7 Exact Times Wrestlers Got Their Spot TAKEN

Bret Hart will tell you, and everybody else, over and over and over and over again, that Goldberg robbed him of his pro wrestling career. The conversation turns to this topic constantly. It doesn’t matter what Bret is talking about; he could be chatting about footwear, and then something will light up in his mind, and he’ll say “Yeah, and on the subject of boots, Bill Goldberg ended my career when he booted me in the head”. You could also argue that Goldberg took Bret Hart’s spot, too. 

While Eric Bischoff by his own admission did not know what to do with Bret Hart, surely, at some point in 1998, he should have won the WCW World title. Bret was the best wrestler in the world in 1997, and the most coveted free agent ever. In the days leading to Starrcade 1997, it was not unreasonable to expect the short-term lineage to go something like: Hollywood Hogan > Sting > Some Heel Or Other > Bret Hart. This is not how it panned out.  

Bret’s WCW run was a total disaster, but after the Starrcade debacle, in which he was cast as the special guest referee for the match between Eric Bischoff and Larry Zbysko, things were somewhat promising for a little while. His win over Ric Flair at Souled Out was a luxurious (and heavily promoted) wrestling match, a neat alternative to the mostly dire action over in the post-Bret WWF. The pay-per-view drew 380,000 buys - at that point, the third-highest number in WCW history. Watching Bret Hart simply be Bret Hart didn’t last as a concept; his match against legendary rival Curt Hennig, at Uncensored, was a bleak and dated diminished return. Bret was damned, twice over, on the April 20, 1998 episode of Monday Nitro. 

Bret himself turned heel, gifted Hollywood Hogan the World title in the main event against Randy Savage, and joined the New World Order as an “associate”. He was never going to be the top heel, of course. That was Hogan’s spot. The top babyface spot was also taken that very night. 

The total sensation that was Bill Goldberg won the United States title from Raven in an absolutely fantastic TV wrestling match, in which he blasted through every member of the Flock and merely shrugged at several weapon shots. Goldberg was so awesome and so over that he outgrew the title the very second he actually won it: he was booked to defeat Hogan for the World Heavyweight title on the July 6, 1998 Nitro, after which he immediately vacated the secondary prize. 

As Goldberg shot up the card, he and Bret Hart switched places; Bret defeated Diamond Dallas Page for the vacated U.S. title a fortnight after Goldberg’s World title win.