WCW Monday Nitro, Atlanta, GA
On this day! 25 years ago. God.
The prior Thursday on Thunder, JJ Dillon announced that Hollywood Hulk Hogan would have to defend his WCW world heavyweight title against United States champion Goldberg at the Georgia Dome the following Monday.
It really was a wild feeling, and watching the replay that opens this episode of Nitro brought that back to me a little. Like, Goldberg had the streak, he’d won the U.S. title in April, but brother, that was a new level, that was the big time. You could have reasonably wondered if they would really pull the trigger on putting Goldberg in position. They did that. And now we had to wonder what the hell they were gonna do. Put the world title on him? The world title on Goldberg?
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Going back to Hogan hitting the scene in the summer of ’94, the title reigns went Hogan, Giant, Savage, Flair, Savage, Flair, Giant, Hogan, Luger, Hogan, Sting, Sting, Savage, Hogan. Giant they pushed huge but then sort of lost sight of once the nWo hit, and he became Another Guy: Really Tall Version. Otherwise, it’s four guys, two WCW icons and then the invading WWF lads of ’94, who had been top guys for years by then, plus five days of Lex Luger in ’97.
The WWF had switched it up in ’98. Steve Austin got his chance on top as a bald goateed phenomenon. But he took a good while to build to that, even longer if you’d followed him from WCW and the pit stop in ECW. Goldberg was also bald with a goatee, but he really was something different. His first ever match came in June ’97. His first on TV came in Sept. ’97. He’s only nine months in here, for all it really matters!
The listed attendance these days is 41,412 for this show. Earlier in the night, Hogan and Eric Bischoff had opened the show by saying the match wasn’t going to happen, but that he was setting up a match between Goldberg and a returning Scott Hall, who’d been off TV for about six weeks. But then he added that if Goldberg beat “the nWo-ite” (he didn’t name Hall in the promo), he would wrestle him.
Goldberg beat Hall in under six minutes, pretty long for a Goldberg match.
Goldberg makes the walk through the building. It’s a long walk. The tension building with every step. He emerges through the entrance, stands in the sparklers and, right outside my own home here 25 years later, some dude a street over is setting off big sparkler fireworks. That’s God talking to me, I think. “Hey, man. Cool blog,” He said.
They hit a break after Goldberg’s entrance, then come back to Hogan’s. Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan talking about butterflies as Hogan confidently arrives, playing the belt like a guitar he doesn’t know how to play, and he shouts, “I am going to kick Goldberg’s … BUTT!” This is July ’98, man. Two years and change into Steve Austin saying hell damn fart and crap boobs crap all over WWF TV.
Hogan walks right into Goldberg’s face, talking up a storm. Goldberg gives him no reaction. Heenan theorizes that Hogan is “scared to death,” and you sort of get the sense just by how he’s acting. This is not typical Hogan. This is a Hogan trying to hide fear, putting on an aggressive face.
The bell sounds, the fans cheer, Hogan and Goldberg circle. The chant starts.
Side headlock from Goldberg, cranking on it and Hogan with the, “No, no, no, no!”
Mike Tenay: “Among the wrestling factions, many critics would put World Championship Wrestling No. 3 in the pecking order, behind the two nWo groups.”
Goldberg runs Hogan over with a shoulderblock and Hogan is shocked at the power and speed of the younger challenger. Hogan grabs a front facelock, Goldberg picks him up, but Hogan blocks anything more. Goldberg drives Hogan to the corner and gives a clean break, it seems, but Goldberg’s also wiping at his eye, Hogan maybe gave him a little shot on the way out there.
Hogan offers the knuckle lock, and Goldberg immediately gets the advantage. No struggle. Just right over the top and Hogan’s on his knees, screaming in pain. Hogan works his way over and gets a boot on the bottom rope, breaking the hold.
Hogan with a boot to the gut, three right hands, an eye rake, a back rake. Hogan gets the weight belt off and starts whipping Goldberg across the back. He talks shit at the crowd and Goldberg just snatches the belt out of his hand and throws it away. Hogan is stunned. He didn’t even have time to talk shit, really.
Collar-and-elbow, Hogan to a side headlock, but he’s in a Goldberg full nelson before he knows it. Mule kick low blow from Hogan to get free. Good clothesline from Hogan, hard bump from Goldberg and Hogan goes to a choke. If Hogan had a brain, he’d have just forced Charles Robinson to DQ him there instead of breaking.
Scoop slam from Hogan, but an elbowdrop misses, and another one misses after. Goldberg rolls up, quick clothesline and Hogan goes out to the floor. Hogan finds his weight belt out there and puts it back on.
Hogan gets Goldberg in the corner and drives three knees into the breadbasket, then dumps Billy Boy out to the floor. Goldberg’s head rammed into the bicycle rack, then Hogan hits him over the back with a chair three times. All things considered, three of Hogan’s better chairshots. Charles Robinson basically ignores it. He’s going to see a winner, by God.
Scoop slam and there’s the legdrop from Hogan. In a truly bizarre moment that just feels weird, the commentary doesn’t even call the legdrop because Tony Schiavone is doing a whole spiel about Goldberg having to dig down and suck it up, which he’d started before Hogan hit it and he just watched Hogan deliver the move that’s won him 78,000 matches and didn’t stop at all. Maybe the lack of big foot beforehand also threw Tony off; he hadn’t really seen the legdrop, because there was no big foot.
Another legdrop hits, they again don’t much acknowledge that this is Hulk Hogan hitting fucking legdrops. Curt Hennig makes his way down to ringside. Mike Tenay finally mentions the legdrops. Behind Hennig, it’s Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone.
Goldberg kicks out of the legdrops. Malone hits a Diamond Cutter on Hennig. Hogan’s looking at all that, turns around, SPEAR!
“That’s part one!” Heenan shouts. “Now finish him off! FINISH HIM OFF!”
Jackhammer hits! 1, 2, 3.
Shit flying in the ring because people are so excited they can’t handle it. Fireworks going off. Hogan rolls out of the ring, beaten.
“31-year-old Bill Goldberg, less than 10 months in the sport, is on top of the wrestling world,” Mike Tenay says.
The crowd keeps chanting after the music ends. Goldberg in the ring with both belts.
“Goodnight, America! Goldberg’s the champ.”
I mentioned pretty recently that I kept notebooks for title histories as a kid, and that this was one I distinctly remember writing in, like, “Wow. I’ll be damned.” It was a massive moment. It was new, it was special, it felt like something huge had happened.
The match is good because they do what they set out to do. There are a couple kinda funny things:
- Curt Hennig comes down to ringside while Hogan is in absolute control of the match. This is entirely so that DDP and Malone can come down, too, and Malone can hit the Diamond Cutter on a guy he’s not even wrestling the following Sunday at Bash at the Beach.
- All of this distracts Hogan, who then turns around into the spear, instead of just being beaten up by Goldberg and losing to the spear-jackhammer combo. Goldberg doesn’t really do that much in the match, actually. Hogan loses and clean enough, but it’s still got some of that good Political Terry stuff on it. He was gonna drop the belt here, fine, but he wasn’t going to truly look weak. I don’t blame him. He was about to turn 45 and they gave him a lot of power in his contract, so he used it.
- It’s clear, of course, that Hogan imagined he would get the win back down the road. He never did. Take that, Hulk! Two guys you can’t beat, Bill Goldberg and Arn Anderson.
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