Would you have ended Goldberg's streak in 1998?

[tiger_rick]

There seem to be two schools of thought on this. The first is that ending Goldberg's streak ended WCW's hottest period and killed their homegrown icon. The other is that it was time because he was a one dimensional character who was secondary to the stream and beating him and making him the "hunter" was the way to progress him.

 

I've got three questions:

a) Would you have ended the streak at Starrcade 1998?

b) Would you have had Kevin Nash be the streak ender?

c) If not, when would you have done it and who should have ended it?

 

My personal view is that it was too soon to end the streak and the title reign. They hadn't nearly finished fulfilling the potential of Goldberg as champion. They had so much talent available that he could have easily gone another 6 months minimum as champ defending in fresh PPV matches against Nash, Hall, Flair, Bret and Luger as well as easily salable rematches against Hogan and Sting. That's without the endless guys they had to put him over on TV. He was still absolutely massive going into 1999 and they still had a huge audience.

 

I think they had the chance to use Goldberg to make guys like Booker T, Steiner, Benoit appear to be on his level in close matches. I'd have gone all the way to at least Great American Bash and had Scotty Steiner end the streak. That would have created a mega-heel who also had a ton of fresh PPV matches on the horizon.

 

What d'ya think?

[IANdrewDiceClay]

No way should they have ended it. What gets missed is that Goldberg (without Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage or Bret Hart advertised) sold out the Georgia Dome for that January 4 show. It was a million dollar house for a live Nitro a few days after New Years Eve. As Kevin Sullivan said "they weren't paying to see this guy lose". It was total sabatage. Him losing the belt a fornight before the Georgia Dome show was mad as fuck. WCW would have fallen to bits in 98 had it not been for Goldberg catching fire. If Goldberg was still hot, there would have been no need to do all that expensive shite with KISS, Medadeth and the other million things that was crippling the budget (and there for you wouldn't have brought Russo in). It may have prolonged the WCW run of business.

 

They should have kept the streak running until late 99 or 2000. You could have had Goldberg feud with Bret Hart, Sting, a heel DDP, another match with Hogan and then you could have had Steiner beat him for the belt. Steiner vs Goldberg could have been their Rock vs Triple H if anyone in WCW had a clue in 2000. Steiner would have been made beating Goldberg, and because Steiner was so believable at the time, I doubt it would have harmed Goldberg. Steiner was by far the most equiped to end the streak. Strange to think now (since he was so hilarious for many years and didn't mind putting even the shittest TNA wrestler over), but Scott Steiner was as intimidating as  Brock is today for me. He was so unpreditable and freaky looking. He'd slap the hats off people in the front row and get in peoples faces. That could have been a huge program.

 

But applying logic to WCW is tough to do, so I imagine they'd find a new way to fuck everything up.

[King Pitcos]

Without the benefit of hindsight, I'd have done it. I'd absolutely buy the notion that the streak screwjob and the Fingerpoke of Doom would set up a big-money Goldberg vs nWo feud, leading to a Goldberg vs Hogan pay-per-view match in the spring/early summer.

[Reznor]

I wouldn't have had him lose at Starrcade, not so much for the sake of the streak but for the sake of the title and the wasted opportunity of all those money-making PPV defences that never happened. 

 

He was obviously making WCW a lot of money in 1998 (or making them lose much less than they would have otherwise), but very little of it was in the way of PPV income as he barely headlined a single show in any kind of intriguing big match until Starrcade. DDP at Halloween Havoc was about all, and even that was somewhat overshadowed by Warrior/Hogan in terms of focus and promotion.

 

There was so many more opportunities through 1999, and they could easily have squeezed 2 or 3 decent title programmes before heading off to do Universal Soldier which would have been a better time to end the reign, even if by forfeit.

[unfitfinlay]

I'd go one further and say I wouldn't even have ended Wrath's streak a week or so before Starrcade. I can't speak for anybody else but I remember really being into that and looking forward to Wrath vs Goldberg in a streak vs streak match. I was gutted when Nash just squashed him on Nitro.

 

But, yes, Goldberg losing when he did was absolutely mental. He had to lose eventually, obviously, but losing that early, and to Nash who didn't need it, was a terrible business decision. The fact that they followed it up by having him get his head kicked in following the Fingerpoke of Doom likely didn't help.

 

I've never really been able to decide who I would've had end the streak but Ian makes an excellent case for Steiner in '99/00.

 

Now that I think about it, there was an element of sabotage for a lot of Goldberg's title reign. I could be wrong but I remember a great deal of his Title defences being in the midcard, against people like Curt Hennig and The Giant, while the usual suspects were in the Main Event. The company never really got behind him the way that they should've done.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

Without the benefit of hindsight, I'd have done it. I'd absolutely buy the notion that the streak screwjob and the Fingerpoke of Doom would set up a big-money Goldberg vs nWo feud, leading to a Goldberg vs Hogan pay-per-view match in the spring/early summer.

On one of the Legends of Wrestling show on the network, Nash preatty confirmed this was the plan; Goldberg vs a revitalised nWo. The way Nash sold convinced me it was a good program. Nash went on to say that unfortunately Goldberg lacerating his arm by punching out a car window ruined the plans.

 

With hindsight, THIS followed by Ian's idea would of been awesome.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

Now that I think about it, there was an element of sabotage for a lot of Goldberg's title reign. I could be wrong but I remember a great deal of his Title defences being in the midcard, against people like Curt Hennig and The Giant, while the usual suspects were in the Main Event. The company never really got behind him the way that they should've done.

Wasn't that because they wanted their Goldberg matches against Austin's key segments on Raw?

[King Pitcos]

 

Without the benefit of hindsight, I'd have done it. I'd absolutely buy the notion that the streak screwjob and the Fingerpoke of Doom would set up a big-money Goldberg vs nWo feud, leading to a Goldberg vs Hogan pay-per-view match in the spring/early summer.

On one of the Legends of Wrestling show on the network, Nash preatty confirmed this was the plan; Goldberg vs a revitalised nWo. The way Nash sold convinced me it was a good program. Nash went on to say that unfortunately Goldberg lacerating his arm by punching out a car window ruined the plans.

 

With hindsight, THIS followed by Ian's idea would of been awesome.

 

Nash was lying on that discussion though, because Goldberg fucking up his arm happened twelve months later. I don't know why nothing came of the feud before that, I think Goldberg had his revenge matches with Hall and Nash and then went off to film Universal Soldier and the nWo quietly died before he came back.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

Just checked and you're right Pitcos.

 

I hate it when you're right.

[ColinBollocks]

What is the actual reason for the supposed Goldberg v nWo storyline falling apart? All I can remember is Hogan having a never ending feud with Flair that year and moving on to a feud with Nash, while Goldberg was slumming it with the likes of Rick Steiner and Bam Bam Bigelow on some shows. Was it Hogan playing his old creative control card again and trying his hardest to sabotage dear old Bill?

[Fanny Pack]

He should have dropped it in a gauntlet match vs the original nWo at a PPV in July 1999 giving him the year title reign only to lose valiantly to Hogan after beating Hall and Nash on the same night.

 

Cue "he should have dropped it to a young up and coming guy"...

[King Pitcos]

What is the actual reason for the supposed Goldberg v nWo storyline falling apart? All I can remember is Hogan having a never ending feud with Flair that year and moving on to a feud with Nash, while Goldberg was slumming it with the likes of Rick Steiner and Bam Bam Bigelow on some shows. Was it Hogan playing his old creative control card again and trying his hardest to sabotage dear old Bill?

From checking Wikipedia, Hogan dropped the title to Flair (and turned babyface) at Uncensored '99... And that was before Goldberg had even gone to do the film. Looking at the pay-per-view results, I can't remember (or fathom) how exactly these things fit together on TV. Goldberg wrestled Scott Hall at the January PPV, which made sense, then Bam Bam Bigelow at the February one (no idea why), then he wasn't even on Uncensored in March, then he wrestled Nash in April, and in May had a match with Sting and then got attacked by the Steiners to be written out to go off filming.

 

With WCW, it's hard to know how much of anything was ever sabotage and how much was incompetence and just not being arsed.

[PowerButchi]

His streak should have ended when people stopped paying money to see him rack it up. Simple as that. And people were still paying money hand over fist when it ended.