1. Wrestling Is Fake
WCWs pay-per-view offering in August of 2000 titled
New Blood Rising was supposed to be a night where the young guns of the company would be showcased in grand fashion. However, quite the opposite took place as every match was booked with convoluted storytelling, screw job finishes galore, and a Judy Bagwell on a pole match. The coup de grâce of stupid booking decisions took place during the evenings triple threat showdown between Kevin Nash, Bill Goldberg, and Scott Steiner. The story going in was that Bill Goldberg got into a motorcycle accident and wanted out of the match. Vince Russo, who was the on air authority figure at the time, stated that Goldberg would be fired if he didnt show up for the match. Goldberg arrives, and things seem to be normal, until the record scratch moment occurs. Kevin Nash goes for the powerbomb, Goldberg pushes him off and walks out of the match. Russo runs down to the ring, and orders Goldberg to get back in the match but receives a loud F-U for his troubles. The commentary team appears to be in a state of shock and then they flip the script and pull back the curtain. Mark Madden says Maybe, Goldberg was supposed to do something that wouldn't have made him look good, but this (walking out on the match) doesn't make him look good either. Scott Hudson replied
I think Goldberg was supposed to go up for the Jack Knife, but he didn't and swerved Kevin Nash. Tony Schiavone says in return
Yeah, did you see the look on Nashs face, he didn't expect that to happen at all. Nash power bombed Steiner for the win and Scott Hudson yelled
He went up for it, Goldberg and finished his rant by saying
Goldberg proved that he is the cry baby we all thought he was. The next night on Nitro, Russo shoots on Goldberg for not following the script and says
Bill Goldberg believes that if this world was real, he could take everyone. Instead of presenting professional wrestling as legitimate, Vince Russo broke kayfabe to produce a story line that only the smallest fraction of the audience understood while the majority had no idea what was going on. After that, it didn't matter what WCW did because they killed the illusion by telling their audience that wrestling is fake.