Rewatching The Last Wrestling Show To Beat WWE Raw In The Ratings
1. Goddamn, DDP Was OVER!
Technically, we got to see Diamond Dallas Page in action twice on the October 26, 1998 edition of Nitro - that first being a replay of his Halloween Havoc against Goldberg, then Page in action against Bret Hart as part of the regular Nitro content.
That Halloween Havoc match is often cited as the greatest match of Bill Goldberg's career, but a revisit makes you realise just how over DDP was at that point in time.
It's criminal how WWE opted to use Page during his one-year in-ring tenure with the company, and many of those that weren't watching his WCW rise will likely be unaware of just how big a deal the Master of the Diamond Cutter was at one point in time. And for DDP, he was rarely as over as when he made his entrance at the Halloween Havoc '98 PPV.
Pegged as People's Champion vs. World Champion, Page pushed Goldberg to places he'd never before been. At that point the WCW Champ, Da Man had to work for every hold and every semblance of movement as DDP stood his ground.
The story of Diamond Dallas Page is a well-known one - a manager and commentator who only started training in his mid-30s and became a three-time World Champion - but a quick revisit of 1998 reiterates just how much of a star Page made himself.