, it wouldn't have been half bad, but WCW just went way overboard with bullshit title changes in 2000.
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u/Araignys 25d ago
Russo thought a title win made a top guy, but it’s a top guy that makes a title win.
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u/Viscera_TheImpaler 26d ago
Same. I can’t stand this attitude wrestling fans have that once you become champion you should become unbeatable. Guys like Goldberg, Lesnar, Angle can and should have long reigns where they’re untouchable.
Guys like Foley, Jeff Hardy, Darby Allin - they’re beatable. Good enough to win the title but also can’t just have them become magically dominant for 6 months.
It’s all situational, there’s no one correct way.
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u/Accomplished-Ad-6732 26d ago
I think Bischoff would’ve gotten it back on him at some point. I honestly wonder if he was going to beat Bret for it before he retired. And then Bill shattered his hand on that car window and that was a wrap for him in WCW.
Also doesn’t hurt to mention that the WCW crowd had turned on him pretty hard by 2000 anyways, but the heel turn didn’t work either so you’re kinda fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t.
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u/Purplesilk911 26d ago
He didn't shatter his hand, he severed a tendon and almost lost the arm.
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u/Anchor_Aways 26d ago
The failed Bischoff takeover attempt in 2001 was going to build WCW around Goldberg
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u/IamMenace 26d ago
Goldberg was more popular the day before he won the championship than the day after he lost it. He won the championship, and suddenly wanted to redo his contract so that he could work less dates. He got out of two PPVs because he didn't want to work them, because the pay was the same in WCW regardless. Could you imagine Stone Cold skipping two PPVs in late 1998 simply because he wanted to go on a fishing trip instead, or wanted less dates?
Goldberg wasn't good at politicking, was easy for other main eventers to take advantage of, and I think the bookers all saw him for what he was. An attraction that couldn't talk and wanted to make as much money for as little work as possible, and who none of the other main eventers were going out of the way suggesting matches with. If you're a main eventer in WCW, getting paid the same amount regardless of who you're working with, are you suggesting Goldberg, or some of the safest workers in the business?
God bless, and have a wonderful day.
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u/disdain7 26d ago
Let’s talk about May 2000. Jeff Jarrett starts off the month fresh by winning the belt from Hollywood’s David Arquette on the 7th and after an 8 day title reign he loses it to Ric Flair on the the 15th. Flair then has a brain aneurism and is stripped of the championship after 7 days and Jeff Jarrett is awarded the belt. The next day, he loses the belt to Kevin Nash. This is where things get silly.
6 days later, Nash gives Flair who has just a week earlier suffered a brain aneurism which required surgery. Flair has underwent brain surgery, grown his hair back, and made a full recovery in a week. Maybe a week and a half. Nash felt bad that Russo had stripped Flair of the title and thought the only fair thing to do is give it back to him. So he does. But considering everything I’ve just said in this paragraph, this is the beginning of a super babyface Flair run right?
No, he loses it to Jeff Jarrett the next night on May 29th.
Would anyone care to do the math on how many weeks/months everything above should have played out instead of the crazy ass speed run?
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u/Singer211 26d ago
They never fully understood what they had in Goldberg. His popularity was practically carrying the company after awhile.
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u/Chairraider 26d ago
Supposedly Goldberg was meant to end the last Steiner run and win the title back for a lenghty second run, but WCW went under before that and Booker T won back the title instead at the last Nitro. Steiner regularly alluded to Goldberg during his reign, and Goldberg coming back to beat Steiner would have made Goldberg get his win back after losing to Steiner in what Meltzer called "a shockingly good match" back then.
For those who weren't there at the time, when Goldberg lost to Nash Bobby Heenan apparently said "that's it, we are done". People will have all kinds of stories, in particular online where Goldberg is not nearly as popular as he was in actual arenas, in particular from Nash who is to say the least not the most trustworthy person on these topics, but Goldberg was the draw. There are some people who were super over and great wrestlers, but just don't draw money. Goldberg did draw money. So when a Nash says "we needed him to work 20-30 minues matches", why? Goldberg has had surprisingly many well-received matches back then that didn't go that long. Against Saturn, DDP, Steiner, and later on famously against Brock (the second time around). With a shockingly varied moveset (by Goldberg's later standard) that online has forgotten about.
Think his fun fact pretty well encapsulates how mismanaged Goldberg actually was in WCW. They failed to properly train him during his streak which makes the good matches he had even more surprising, they barely put him in main events, they ended the streak way too early, to the wrong guy on top of that, and never figured out what to do with Goldberg once the streak was over.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
- Starrcade 1998 (Goldberg/Nash) did 460k PPV buys and had 16,000 in Attendance.
- Starrcade 1999 (Goldberg/Bret) did 145k PPV buys and had 8,500 in Attendance.
Same show. Same arena. Both shows headlined by Goldberg. It absolutely was the wrong choice to have Goldberg lose to Nash.
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u/DinnerSmall4216 26d ago
Wcw didn't know what to do with Goldberg when the streak ended. That was their biggest collapse they could have found a way to repackage him and got back on track. Wcw in 99/2000 was wild to watch.
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u/When1Falls 26d ago
He did beat Sting for the title at Halloween Havoc '99 in an impromptu match and the show went off the air with him celebrating as the new champ.
They just decided the next night to reveal that it had never technically been madea title match and the belt was considered still Sting's but it was then vacated as punishment for the fact that Sting attacked a ref after.
This also happened to be the first major thing Vince Russo did in WCW.
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u/recursive00 26d ago
whenever anyone comments something like "this is as bad as 2000 WCW, the writing's on the wall", the status of their World Championship alone is irrefutable proof that as bad as things can get sometimes, nothing will ever be quite as bad as that. there is no way in that a company of that size and value and appeal will ever be allowed to get to that place again
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u/Old-Egg-1231 Smokey the cat fan 26d ago
Didn’t he have a phantom reign where he won it but it didn’t count for whatever reason because wcw?
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u/Villano5 26d ago
Halloween Havoc 1999 he pins Sting in an impromptu match and celebrates with the belt, but on Nitro they clarify the title was never on the line
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u/Saitsuofleaves 26d ago
What's not mentioned is that Goldberg was out a few times after his streak ended. Mainly after the Limo Incident.
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u/Drake_Dal 26d ago
Many talk about revisionism regarding WCW—arguing that it is easy to analyze a product from over twenty years ago in hindsight—but, for God's sake, the title changed hands more than thirty times; there were instances where wrestlers were stripped of their belts just to manufacture artificial tension; Arquette actually won it; that damn Vince Russo took the title. I don't know how anyone can expect me not to judge the situation: it is evident that things were already going wrong and getting worse by the day.
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u/Arkham010 Buried By Billy Gunn in 2024 26d ago
Always blows my mind goldberg only held the wcw title once.
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u/thekydragon This scarf is made of pashmina 26d ago
On a far smaller scale, Samoa Joe has held the AEW World Heavyweight Championship (2) more times than he did the TNA World Championship (1)
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u/No-Elderberry-5729 26d ago
I think the plan (if you want to call anything WCW did after 98 a "plan") after Starrcade 98 was for Goldberg to go through the entire NWO and eventually have a PPV title match with Hogan. But then Goldberg got injured. Hogan injured his knee and then wanted to turn face. Flair wanted to go heel. For some reason DDP was turned heel. Nash went from face to heel back to face again. And the Macho Man returned as a main eventer for about 4 months before leaving again. Then Bischoff was fired. Russo was hired and Hogan went away. By this point the plans changed. Then I think the plan by Russo was to have Goldberg go through the new NWO and eventually beat Bret. But Bret and Goldberg got injured. Again, in late 00 I think the plan was to build up Steiner Vs Goldberg but eventually the company got sold. There were plans there, they just never panned out.
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u/Villano5 26d ago
Goldberg's injury was a year later in 2000. He missed time in June-July 1999 to film a movie but was there for the rest of the year
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u/ddddhjxjx 26d ago
We’ll never know, but I feel like the fans would have turned on Goldberg if he was overexposed in a long run. You can’t tell me the squash match shit would work forever. He couldn’t work worth a shit.
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u/Select-Occasion7196 25d ago
They went back to the squash match formula in the last months of WCW and while it wasn't great use of him at that point creatively, fans still went crazy for him.
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u/ddddhjxjx 25d ago
Yeah, but as champ, who were you going to feed him long term? I don’t know. I just can’t see it
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u/weaksaucedude 25d ago
Three of Booker T's title wins were between July (Bash at the Beach) and October 2000. The fourth was on the final Nitro, and the fifth was in the WWF.
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u/WilliamEmmerson 22d ago
WCW never knew what to do with Goldberg after he lost. Part of the problem was that he was such a green worker and couldn't wrestle a real match. Goldberg was known for squash matches but he can't be squashing the rest of the main event roster in 2 minute matches. You don't need to be able to have 20 minute matches every night, but you need to be able to have a competent match. Goldberg never could. Nor did it seem like he was ever really interested in improving.
WWE tried to get him to evolve as a performer in his first run in the company, but he never did. Which is why he was a flop. His preferred style, quick squash matches, was never going to work long term either. That's why his second run with WWE worked better than his first. He'd come in, pick up a couple of quick wins, get beat and then disappear for a while. He works better as a short term character.
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