The Night Goldberg Lost For The First Time

Goldberg's act was enhanced with theatrics, of course. His long ring walk further informed the tone of dread felt on behalf of his opponents. Doom is that bit more harrowing when it is slowly inevitable - imagine waiting a minute after somebody threatens to break bad news - and his gladiatorial music had a paradoxical quality about it. It was a funeral march you popped for, as the audience, collectively, lowered their thumb in instruction. Goldberg ruled so hard that he almost single-handedly allowed WCW to compete with a WWF rampant in popularity and headlined by the biggest, hottest drawing card since Hulk Hogan.

For younger readers, consider that feeling Brock Lesnar generates when he is at his sickeningly, deadliest best - only, he was the hot emerging talent ripping an oppressive, tired regime to shreds.

Goldberg ate United States Champion Raven and sh*t out World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan as WCW, avenging the wrongs of the Sting push, strapped the rocket to him. It's a fashionable, marketed word in wrestling now, but then, Goldberg was truly undeniable. The very structure of the company was designed for his rise to be suppressed. He tore the ass of that structure in half. Any (early) attempt to politick would have been too naked. There were no excuses, particularly when he had proved himself capable of working a longer match, as he did against Diamond Dallas Page in an electrifying clash at Halloween Havoc 1998. Not that presenting abysmal main events was much of a concern to WCW, by that point, but the murky waters of wrestling politics don't much legislate for hypocrisy.

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