Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
It is one of the biggest matches in the history of the WCW. A match that could have sold out any venue and headlined virtually any PPV. Yet, in their wisdom, the company gave it away for free on TV. In this latest ‘A Moment in Time‘, we look at the moment Goldberg won the WCW title.
The Date: July 6th, 1998
The Place: The Georgia Dome
The Show: WCW Monday Nitro
The Match: ‘Hollywood’ Hulk Hogan Vs. Goldberg
Bill Goldberg was quickly becoming the fastest rising babyface in the company. While still relatively green in the ring, his matches were short and sweet. He had the look of a top star, he was protected and made to look like an unbeatable monster. And, indeed, he was, by compiling an undefeated record which also included winning the United States title along the way.
On the other side was ‘Hollywood’ Hulk Hogan, WCW’s top heel who wielded a lot of power backstage. Hogan had complete creative control over his character. Which meant that he and he alone, decided who he wanted to wrestle and who he wanted to “job” to. This match was originally planned to be a dark match after Nitro went off the air as a freebie to the fans in attendance.
Goldberg was scheduled to win the match all along, protecting his undefeated streak in the process. It was approved by Hogan because it wasn’t going to air on live TV and whatever you couldn’t see on TV, didn’t exist I guess. When Eric Bischoff decided to put the match on television for free, Hogan needed to be consulted. Not only consulted, but Bischoff needed to negotiate with Hulk to do the match and lose the WCW world title.
Hulk Hogan agreed to drop the belt to Goldberg under the condition that Hulk could win the title back from him down the road and be the man to finally end his unbeaten streak. Eric Bischoff agreed to Hogan’s terms and the hotshot angle for Nitro was set. In what should have been the biggest pay per view match in WCW history, one that could have possibly surpassed Starrcade ’97, World Championship Wrestling gave it away for absolutely free. The reasoning? Pure panic.
By this time in 1998, the Monday Night Wars were full blown. After 84 consecutive weeks as the number one wrestling show, WCW began losing to the WWF in the ratings again. Vince McMahon had already ushered in the Attitude Era with more adult content and news stars being pushed. The rating war was tipping back into the WWF’s favor. So, as a simple act of desperation to once again get the ratings back on WCW’s side, the decision was made to put the Hogan/Goldberg match for free.
The thought process at the time was that seeing Goldberg beat Hogan clean in the ring to win the WCW title would garner fans to continue to tune into WCW programming every week. As popular as Goldberg was at this period of time, truth was he was more over on televised events. House show business was still struggling with Goldberg at the top of the marquee. The reasons were most likely because fans didn’t want to pay good money to see a 2 minute Goldberg squash main event.
Despite what the house show numbers said, Goldberg merchandise was a red-hot seller. Fans would go nuts once his music played and he made his way through the pyro. A match of this caliber would surely be a rating winner. The Georgia Dome was packed with over 36,506 paid and a few thousand give away tickets through radio contests etc. It was the largest crowd for a wrestling event on cable television.
The match itself lasted a little over eight minutes and it was not without some outside activity. Curt Hennig of the nWo came out, but right behind him was Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page. Malone used a diamond cutter to neutralize Hennig and that temporarily distracted Hogan – no doubt a built-in excuse for Hogan to lose cleanly. A spear and jackhammer later and Goldberg was the new WCW world heavyweight champion. His undefeated record went to 108 wins and zero losses. The passing of the torch was complete and Goldberg was the new top man to lead WCW into the new millennium.
The hotshot match paid off in the short run for WCW as Nitro defeated Raw ending the WWF’s 5-week ratings win streak. The Goldberg/Hogan match quarter hour received a 6.9 rating which made it the most watched pro wrestling match in cable television history. As we know through the history of the Monday night wars, the ratings didn’t hold up for WCW. Hogan’s return match was simply a verbal agreement between him, Goldberg and Bischoff and never transpired.
