- Joined
- Nov 30, 2014
He got so over with the fans it would have been ultra stupid to bury him.
General Wrestling Discussion
- Thread starter Frank Rizzo
- Start date
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- Apr 22, 2015
Yeah, but this is WCW.
Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
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- Nov 27, 2018
Ironically he kind of enjoyed the same success that Jericho did -- away from the main event and building up the US title.
IIRC he also had the benefit of working with guys like DDP, so by the time he got to be too big, it was really hard to cut off his momentum (although they did eventually do it with overbooked bullshit that led to the Fingerpoke of Doom.)
As for the other question re: just shitcanning Nitro, do you mean when the AOL Time Warner takeover happened? The reason it was basically killed was because the new exec in charge did not want pro wrestling at all and wanted more wholesome shit.
If you're talking before the merger, Uncle Ted was always grateful to pro wrasslin' keeping his network afloat in the early years, so the basically had a safe spot for as long as Ted Turner had control.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
WHATCHA GONNA DO BROTHER WHEN LARRYMANIA RUNS WILD ON YOU!!!!!
Goldberg more or less got himself over, he had a great look and was beating jobbers in super quick squashes. It created a lot of natural interest, with fans even bringing signs counting his wins. He also didn't directly start going for the Big Gold Belt, so Hogan didn't see him as a threat to his own star power, they still booked him to go after the midcard stuff first. Bischoff and Hogan were still pretty content doing their NWO shit. Sullivan saw Goldberg as a golden goose as his popularity grew, as far as I know I've never heard anything about him specifically having any issues with Bill, so he was fine with his booking.
Changing the Nitro schedule would've come down to the head of AOL/Warner, after the merger Ted was effectively powerless and he was the one that originally put Nitro on Mondays because of Eric suggesting to him that they directly compete with Raw. With the new leadership they had zero interest in wrestling, even if WCW had been making money, they were likely still going to dump it because the executives didn't "get" wrestling and had no interest in learning about it or trying to understand it, so even changing the date from Tuesday wouldn't have mattered to them as they saw it as worthless.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
Hulk lost to Goldberg absolutely clean on live TV, I don't think he had any problems with him. Not everything in WCW was as terrible as it's made out to be, but they lost and history is written by the winners.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2018
For the first one, you are confusing Kevin Sullivan with Kevin Nash. Nash DESPISED Golberg, whereas Sullivan was one of the few who championed Goldberg when he started out in the company.
As for how Goldberg got so big? It was a literal black swan event.
No one really had any expectations for Goldberg, who was a big ex-football player that was a slightly more fuckable looking clone of Steve Austin minus the personality. To compensate for Goldberg's lack of mic skills, they basically decided to play to his strengths (no promos, just had him go out and clobber his opponent) and gave him an undefeated streak in lieu of an actual storyline because, at the time, unless you were Raven, Jericho, or Malenko, WCW rarely gave undercard guys storylines in favor of pushing the NWO storyline.
Goldberg slowly but surely became a big hit with fans as months passed to the point that WCW realized they had a hit on their hand that none of them expected. They gave him the US title after a feud with Raven, at which point other shit happened to aid him up the card faster and faster:
1. Starcade 97 burnt a LOT of good will Hogan had going on with the way he undermined Sting winning the belt and ending his reign of terror, combined with Hogan fucking off for the first couple of months of 1998 and allowing Sting to flounder so he could reclaim the belt and resume said reign of terror.
2. WWE started to get their shit together and by the spring of 1998, Austin was on top and was kicking WCW's ass. Bischoff had completely changed the company to be TV ratings driven over all other metrics, so he desperately needed SOMETHING to score a quick win to keep his corporate masters off his back.
So fate was aligned that Hogan decided he had to do something/put someone over to deal with the bad PR of how he fucked Sting over and Bischoff needed a big match on free TV to stop the bleeding of Nitro's falling ratings. Goldberg happened to be one of the biggest undercard guys at the time, someone who managed to organically get over, was young, and pretty much free from the taint of two years worth of NWO circle jerking. Hogan told Bischoff "I tell you what, I'll drop the belt to this Goldberg guy, clean as a whistle and put the fucker over as the new top guy and do it on live TV as well so that everyone sees his coronation at this upcoming Nitro taping at a big stadium!" and Bischoff, who had been struggling to find a main event worthy of said stadium show episode of Nitro and who knew that Hogan was a fickle, selfish lout who might change his mind, moved heaven and Earth to get the match set up and forgo all build-up one might normally have let alone doing it on a PPV, because he needed a big rating and more to the point, to get Hogan to do the clean job ASAP before he changed his mind or worse, Kevin Nash convinced him to change his mind.
As for moving Nitro, it was off the table partly because of ego and partly because by the time the show was in free fall, Turner executives were not willing to move the show or even demote it to TBS. TNT executives in particular, were already pissy they lost the prime time hours on Monday night to wrestling and by 2000, they were angling to revamp TNT into a more classy version of USA Network with original programming and high end reruns of stuff like Law and Order, having already secured the rerun rights to the Abby Carmichael seasons and were in the process of stealing the first 8-9 seasons of the show from A&E.
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- Jul 6, 2017
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2014
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- Dec 12, 2022
Always with the intention of getting his win back iirc that was literally one of his demands for putting goldberg over he just never go the chance to
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2024
Goldberg couldn't carry Scuffed Horace Hogan's jock when it comes to imitating the Rattlesnake
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2024
He was a bald guy in black trunks, which according to >dirtsheets Bischoff swore up and down was a concept that would never get over.
Sure got a lot of butts in seats for WWF at the time, though.
Tom Nook's Gloryhole
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 28, 2021
Starrcade should have Hogan vs Sting with Hogan winning via a fast count after using an NWO ref. Then Bischoff pops up and says the match will be restarted with a different referee.
Enter Bret Hart.
Scorpion death drop.
1-2-3.
Sting holds the belt, Hogan has been stabbed in the back by Bischoff playing the long con and Bret Hart has joined WCW showing that the era of NWO fuckery is OVER. WCW levels of creative fuckery but with a cathartic finish.
Enter Bret Hart.
Scorpion death drop.
1-2-3.
Sting holds the belt, Hogan has been stabbed in the back by Bischoff playing the long con and Bret Hart has joined WCW showing that the era of NWO fuckery is OVER. WCW levels of creative fuckery but with a cathartic finish.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Bit then they can't keep milking the NWO because they were successful for so long they obviously need to keep being pushed forever diminishing returns are a myth
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2021
I always wonder what would have happened if Goldberg had learned more actual wrestling. He was strong, he was surprisingly agile, and he was very over. Six months of technical training would have made him one of the biggest ever, I think. But there was a combination of "This is working, why change it?" and his apparent unwillingness to do the work, so we never got a well-rounded wrestler, just mostly squash matches. But you could see hints in some of his matches, especially against Raven and DDP.
ParasiteSteve
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2024
He was kept away from the main event and treated more like a mid card monster for a while, so no one at the top bothered with him. Plus they were being feed others to chomp on, and basically dicking around amongst themselves. It wasn't that they always buried others, it was that half the time it was just the main event guys wanking each other off and not really doing anything valuable.
Wrestling has always been looked down on, and the raunchy nature and diminishing value of WCW saw it as a lost cause. WWF was crushing it, and it was full of issues with the staff and talent. Was just easier to drop it and move on. It was also a very small aspect of the merger and fuck up, so it was never anyone's focus other than Ted, and even he was not interested as he had other bigger issues to contend with.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
He was so over he didn't need to do that. Nobody watched WCW to see Goldberg have 30 minute matches. That's not why they liked him.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
I feel like the dropped the dark brooding thing by 1998 and he was basically just surfer Sting with white face paint and a couple of the gimmicks from the crow version like coming down from the rafters and the bat.
1) Contrary to popular belief WCW built a number of viable main eventers like Sting, DDP, Booker T, Scott Steiner and Goldberg. The issue is politicking always got in the way and so you ended up with stuff like Hogan cutting the legs out from under Sting, Nash cutting the legs out from under Goldberg, and Booker T's big moment at Bash at the Beach 2000 being overshadowed by that shoot you posted. It was never building guys up to a main event level that was the issue. The issue was what happened to them once they got there.
2) Time Warner wanted to dump WCW because they wanted to rebrand TBS from "It's a guy thing" to a channel to was more friendly to a general audience. TBS kind of did the Spike TV thing before Spike TV in the 1990s with shows like WCW, Monkey and a Movie, and Movies for Guys Who Like Movies. This programming was considered low-rent by advertisers and Time Warner wanted to court a more high brow audience with more women which is why they switch to more general movies and reruns of contemporary sitcoms. I still think they would have sold to Bischoff as opposed to totally shitcanning it if that were not the case. After all, they wouldn't have to deal with the drama if they didn't own it, and Nitro was still the higher rated than TNT's average primetime rating in 2001.
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Paradox Mystic
kiwifarms.net
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- Oct 19, 2024
According to Russo and Booker T the original plan was for Jeff to go over on Hogan, then of course Hogan used his creative control clause to officially inform them that doesn't work for him. Depending on which source you believe either Russo knew ahead of time a week or so, or the fax to officially inform WCW what Hogan wanted to do was sent late appearing in a empty office after closing time.
The plan was changed to end with Booker T and Hulk Hogan both controversially walking out with World Heavyweight championships to setup a Booker T vs Hogan "Who's the real champion?" PPV match, but apparently Hogan thought Russo's promo went way farther than they agreed on what Russo would say and it ended in a lawsuit. According to Booker T he was surprised about winning a world championship cause they told him at the last minute he'd need to get a suit because he'd be appearing on Nitro with the belt.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
Yes, I saw the Dark Side of the Ring episode as well.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2022
ah, shit, I forgot cmll was live free tonight