While a lot of the success of World Championship Wrestling during the Monday Night War can be attributed to making great use of former WWE stars as the nWo, the promotion ended up with a homegrown phenomenon in the form of football player turned pro wrestler Bill Goldberg. Goldberg was an intense power wrestler who racked up a legendary winning streak lasting from June 1997 to December 1998, with a record 173 victories, becoming one of the most popular stars in the company.
While Goldberg has obviously remained a going concern in wrestling thanks to his marquee WWE appearances in recent years, there are a number of things about his classic streak that fans may have forgotten.
9 His First Televised Squash
Everyone has to start somewhere, and Goldberg did not debut challenging Hollywood Hogan out of the gate. By the time he debuted on television, Goldberg had strung together a few victories to kick off his streak, but his first televised bout happened on the 9/22/1997 episode of Monday Nitro, where his first widely broadcast victim was former Dungeon of Doom member and future WWE developmental coach Hugh Morrus.
This dubious claim to fame is pretty much a career highlight for Morrus, who’d later take on the ring name General Hugh G. Rection in WCW.
8 He Lost a Match
Among those pre-TV dark match and house show victories for Goldberg was one notable outlier: a straight-up loss. At a Saturday Night TV taping, Goldberg actually was defeated by Chad Fortune, better known as Travis from WWE’s Tekno Team 2000.
By all accounts, it was an arbitrary decision booked by Arn Anderson, and nobody thought much of it. Goldberg would even mention it in his book years later, which upon reading said book would hilariously cause Chad Fortune to realize just what a big deal that random dark match was.
7 The Numbers Were Inflated
The loss to Chad Fortune being ignored highlights just how much promotions can straight-up fudge the numbers in pro wrestling -- especially in the days before everyone had the internet on their phones. By the time Goldberg debuted, he was already 15-0 despite not wrestling 15 matches in his career at that point.
As Goldberg's winning streak turned into a phenomenon, the numbers would occasionally jump to an absurd degree in a matter of weeks, causing fans to debate just how many of the 173 wins were actually real. There’s no definitive number, but some have said that the actual total lies somewhere between 120 and 150.
6 Mongo Gave Him His First Challenge
In the first three months of his career, Goldberg’s in-ring efforts were pretty much all quick squash matches. However, at Starrcade ‘97, he found his greatest challenge in the form of a fellow former football player, legendary Chicago Bear, Steve “Mongo” McMichael.
Mongo and Goldberg’s bout would go an unprecedented (by Goldberg standards) six-and-a-half minutes before he picked up the win. For comparison, this match is actually longer than Goldberg’s infamous Nitro match where Lord Steven Regal legitimately started putting up a fight.
5 Winning The US Title
A hot streak like Goldberg’s would of course have led to a big title win at some point, but given his huge World Title victory (see below), it’s easy to forget that he won a secondary title before that, namely the United States Championship.
His title win happened in a Raven’s Rules match against US Champion Raven on the 4/20/1998 episode of Nitro, after which Goldberg put on 30-plus title defenses while holding the title. He never lost the belt, either -- he just vacated it when he won the World Title.
4 He Won The World Title On Television
In the 1990s, a major championship changing hands on television was pretty rare, but WCW -- in trying to blow WWE out of the water in their ratings war -- ended up changing the game in this regard by offering major matches on TV “for free”, rather than saving them for the PPV.
As a result, the big title match between Goldberg and top heel champion Hollywood Hogan happened on an episode Monday Nitro, which is a wild choice in retrospect, considering what a phenomenon Goldberg was. That bout would have certainly have done wonders for PPV buyrates.
3 The Overbooked Final Match
The ultimately controversial decision to end Goldberg’s streak happened on December 27th at Starrcade ‘98, in a match where Goldberg defended his World Title against Kevin Nash in a No Disqualification match. Of course, it wasn’t a clean victory -- Scott Hall zapped Goldberg with a stun gun when nobody was looking -- but what’s forgotten here is just how overbooked the match was.
Hall wasn’t the only person to interfere in the match. First, it was nWo Wolfpac hopeful Disco Inferno, and then Bam Bam Bigelow, both of whom were successfully fought off, before Hall snuck in and dealt the decisive blow.
2 It Happened on Goldberg’s Birthday
In the years since the incident, Goldberg has openly talked about the decision to end his streak, deeming it a necessity. After all, it was going to happen eventually, and the storyline itself was losing steam in Goldberg’s eyes.
Goldberg even thought Kevin Nash was a fine choice for it, stressing that his job was to simply go out and act out the story as determined. However, he did offer a joke to play up the injustice of it: “Did they have to do it on my birthday?”
1 The Second Streak
In 2000, while ex-WWE writer Vince Russo was running the show, Russo booked himself into a feud with Goldberg where he offered the wrestler an ultimatum: create a new winning streak, or retire upon losing. Believe it or not, Goldberg actually lost and disappeared following a tag team defeat at the Sin PPV.
While this “retirement” was meant to be brief so Goldberg could take time off for surgery, WWE purchased WCW in the interim, and Goldberg actually disappeared from North American pro wrestling until 2003.
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