How Good Was Goldberg Actually?

Goldberg’s streak is the only legitimate reason that the second half of the Monday Night War existed. Without Goldberg’s magical run getting fans invested, WCW would have continued to circle the drain towards oblivion by hooking their programming around aging main eventers and losing viewers by the millions. They let Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, and other notable exceptions cross over to WWE because of the impenetrable field around the main event scene. Goldberg was the only other superstar to breach that gap.

He was also one of the only WCW stars to find themselves on the cover of magazines such as Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide. It sounds ridiculous in the digital age, but this was a big part of keeping WCW ticking as a mainstream entity during a time that WWE was wrestling back the battle for dominance.

Bill is also on the cover of the Monday Night Wars edition of WWE 2K26. Considering this is almost 30 years after the streak began, it’s a testament to the lasting power of Goldberg’s moment in the sun that it’s still part of WWE’s marketing today.

The most surprising thing about Goldberg’s WCW run is that he doesn’t crack the top three for PPV buy rates in company history. His first loss to Kevin Nash at Starrcade '98 is the fourth biggest PPV in company history, with a massive 460,000 buys. Shockingly, his match with Hulk Hogan at the Georgia Dome drew 44,000 paying fans, but didn't crack the top ten ratings in Nitro history either.

The biggest question mark over Goldberg's drawing power comes when he moved to WWE. Vince McMahon has a long-running history of burying things he didn't create. This is definitely a factor in Goldberg not ever feeling like he had the same aura as he had in WCW, despite WWE giving him a much better rogue's gallery of heels to work with. He walked into Titan Towers as one of the biggest names in wrestling, but by the time his contract was up, just one year later at WrestleMania 20, Goldberg no longer felt like one of wrestling's biggest draws.

His various comebacks have also felt like unwanted distractions. Snatching the Universal Championship from Kevin Owens didn't lead to big business for WWE, nor did it when the same fate happened to Bray Wyatt. Goldberg's retirement was worth so little that the broadcast went off-air before he'd finished speaking. 

All of which is to point out that Goldberg did draw money. It just entirely came in a relatively short amount of time.

6/10