83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 358: Goldberg Could've Been A Horsemen

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

On this episode of 83 Weeks, Eric and Conrad take a deep dive into the iconic career of Bill Goldberg. Was Mike Tenay really behind the Goldberg streak? What was the early Bill like before becoming Goldberg? What's the story behind the infamous Lord Steven Regal Goldberg match? Why did WCW pad the number of Goldberg wins? All these questions will be answered LIVE on this week's edition of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff. BLUECHEW - Try your first month of BlueChew FREE at https://bluechew.com/ THE PERFECT JEAN - F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code 83WEEKS15 at theperfectjean.nyc/83WEEKS15#theperfectjeanpod PRIZE PICKS - Download the app today and use code 83WEEKS to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! PrizePicks. Run Your Game! SAVE WITH ERIC - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com/savewitheric/ ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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At savewithconrad.com. Hit a while that's number 212-9, Equal Housing Lender. Savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Bischoff. Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm freezing my freshly manscape balls off. That's what I'm doing.

it was like 19 degrees below zero that's not that wind chill none of that feels like sissy bullshit this is like straight up just according to the mercury on a thermometer 19 degrees below zero that was yesterday it's warmed up a little bit today but uh yeah it's a little chilly paying the price it's now officially winter in Wyoming yeah man it's winter everywhere I don't know if you saw, but it's snowing in the Gulf of Mexico, I mean, the Gulf of America today. Golf of America. Yeah. How about that? Yeah, I can't believe it. But there's, uh, there's snow forecasted for Pensacola today, multiple inches, which is just crazy for me to think about. I don't think it's ever happened like that there. So when we first jumped on and I saw you bundled up,

I was like, oh, it's that time of year. Yeah. Look, like a week ago, I was a hiking when my dog in nothing but a sweatshirt. It was like late summer almost. And boy, like I said, we're making up for it now. It's going to be a cool stretch. The good news is I'm taking off this week. As this airs, I'm in Tampa, Florida. And I'm going to be there for a few days.

And I'm heading up to Huntsville to hang out with y'all. And then back to Tampa for a few more days. So I'm going to be able to dodge the bullet for a while. well i'm glad you're getting to warmer weather and i'm glad we're finally getting to the rise of goldberg that's our topic today we've intended to do this on multiple occasions but we're actually going to get started on this story today and i for one am excited to talk about it because i do think there's lessons that we can learn when we take a look and examine with the benefit of hindsight the goldberg story i mean well before we talk about goldberg all the way i do want to mention

some crazy stuff has happened since you and i first clicked record last week. Triple H actually quote tweeted TNA last weekend in advance of the Genesis pay-per-view. He quote tweeted the official T&A account and said, huge night ahead for our friends at This is T&A. Excited to watch hashtag TNA Genesis tonight live on paper view. I asked Jeff Jared, I'll ask you,

when you were with TNA, could you have ever in a million years imagine something like that? Isn't that weird? Oh, yeah, that, that I'm sorry in my mind. I was jumping ahead to the point I wanted to make. But no, that would have, well, everything was so different then. It was a completely different universe. Yes.

I was all living at that point in time. But no, that thought, even in the most optimistic and we'll call it creative, a frame of mind I could possibly put myself in, it would have never. My imagination wouldn't have picked up on that one. It's interesting to see how quietly TNA has been growing too. I don't know if you saw, but they had just a monstrous crowd, a really hot crowd at Genesis. And it feels like, you know, TNA's got a little momentum. Of course, this started more than a year ago with Scott DeMore.

But it feels like, you know, ever since that name changed back to T&A, which I know was a name that was criticized quite a bit once upon a time, it feels like they've got a little bit of momentum. And the new face of T&A is Joe Hendry. I mean, this guy has been over like Rover across. the pond as we like to say since 2018 that was the first time i saw him a man the crowd was just connected to him but he brought that act to national television here and man it blew up last year my dude made the charts for a song like yeah the music charts and now he's the t and a world champion

joe hindry is the man he's the next big thing for t and a and i just want to uh get your read on everything that's happening in t and a right now eric yeah you know i'm kind of keeping an eye on things there based on things that I read and hear, you know, I'm not going to make an appointment to watch the show necessarily, but I do check it out and clips of it. And, you know, about two months ago on this show, we talked about a new executive position that had been recently announced in TNA by Anthem. And I made the comment based on the bits of the, you know, bits of of the resume that came along with this individual, and I apologize for not remembering his name, my comment was it looks like they're poise for growth. And what are we seeing? We're

seeing growth. And it's been going on since before this individual joined the company. But this is what growing your audience actually looks like. And to your point, I think TNA has a unique challenge, in a sense, when you compare it to AEW, in that when AEW launched, it was a fresh new brand. It had zero baggage. It had a tremendous amount of supporting goodwill from an audience that was desperate for an alternative. Whereas TNA, even with the name change, which comes with some advantages, because there is legacy there. There's a library. there. There's value there, and I get that. But the TNA, first of all, the name T&A was a huge mistake from the get-go from a branding perspective. And there's a fair amount of baggage that

comes with that brand. Some of it deserved. Much of it not, but it doesn't matter. Baggage is baggage. And overcoming that challenge, overcoming the baggage, the baggage that the narrative represents is far more difficult than starting with a clean slate with a lot of goodwill. So while we're seeing incremental growth, which is the best kind of growth, by the way, because it allows you to grow your infrastructure and your business along with it to support it, as opposed to building out too much infrastructure where people are stepping all over each other, nobody's really sure who's doing what, because you haven't grown into your shoes, so to speak. What it looks like to me is this is calculated, designed, incremental growth.

This is what it should look like. And I hope and pray, literally pray, that they continue to grow successfully and incrementally and be in a viable position in terms of a wrestling franchise. I am pulling for TNA. I'm excited for their growth, excited for what's next, but they did have a little bit of a headline on another channel on the GCW Hammerstein show on the exact same night as the TNA pay-per-view. They had a free preview show over on YouTube, a countdown show, if you will, and PCO was there. He's fresh off of a three-year run with TNA. and after the match he had a live microphone and had someone bring him a chair and a sledgehammer and their digital media title and he got after it and listen I think this is one of the fun things

about wrestling Eric is you know if you really love the dirt of wrestling the dirt as Jim Ross might say channeling his best Jim Barnett this is the sort of thing that people look for but it did feel like, boy, this is shades of Eric Bischoff here. Let's take another promotions title and do something with it. Did you see this? What did you think of this? I didn't see it. I certainly heard about it.

And look if it's part of a story, then very cool. Because it is the kind of thing that will get people talking. It'll create buzz. It'll create interest where there might not otherwise be because of the unique nature of the events that took place. But if it's just some guy. trying to get himself over and not part of a story, eh, it'll come, it'll go, and it will end up not meaning anything. So I hope it's part of a story.

Well, another story we want to keep an eye on is the former Baron Corbyn showing up in GCW. I think this was his first ever event in professional wrestling outside of WWE. He was at that game changer show at Hammerstein. They took down all the ropes and he battled Josh Barnett in a blood sport rules match this is normally something that you see around wrestlemania josh barnett puts on a series of these grappling expositions it almost feels like you know a work shoot maybe like the uf i or

something like that from a different generation what do you think of uh first of all baron corbin doing something outside of w that was cool what did you think about the blood sport concept eric i mean it's interesting i guess it's different so it you know it'll it'll catch your eye and capture your imagination for a brief period of time, it's, look, this kind of thing has been tried and failed in Japan. There are people that I've talked to who have worked in Japan for many years who kind of feel like when Inoki made that shift, when MMA was starting to get really popular, and Inoki wanted to blur the lines between New Japan Pro Wrestling and MMA, that was the beginning of the end of New Japan. Now that from executives who worked there during the time

who are and are in some cases still friends of mine. So these are people who have first-hand experience there. So yeah, it's kind of cool, but it doesn't represent the kind of visual dynamics that people normally associate with professional wrestling. I kind of like it personally because I've always been a fan of amateur wrestling and MMA, but it's not sustainable in terms of consistently presenting it. But as a one-off, I think it's a great idea. And by the way, Baron Corbett, I'm a big fan of Barron's. Know him a little bit, got to work with him, talk to him a little bit while I was in

WWE for a minute, an incredibly athletic guy. I mean, people don't realize what a great athlete he is in his background. So I'm happy to see him still active. He's a cool guy. And he loves to cook on his big green egg, by the way. He's, he's actually pretty good. I don't know that I'd, I don't know that I'd challenge him. I would take a challenge because I'll always do that.

But I wouldn't be optimistic about it. I am looking forward to seeing what's next for the former Baron Corbyn. Follow him on Twitter if you haven't already. I'm probably butchering his last name but Tom Pestock is his name and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next I think he's a good dude and I think he's probably been given not

the most fair shake by the internet wrestling community when you actually get to see the guy show his real personality and not Baron Corbyn the character which maybe some of you didn't like I think it's going to be fun something else that I know everybody's waiting on us to comment on this past Monday

on Netflix on Raw we saw a great skit of C and Punk where we caught him walking through the mezzanine level amongst all the fans and he walked out and cut a promo in the crowd which I thought man what a cool idea that is it looks great and then he started talking about the Royal Rumble by saying something like you put Hulk Hogan in the Royal Rumble I'll throw his dusty ass over the top and I'll kill Hulkomania once and for all I know that you've had issue with with seeing punk seemingly taking shots at Hulk Hogan before but given what just happened a few weeks ago if Trump is Trump listen to me if punk is trying

to make himself this super over baby face he's just playing off what happened a couple of weeks ago I didn't think this was that big a deal but the internet wants you to chime in Eric so the floor is yours well completely different situations number one they both work for the same company that kind of matters um and number two this was first of all let me just say I kind of did I thought it was fun yes so there's that but let's keep the context clear what I got upset about upset is the right word but what I made a point of when punk first came to AEW was a comment that punk made about him coming to AEW along with whoever else he was including in that mix was a more significant

acquisition for AEW than Hogan, Holland, Nashwer for WCW. And that was such a just stupid thing to say. And when you're saying something like that to try to get yourself over about a guy who doesn't even work in your company, it's, I don't know, it doesn't resonate for me. I'm sure the dirt sheet marks or Dave Meltzer guys are all over it because that's kind of the limit of their intellectual curiosity, I guess, maybe. And I just thought it was stupid. I thought it was a poor reflection on punk, in my opinion, as a professional.

If that's all you've got to try to get yourself over when you first show up is to see something stupid about a guy that doesn't work in your company that you've never met, it's kind of showing your ass. That was my comment then. This, on the other hand, is a different situation. I will argue that if punk thinks he's going to get himself over as a baby face by taking shots at Halk, creatively speaking in this scenario, because that's what we're talking about here, he might find himself surprised. That's happened before. Ask Rock.

Situation is different here, obviously. But I think people are still reading. way too much into one appearance and one reaction when I personally see other appearances and other reactions they're the exact opposite. So we'll see. I could be wrong. I'm biased. I'm not going to lie. I don't hide it like some people do. Yeah, I'm one of my best friends. And I want to see him happy and I want to see him successful. And I think people need to be aware that there's still a pretty big fan base for Hulk Hogan, maybe not in L.A., but in a lot of other places. You know, we've never talked about this, and we're not going to make it a point to start

talking about politics on wrestling on the show now. So if you're wondering, based on the question I'm about to ask, no, this is not going to become a political talk show. We're not going to talk politics. But I do want to know, in your experience, Eric, do you think that wrestling fans, I'm not saying the people inside the business, I'm saying wrestling fans. Do you think that the vocal majority are left-leaning? I don't know. I never really thought about it. I don't know. I don't think you can make that, I don't know anybody that could make that statement that hasn't done a fair amount of significant legitimate research into the question. Otherwise, you're just going on gut feeling.

And let's be honest, when people, I'll be honest, I'll speak for myself. When I, I see, when I see things in the news, and I think most people fall into this category, the things that you attach yourself to, the things that capture your interest are things that represent ways you already feel. It's just human nature. Very few people are attracted to things they don't like, right? So you don't spend much time reading things or trying to understand things that go against your perception of a person place or thing. So, yeah, when you're in, that's why I say, when you're in a market like LA and you've got, and I know so many people, you know, made the, yeah, but Undertaker, look, Undertaker didn't,

Undertaker didn't come out on the campaign trail and literally campaign for, Trump in character. Yes, he did a podcast with him. Yes, he's a supporter of Trump, I guess. I haven't followed Undertaker and what he said or done. I've been led to believe that he's been open about his political affiliations. But that's not quite the same as going out there in character and literally promoting the guy. Last night, he was at the inauguration. I had to talk to Hulk a couple days ago and he was getting ready to get on a plane. And, you know, he's a part of that. that world right now, Undertaker did a podcast, big difference. And yes, there's going to be some different type of reaction to Hulk Hogan in L.A. Then you might get other places. But underestimating it right now, I think, is generally a mistake. But as far as the general wrestling audience, are they liberal or they conservative? I think it's so hard to say right now.

I mean, as a country, we're kind of like 51, 49, or 53, whatever, 47, depending on whose polls you want to believe. So, you know, it's fair to say, we're a divided country. And I think things that occur in real time have a dramatic influence over that. So I would say, yeah, some markets, you're going to get people, some conservative markets. You're going to get an entirely different reaction than you will in a problem. probably the most bluest of blue and the most passionate of liberal voters which are concentrated in Los Angeles. And if you don't, if you haven't spent a lot of time there, what I'm saying won't really stick with you.

But if you haven't spent a lot of time there, you can, you can trust me on this one. Well, we're looking forward to getting together and talking a little WWE this Saturday. I can't believe it, but Saturday night's main event is back from San Francisco. Antonio and we're going to be live immediately following the event at 83 weeks.com. Of course, it's going to be on NBC. It's going to be on Peacock. And Eric and I are going to be right here with you immediately following the program. Jump on with us.

It's totally free, 83 weeks.com. The lineup so far is Jay Uso versus Gunther for the World Heavyweight title. Ria Ripley and Nia Jacks for the women's world title. Seamus versus Braun Breaker for the Intercontinental title. Brian Stroman versus Jacob Fatu. What? And Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens are going to sign their contract for their match at the Royal Rumble, and Sean Michaels is going to be there.

You know, listen, the, uh, the first time we saw Saturday night's main event, you and I thought afterwards, okay, they're introducing the brand and where the company is today to a new audience. That's what it felt like. This feels like with it being sort of the go home show just a week away from the Royal Rumble, it feels like we're going to get more storyline in this Saturday night's main event, wouldn't you agree? Oh, I'm sure we will.

Absolutely well. I would anybody not expect that WWE is going to take every advantage to advance stories, heightened anticipation, uh, and create awareness for the money matches, which are coming up at Royal Rumble. So absolutely. Well, of course, uh, Royal Rumble is the following weekend. and you and I are going to be together for ad free shows top guy rumble and man we've got a really fun idea ATM eric is officially open for business again for one night only ad free shows top guy rumble

event here in huntsville who knows eric bischoff better than eric we're about to find out as top guys test their knowledge and compete against you eric for a chance to win some of your cold hard cash is there any chance I could get my wife in that contest because you know that way I'm giving up the money but our buddy effron does a phenomenal job with these games if you've never participated in the game event you're missing out I can't wait to see what he's got in store for ATM Eric win bischoff's money and top guy rumble it really is a wrestling weekend like no other we're going to have games panels meet and greets a pro wrestling fantasy camp and then our own private wrestling show that we get to help book and be a part of.

It's all happening Royal Rumble Weekend at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and you can still be a part of Top Guy Rumble by becoming an annual top guy member now at ad-free shows.com. That's where you'll find more than 100,000 hours of bonus content, including series you can't catch anywhere else with Lex Lugar, Godfather, David Crockett, Mike Keota, Nick Patrick, Tully Blanchard, Sam Madonnaus, and downtown Bruno. Check it out. You'll be glad you did. It's ad-free show.

You know, Ephron is such a cool cat. Yes. He's different. And he's extremely talented and funny. Somebody, he should have a show. I don't know what a show would be. I'm going to think about that. But this guy should be hosting a show.

He should be on television. He's that talented. He's got the costuming ready for it. You know, in his real life, I don't know that I should say, talk about his real life. But let's just say that his employers call on him to make these big presentations and giveaways and promotions. and he doesn't miss. I mean, he's got the outfits.

He's got every detail. He's got the earpieces. He's got the mic flags. I mean, he's even got a belt now, Eric. What's your idea? We're going to create a wrestling, a wrestling cooking show called food fight.

And he's going to be the referee and host. There we go. Okay. I'm pitching it as soon as I'm pitching it as soon as the show is over. You think I'm kidding. you actually think I'm kidding and I'm laughing but I'll copy you on the email so you can see it well he's an LA boy he's only an hour from LA he's ready to even better no trance he's not a good he's not geographically undesirable either no not at all I like it this is falling together yes sometimes you put stuff out in the universe of the pieces just fall from the sky I love it when a plan comes together Let's talk about the Goldberg plan.

You know, we've talked about the myth of ATM Eric a few episodes ago. But Bill Goldberg, he's somebody I want to ask you about because when he comes in as a trainee, I think through research, we've seen that he was making around $100,000 a year to go to the power plant. Now, I know some people are going to throw the flag on that, but as a reminder, this is sort of, you know, NIL before NIL was a thing based on the way WWE has been recruiting big time. athletes to come train at the performance center. Well, Goldberg was a guy who played college ball and then played the NFL.

It's not uncommon for a guy like Baron Corbin or Bill Goldberg. When they've played in the NFL, they're not going to come in and make Indy guy pay right away. And I know that upsets people, but that's just not how you recruit athletes like that, right, Eric? It upsets inexperienced people. It upsets the,

lower intellectual level of the wrestling audience. Oh, you got to be his dues. Meanwhile, you know, they've never paid a due. They've got miserable lives and they're kind of angry or jealous or envious in an unhealthy way to people who have in this case, Bill Goldberg, who probably played football from the time he was six, made it to the NFL. which if you look at the odds of a high school football player, just making it to the, just making it to the NFL, like day one. Forget about a career.

Day one, the odds are so ridiculously low. And then to be able to have a multi-year career, maybe you're not a big star. Maybe you're a backup for a year or two or three. It doesn't matter. If you have developed your game, your athletic ability, what it takes in your head to get to that, the discipline and the commitment and all those things that you've been developing since you were probably six years old, if you're our wrestling fans out there that don't think that someone who has achieved that level of success and demonstrated that much athletic ability and potential doesn't deserve more consideration than the guy from Jiffy Lube to dream. dreams about being a professional wrestler, there's nothing I can say to help them. They are who they are.

They think the way they think. But I think, in my opinion, the opportunity to get Bill Goldberg at 100 grand, even in 1997 money was a hell of an opportunity. Let's just take just a minute. Bill didn't think so, by the way. Bill had other opinions about that. But I wasn't as sold on Bill Goldberg when he first came in as I should have been. we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Goldberg because I do think there's lessons

in just the way he was presented and booked. We'll talk about all that. But I do want to spend just a minute and talk about the power plant because, you know, the PC, as we call it in the internet wrestling community, the WWE's performance center down on Orlando, man, it's spoken about like it was this great innovation when they first debuted it like, I don't know, 11 or 12 years ago. And to this day, you know, people still hold it with great reverence, and I get it, man, they've cranked out a lot of, I mean,

it's become a hub for a lot of wrestling talent. Allegedly, there's people we just saw in the T&A pay per view this past Sunday, who are there getting ready to appear on WW programming. You know, the difference in rings and the scale and the ropes and just working with some of their coaching. I mean, that's like a finishing school at times, but it's also a place where beginners can come. And when I think about that, I think, oh, that's the power plant. And I wanted to know, how does the power plant become a thing? How does it evolve through the years? Was there like an official pipeline to get big time athletes through the door?

Like we know that, you know, Jim Ross was a big believer in amateur athletics. And Jerry Briscoe was obviously monitoring what's happening in the amateur wrestling world. And recruiting. He was not only monitoring. He was actively recruiting. Did, was there some sort of an initiative within, in WCW to go for those type of athletes and how does the power plant evolve with time? You know, I think, I think the power that, well, the power plant started before my time in

management. So I can't speak to the genesis of it. But once I kind of got involved in management and aware of the power plant, my perception, it may not be true, but my perception was that it really came together because Jody Hamilton had a ring and some equipment and everybody recognized that we needed to have a place where talent could work out. Even before there was any real initiative to recruit or develop talent there, it was really for existing current talent to have a place if they lived in Atlanta to come and work out a match or get in a workout or whatever. That was my impression. I could be wrong about it. about that. Nick, Patrick would be able to speak in much greater detail than I can on that,

on that particular issue in terms of the genesis. But even almost immediately, once I got into management, I'm talking about 1993 in particular. I wasn't involved in wrestling operations. I know I've made that clear, but people have a tendency to forget, ignore, not pay attention. So I repeat, I wasn't involved in wrestling operations, meaning I didn't get to make any choices or decisions or have any input as to how things were run. But as a part of the team, I became more and more aware of people's thought, people like Jody Hamilton, for one, Terry Taylor was very outspoken about it. O'I Anderson was a bunch holes in walls.

He gets so animated talking about it. Dusty Rhodes. I spent a lot of time with Dusty, more time with Dusty than anybody else. Dusty talked about the need to develop talent. because in 93, 92, 93, when I first touched the power plant or became exposed to it, there really wasn't the independent wrestling scene that we have today. And guys like Oli and Dusty and others who had been around for a while

would lament the fact that, hey, where are we going to get talent? If we don't develop our own, we're going to run out because nobody else is developing because the territories are gone. That was the thinking. So the power plant went from having a facility that existing talent could use to a loosely defined strategy to recruit new talent, people that wanted to become wrestlers. Now, again, that occurred at a time when WCW was hemorrhaging cash. And my job, by 1994, at least, was to make everything accountable. And if things weren't making money, slow it down or shut it down.

If things were making money, try to grow it. The power plant was kind of stuck in the middle, right? We knew we needed talent, but it wasn't really making any money. So the people that were operating, and I'm going to say Bob Dew, initially Oli Anderson, Jody Hamilton, for sure. where the principles involved, they tried to figure out a way to turn it into a self-sustaining operation, which is one I think why they started charging people to offset the cost of operating it.

But it was when I say loosely defined strategy, hey, I know a guy that knows a guy that wants to become a wrestler, set him on down, let's take their money. I'm not proud of it necessarily, but that's essentially what it was. It was a commercial opportunity, much like wrestling schools are today. Only it had the aura, I guess, if it was the right word at the time, of being, you know, associated with WCW with Turner Broadcasting. And then over time, as we started to grow, it became a more important part of the overall operation. And we started really developing talent and guys like Diamond Dallas Page, for example, who wasn't like a guy off the street.

He was already part of the company. He was there when I got there for trying out loud. But he wanted to make the transition into wrestling. So now there's more people there. There's more talent there. There are some people coming in off the street who are paying money to train there, right? But we're also starting to recognize it as, hey, this really is a viable way to at least get talent ready for dark matches, which is where Bill Goldberg comes in. Well, it does feel like the switch from traditional wrestling school where it's sort of private.

we're just making tuition that all changes in 95 because it starts to get a big heavy push on tv you mentioned jody hamilton another guy who's a big part of all that sergeant buddy lee parker was his character we saw him on on tv but there's pistol pez wadley the man man if you if you've never seen any pistol pez wadley go watch some of his promos from jim crocky promotions eric have you ever seen some of those no dude i got to send you some links tony shivani and i episodically every week of TV for JCP years ago. He was in the middle of a feud with the buggy boogie man. Man, he was out there calling Jimmy Valion and undercover hillbilly and so many,

God, it was so good. So good. Let's talk about Goldberg. The first time we see him as a quote unquote smart mark in the newsletters was the summer of 97. He's going to be working dark matches before the television cameras are on. And we hear about some of those results like the observer here in July of 1997. So this would have been just a few months before his television debut. At Nitro and Orlando,

Joe Gomez, shout out to the mayor, beat Jeff Bradley, who worked for a cup of coffee for ECW as Dudley Dudley. And Bill Gold, whose real name is Bill Goldberg, beat Hector Guerrero in dark matches. Gold is really green, but has good size. And people think he's got potential. Listen, Hector Guerrero, man, what a legend, what experience, what a veteran. And, makes total sense that you would put a new guy from the power plant in there with an old vet like Hector Guerrero, who, man, you could probably throw any sort of situation to him and he knows how to handle it. But what jumps off the page is that we're calling him Bill Gold. Now, one of two things could be true. It could be that he was actually introduced as Bill

Gold. I'm going to assume it's that. The other is, there's a chance that whoever was there and gave this report to Dave Meltzer just didn't hear it correctly. Do you remember there ever being discussion of, hey, what if we called him Bill Gold or were you not even involved at that point? I was not even involved at that point. I feel pretty safe taking of just wild-ass guess that your latter explanation is probably the accurate one. But I don't know for sure.

There's no way you could say definitely. but in all likelihood, because Dave doesn't report on things that he's seen necessarily. He relies, especially when it comes to live events, he relies solely on input from his audience. So it could have just been that the person reporting it heard it wrong or Dave read it wrong or heard it wrong and used Bill Gold. Or it could have been, hey, we're not sure what we want to call him yet. We don't want to use his real name quite yet. So let's just call him Bill Gold. It's a dark match.

nothing matters other than getting a look at the talent under pressure, a little bit of pressure. So anything could have happened. I don't know. I'm asking that because Tony Chivani has told us a big story about the actual television debut. Let's talk about that. Nitro, September 22nd, 1997. We're in West Valley City, Utah.

There's a sell out there, 7,923 fans, 5,900 of those were paying fans. The gate was around 142 grand. And it's written here in the observer, rookie Bill Goldberg penned Hugh Morris in two minutes and 24 seconds after a suplex after kicking out of the moonsault. Goldberg, who looked very much like warlord slightly gassed down, was a football player in the Falcons camp a few years back, who they've been high on for a few months. And he's done some worldwide and some dark match tryouts. Goldberg wound up with a black eye out of the match. He definitely has potential because he was pretty mobile for a big guy who obviously was green. Gene Eaukeland tried to interview Goldberg, who walked off,

and the gimmick they're trying to do with him is he's a mystery guy and nobody knows anything about him. Well, I don't know that that was a total gimmick because Tony Chivani told us, he recalls on Goldberg's debut as Goldberg is walking to the ring. He had no idea what we were going to call Bill Goldberg. He told me on our podcast that he hit a button on his desk, so I guess it's a talkback button. He could talk to the truck or someone like that.

and it wouldn't go out over the broadcast. And he's asking, as Goldberg is walking to the ring, what are we calling him, guys? Is it Bill Goldberg? Is it just Goldberg? Where are we going with? I guess there was some back and forth. He receives confirmation through the headset

exactly how to refer to him. It's Bill Goldberg. And this is the debut. But Meltzer would say, the gimmick they're trying to do with him is he's a mystery guy and nobody knows anything about him. Me understanding a little bit more about WCW at the time and just seeing how wrestling works today in a lot of places.

Is this a circumstance where you think perhaps we just didn't know yet? You know, listen, we're a few months away from the biggest show in history. We're the number one wrestling company in the world. This is a kind of a preliminary match, respectfully. Let's just go out there, let him show some of that intensity and we'll figure it out later. I mean, did you have a real plan for goal? Because the idea of the gimmick is nobody knows anything. about him. Hell, the announcer didn't know his name. Talk to me about this. It wasn't a gimmick.

It wasn't a plan. You know, the, again, Dave Mousser pretending like he knows something suggesting that the plan for now is, again, it's Dave. He's an idiot. We didn't have a plan. And it wasn't that important that we did. Yeah. I mean, when I say to you, I wasn't as sold on Bill Goldberg, clearly overly impressed with the look. I mean, he looked. like right out of central casting, right? But in my limited experience at that time, and I probably would have the same feeling today, actually, the odds of someone making it from the NFL,

not that they're not capable of learning it, certainly, they're athletes, it's not a question about that. Just mentally, that's a big transition. You've got to really, really want that. because you're going from the NFL, which is, you know, platinum status to an opening match or a dark match. That's a big mental and emotional transition for people that don't really need it. Bill didn't need the money when he came in. So for that reason, I was like, okay, let's give this a shot.

I was hopeful, but I wasn't like, all right, we just said, I want a six-month plan for this guy. It wasn't that. It was, okay, this guy's got an incredible look. He's got some potential. He's got that NFL tag on him. You know, we can maybe do something when he's got a great look. Let's, let's see how he holds up. Let's get him out there in front of people.

Let's see if he's, if he likes it enough to continue with it before we invest a ton of money or time into developing this character. That's the honest truth. It's, um, it's, it's, interesting to take a look back at this because, you know, when we talked to Kevin Sullivan a couple of years ago here in Huntsville, he made the comparison because the natural inclination. Let's remember the timeline here, September of 1997. That's the same month we're on the other channel. Stone Cold Steve Austin is giving a stoner to Vince McMahon and getting arrested in Madison Square Garden. Very quickly, Stone Cold is becoming the top star in the WWF.

and now on this same channel we see well he's a bald guy with a goate and black trunks and black boots a lot of internet wrestling fans just jumped in and said oh he's a steve austin austin ripoff but if you talk to kevin sullivan kevin said that wasn't the idea he was going to be wcw's mike tyson we wanted a guy in the short black boots just like mike tyson did we had the entrance in the backstage area to the ring once he was a star just like mike Tyson did he wore black and even put him in gloves MMA gloves wouldn't have made sense with wrestling gloves because Kevin Sullivan saw the box office appeal of Mike Tyson again in 1997 Mike Tyson is the biggest star in sports that's the year where he bit of Vanderholy

field's ear so if you've got all of this brand identity these little details about a megastar like Mike Tyson, why not create it in WCW? And real sportsmen, real sports fans, real boxing enthusiasts back in the day, they would say things like, and I'm sure you heard this, Eric. Oh, Mike Tyson is a paper champion. You know, the promoters have, you just fed him a bunch of tomato cans and, you know, he's not really the best fight. He couldn't hang with the greats like Muhammad Ali, you know, they're just,

and I'm not arguing any of that. I'm just saying the idea of we're going to have short matches. We're going to have a lot of power. We're going to have a lot of intensity. The short black boots, the gloves. That Mike Tyson thing from Kevin Sullivan was a real light bulb moment for me. Was that your intent? Did you see that?

Do you remember Kevin bringing that up? Or now are we just learning, hey, man, old Mr. Sullivan knew a thing or two. Bill Goldberg, everything about him that we saw on television, at least by this point, was Kevin. Sullivan. I didn't have anything to do with that. I didn't have the creative foresight or vision, nor was it necessarily my job to try to build Bill Goldberg. That was decidedly Kevin Sullivan's job and why I paid him a lot of money. And he was good at it. So you would have to take Kevin's word

for it, since he's the guy that did it, not me. So I totally understand what. You we're hearing, Kevin was thinking at that point in time, it's consistent with what I remember. And I'll add another layer to it. It was very comfortable for Bill. Now, one of the things I did know, having worked with a lot of talent that were inexperienced as a director and a producer, was that it was always better to keep a talent in a comfort, a young talent, especially keep them in their comfort zone. Don't ask them to try to become a character that's the antithesis of who they really are you can you can move them a little bit you can turn up the dial a little bit here and there on their natural personalities but you can't

take a guy like bill goldberg and say i quite okay i want you to be an effeminate piano player think liberati that ain't going to work and bill was always very big into we taught from the very first time I met Bill, he talked about his MMA training in Muay Thai, and I think he still trains in it. So between Kevin's vision for Bill and looking at Mike Tyson, I promise you, nobody was looking at Steve Austin. It's a coincidence, but it wasn't an intention. The intention was, as you pointed out, per Kevin Sullivan, Mike Tyson, simple, quick matches, and that was out necessity. That wasn't like a creative architecture. That was like, okay, this guy knows three things

really, really well and that's it. So what are we going to do? We're going to let him go out and do those three things and get him over fast because he couldn't go out and have a 20 minute match. So it was one of those, I think a situation where everything kind of fell into place driven by primarily Kevin's vision for Bill. I can't wait.

for us to talk about the evolution at Goldberg, but the MMA gloves, I think, threw off a lot of people, Eric. I wanted to ask you about that because Dave would even suggest that one of the original ideas was that Ming was going to face Goldberg at the World War III show because, well, we're trying to present Goldberg like a shoot fighter. And we would see occasionally, you know, Goldberg break out like a knee lock or something like that. But I think people jump to that because he had those gloves on and there's been debate are they UFC style gloves MMA gloves are they linesmen's gloves like we've seen Vader wear before and some people even said hey they're just trying to pattern Goldberg a little bit like boss

rooting which I thought was a stretch I don't know I'll say I don't know that boss written says there's about four people in the audience that would know who boss Rutan was at the time that's right like he's not like he's a household name so why would that even make sense So do you remember, you know, as far as the presentation goes in the beginning, was there any consideration that we might, because I know on commentary, we were hammering the fact that, you know, he's a former Falcon. I don't remember the shoot fighting thing being a major priority, but maybe I'm misremembering. Do you remember that?

No, I don't think, no, I think you're right. It wasn't a point that we drove home. We weren't trying to present him as an MMA guy. I didn't want to do that. I've never been a thing. Kind of like the comments about the shoot match we were talking about that took place of GCW. I like it every once in a while,

but you can't sustain it. You can't build the character off of that. It's just not a dynamic enough presentation, number one. And number two, people were seeing a lot of great MMA and UFC. You've got people now who are, you know, like the grays and all of the people that came after them

who brought Brazilian jiu-jitsu to the to MMA and gave it credibility and we started to see more and more and more of it you you don't want guys out there doing things that look like and I see it all the freaking time today I hate when I see it when I see people trying to do what appears to be an MMA submission and it looks like dog shit and it's so easy to pick it out because we've seen enough of it done well we know what it's supposed to look like when it's real and then you see a really fucked up wrestling version of it and it looks weak as snot. So I was never a fan of trying to make a rush, even with Ernest Miller. Ernest Miller had a legitimate martial arts background.

Yeah, he sprinkle a little bit of it in here and there and it may be a part of his finishing move, but he really had to learn how to wrestle because that's 98% of the match. The rest of it is just fun to watch. So I think, again, Bill's whole, Bill's whole personality and character, as it was defined on television, was more about what came naturally to Bill, what Kevin Sullivan saw for Bill, and he was a product of the circumstances, meaning he didn't have a lot of experience. As far as the type of gloves, I never asked him because it was never important to ask. It's never a topic of conversation in terms of day-to-day business. I just assumed because I knew Bill worked out in MMA in Muay Thai specifically. That's where they came from.

But they could have been linements glove. I'm just not sure because it never came up. It's just interesting to think about, you know, everybody wants to say, oh, he's just ripping this off. Oh, he's just copying that. And the torch even wrote about this. regarding Bill Goldberg's resemblance to Steve Austin. Bischoff said in a prodigy chat,

not at all. Bill Goldberg is much bigger and in much better shape and is a far better athlete than Steve Austin has ever been. Bill Goldberg is going to be. Did I really say that? Yes, sir. You did. Sorry, Steve.

That was a long time ago, brother. I was working too. You know that, brother. You know Steve. But it was true. Sorry again, Steve. he won't be a character per se he's a very intense very gifted athlete Steve Austin isn't the only performer who happens to shave his head

that's the only thing they have in common and I got to say I think you're on to something here I don't know about the whole better athlete thing they both played college football arguably Goldberg had a better football career I don't think that's arguable he had a better football career but I think we all know that Steve Austin had a better wrestling career but I get why you're well there's that there is that um but if goldberg has a big old head of hair nobody makes the comparison to steve austin do they no why do you think that is eric that like it annoys me a lot and i i get that i'm a fat white guy from alabama saying this but it annoys me whenever there's an

african-american wrestler and then there's another african-american wrestler that joins the group or joins the promotion they're like oh they should do a faction it's like why because the nation of domination was a group once like what does that matter how what how how how how are we drawing that comparison and this is sort of the same thing to me like oh he's just ripping off steve austin it's like with a different haircut would we say that and respectfully it's not like everyone who shaves their head it's their first choice you know i don't think cassio kid when i met him he had hair i wouldn't say a head full of hair but as he had as the forehead became a five head came a six head.

He just made the good call to shave it off. Like, why is that? Oh, well, this must mean. That didn't make any sense to me, Eric. Well, you've got to understand. And this is one of the reasons I love messing with dipshits like Dave Meltzer to this day. It's because he represents a segment of the wrestling audience, which is probably one of the loudest segments of the audience on the internet.

right there's that you have 95% of the audience for professional wrestling on television and then you have the 5% that are such obsessive compulsive fans that they dominate discourse in the internet wrestling community and the one thing that they all have in common is an extremely low quotient when it comes to critical thinking and they tend to they have a herd mentality it's like they find the smartest dumbest one and repeat whatever that person said and Dave Meltzer happens to be maybe one of the smartest dumbest ones so that's where it starts and then it just kind of feeds itself and it grows a little bit and they end up making the most noise and you remember the comments

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You, I mean, in the nick of time, in the nick of time. You know, listen, black boots, black trunks, bald heads. Maybe that's where the comparisons end with Stone Cold. But let's talk about what's next for Goldberg. We're in Biloxi on October 20th. And I want to remind everybody, this is the time when WCW is clearly the biggest wrestling company in the world. I mean, we're a month removed from Vince McMahon having a heart to heart with Brett Hart saying, I can't afford your contract anymore.

WCW is just straight up kicking ass. But yet they're running a show in Biloxi with 5,900 fans. I'm just saying, man, when this momentum hits, and by the way, I'm not saying that's not a great house. I'm just saying the number one company in the world probably wouldn't be running Biloxi, right, Eric? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on routing. I mean, I'd have to go back and see what was going on the week before and a week after. It could have been a if it was a house show.

I heard that right. No, it's a nitro. Oh, it was a nitro. I'm just saying the idea is these buildings are books so far in advance. Yeah, I was just going to say more than likely we had made a commitment. And it was like, well, let's just live up to it as opposed to canceling it. So that was probably the case. I just think it's interesting that sometimes we all look back with rose color glasses.

And we just assume all WCW ran the Georgia Dome and the United Center and, you know, 20,000 and 30,000 cedars every week. Well, that's not the case. Here's 5,900. 100. Still a decent gate, 123 grand. Goldberg's going to get a little bit of a pop now, and we're only a month into him being on TV. He's going to tackle and suplex wrath for the pen, and it only takes 20 seconds. Meltzer would say, don't think for a second that Goldberg doing the gimmick where he walks to the ring like shamrock with gloves like shamrock, that WCW isn't doing an in-your-face gimmick, they're taking somebody with no name in creating

their own shamrock. And the WWF had their real thing, and they turned him into just another pro wrestler. Steve McMichael had a confrontation with Goldberg and then McMichael then pinned mortis with a tombstone and 456. So listen, we know that we're going to get into Goldberg and McMichael. But the whole idea that you're trying to rip off or do an homage or there's any sort of connective tissue to Ken Shamrock,

it's just silly to me. Like that's not even close. Right. And again, it goes back to my, you know, low quotient when it comes to critical thing. Dave is just, as he's always done and still to this day, he's just viewing bullshit for

1499 a month. Good for him. Make money doing that. Good for you, man. The torch would even double down on this. Goldberg's gimmick is supposed to be that he's a UFC style hybrid fighter, but they've decided not to spell that out on TV for some reason. Thus far,

he's come across more of a stone cold imitation. And that almost feels like Wade, just reporting what he's, he's read or heard from Dave. Yeah, there was a lot of that going on. I mean, I was a, I was pretty hard on Wade for a long time. And I think several years ago, a couple, three, four years ago is when I started noticing it, Wade started becoming a little more objective and thorough and kind of was a pretty

fresh, fresh feeling departure from the type of garbage that Dave Meltzer writes about. So, but there was a time. When Keller was just like a bad imitation of Dave Meltzer, like I said, he shipped to gear as much respect for him for doing it. He's now a legitimate writer. I won't call him a reporter necessarily. I don't think he positions himself necessarily as a quote-unquote journalist the way Dave does. But, you know, Wade is probably one of the more prominent writers of the people out there that

cover of professional wrestling. And I think he does a great job doing it. Now, he didn't back then. He was just a Dave light. You know, we sort of glossed over Goldberg pinning wrath. Obviously, a real life Brian Clark, big, badass dude, super jacked up, very recognizable. We've seen him as Adam Baum. We've seen him in WCW.

Was, do you remember anybody early on giving you any grief about putting over Goldberg? Like, it's one thing to lose a match. It's another to basically get squashed in 20 seconds, especially when, you know, you've been on both channels you're this big jacked up dude like i could see how some guys might get territorial and say i don't know if this is best for my character or my career do you remember any pushback about that early on i not to me but i wouldn't have i wouldn't have i wouldn't have been on the front lines of it either kevin sallivan might have been terry taylor could have been um there are other people you know working with kevin that might have got an earful but not to me and

especially not by Brian Clark because I was Brian and I were friends and he's a very was still is extremely professional and if he would have had an issue with it he wouldn't have come to me with it he would have gone to Kevin Sullivan because he's a pro it's interesting too because you know there's a lot of speculation about what's going to happen early on here with Goldberg in the newsletter so you can that fans were interested in it because Dave and Wade were writing about it. Dave would say Ming and Goldberg was added as a surprise match on the Havoc pay-per-view.

It's an internal deal of trying to get Goldberg over as a shooter by beating Ming. The problem with that theory is the only people who have a clue that Ming is tough for the boys themselves because of his ref and fans just perceive him as another lowered card guy who's been around forever and doesn't mean anything. Now, what's interesting is this was reported multiple times. and, of course, that match never happened. So there's the surprise match. Surprise.

The match didn't happen. Way to go, Dave. What did happen? He's sending you more money. Come on. Alex Wright is going to be wrestling Steve Mongo, McMichael, a Halloween havoc here.

And Goldberg's going to do a run-in and hit his jackhammer on Mongo, while Deborah has distracted the referee. And it's written here, the ref was really clumsy here. and Goldberg's spot took forever to do and then the ref had to act distracted for Deborah way too long and he kept looking behind him trying to be nonchalant about it until turning around until Goldberg left the ring.

After the match, Deborah gave Goldberg Steve's Super Bowl ring as Wright went to thank Goldberg. He decked right and gave him a jackhammer as well. You know, listen, I understood when we first read his first dark match that we remember seeing reported about in the newsletters being against Hector Guerrero. Hey, it makes sense to put him in there with a veteran. But man, Mongo and Goldberg together,

these are two relatively green guys. That doesn't feel like the best decision, right? I don't know that it was as bad as we're making it sound. Given what was laid out for that match, it was not something that neither Bill nor Steve were incapable of, probably a little clumsy and the fact that it wasn't, well rehearsed added to that. But I don't think anybody had expectations of anything out of either Bill or Steve that would have given them pause and say,

wait a minute, these guys don't have, they can't go out and do a 20-minute match. We better not put them in the scene. Bill was going out and doing what he had been doing. Steve was just tough enough to take it. And the clumsiness really had nothing to do with their inexperience, as much as it had to do with lack of preparation on, WCW's part in terms of making the talent rehearse and block the match

and a little bit of an experience from Deborah. Timing, you know, timing timing is such an important part and critical part of a match. If it's off just a little bit, it can be really awkward on television. But I don't think putting

either Steve or Bill in that situation was necessarily a bad choice. The next day, we're going to do Nitro in San Diego. There's going to be $104,000 gate there. It's the first ever event at the Cox Arena at San Diego State University. And there's a lot of screw-ups here.

The building was an absolute disaster live as far as not being ready for such an event. And there were refunds due to building screw-ups. And in the entire building, there was only one pay phone. So a real challenge. But again, this is a building that was probably booked well in advance of WCW. And their incredible momentum here. disco is supposed to be wrestling bill goldberg goldberg's going to get a big pop but alex wright is going to attack goldberg goldberg destroys him and then he does the exact same

thing to disco inferno but the bell never rings it wasn't an official match here comes mongo mongo and goldberg have a pull apart i'm mentioning all this because goldberg is getting a big time baby face reaction already and we're only a month in i mean you guys had to tell fairly quickly. The camera loves him and so does this live crowd, right? That was evident during some of Bill's early dark matches. We weren't surprised.

At this point in time, we were not surprised at all that Bill was getting over because we had seen how well he got over in dark matches when nobody knew who he was, including the announcers. So it was fascinating and exciting, but it wasn't a surprise. The torch would continue,

to say that WCW officials are not shy about bragging about the fact that Goldberg is more over than Ken Shamrock. Now, I don't know where he's hearing that, but there's a lot of, a lot written about the fact that Goldberg is getting inspiration from Ken Shamrock. And the only thing I can think is perhaps someone in the WCW office, and I'm just asking, I don't know, because I'm trying to make sense of why Wade and Dave,

going back to this. Do you think there was anybody in WCW who was really high on Ken Shamrock and felt like for whatever reason that the WWF had dropped the ball with him? Absolutely not. I don't remember ever hearing Ken Shamrock's name. And this is no disrespect to Ken Shamrock. This has everything to do with the fact that WCW was leaving WWE in the freaking dust. And there was nothing there in WWE that we were looking at and going, wow, I wish we had that. It doesn't make any sense if you think about it. We were pretty full of ourselves.

Maybe we should have been looking, but we weren't. That's the fun part of listening to what Dave writes or what Wade during this period wrote because they're just both desperate to come up with shit because they don't know anything. So they make it up. They feed off of each other apparently at this point in time. But no, none of that is true. Again, that's that, you know, low critical thinking quotient.

thing again is all that really is it's like people sitting at home going maybe they're doing this because of oh i got it because of ken shamrock let's rate that i mean that's how juvenile some of this stuff is that was being written at the time by both wade and your buddy dave melzer yeah he is a good guy i i wanted to ask you about something else because man this gets reported about and it feels like every year somebody brings it back up so here's our 2025 time to bring it up WCW is going to be doing a tough band division with the likes of Benoit,

Finley, Goldberg, McMichael, Ming, and others in creating a world championship in the division. I think we've talked about this a little bit in various different forms, you know, that you had ideas for guys like Tank Abbott and things like that. It feels like this was an idea that, you know, you guys kicked around a few times,

but it never actually came to fruition. Do you remember anything about this? I don't. But again, it doesn't mean that it wasn't discussed or attempted. I just wouldn't have been involved in it. Kevin, Terry, any number of other people in a booking committee at that time, may have looked at a roster and said, hey, what if we try this?

Here's some guys that can't go out and have Eddie Guerrero type matches. They're just big, tough, powerful. guys let's put them in a division and have it's essentially it's a it's a hardcore division it's what what you just described at least the way i heard it it's just another name for a hardcore version division maybe with some different packaging pretty ribbon different ribbon maybe not pretty just different it's essentially the same thing let's take these guys who are badasses physically tough that don't have a lot of experience it can't go out and put out a good solid 20, 30 minute match that's created the vision and the style of matches

that are suitable for them and see if it works. Could that have happened? I hope so because that would be that would be an example of, you know, thinking creatively and trying something new and different or adjusting and coming up with something in a way to use people that you weren't otherwise using them. That's just good thinking. But it never reached me. that I'm sure of. I do want to ask you. Meaning it never, it never elevated to the point where we were serious about doing it.

Yeah. You know how many things get talked about? Like, have you ever sat in a booking meeting? Like an all day or? Oh, my God. All kinds of ideas. There's a saying.

There's no such thing as a bad idea when you're in a creative meeting. Trust me, there's a million of them that get tossed around in the course of the day. Could somebody have ended up talking to either way or dipshit Dave? It's, yeah, a tough day today. We're talking about this. We're talking about that.

Yeah, it's possible. But it doesn't mean that they were serious conversations. I got to ask you about the Starcade match. Starcade 1997, if you think the, um, the worst thing on that show was the finish of the main event. It was actually Goldberg and Steve McMichael. It got negative one star and the observer. It went six minutes and that was probably five minutes too long. One of the worst table spots you ever saw, Meltzer would say,

unfortunately, they started brawling in the aisle. Unfortunately, they wound up in the ring. There was no heat at all because it was the deaf, dumb, and blind leading the blind. It ended up in a spot where Goldberg punched McMichael who fell through a table set up at ringside. And there was a small ECW chant, not sure if they were mocking it. but they should have been since it was the weakest table spot in history and michael got in the ring selling his back he tried his tombstone pile driver but he couldn't hold goldberg who then finished michael off with the jackhammer

it was hideous uh yeah listen maybe we should have just i mean at this point this feels like a deviation you know we've been giving him 20 second wins a lot on tv and i know that maybe mongo wouldn't have wanted to do that but man what the fans want to see It's not a six-minute match from Goldberg. They want wham-bam. Thank you, ma'am, don't they? They do. And to be fair, to Bill, who'd only been in the business for two cups of coffee and a burrito at that point in time, he didn't have the experience.

He shouldn't have been in that match. There's a bad decision. I can't help but ask you about this because we're starting. to see the rise of Goldberg here as we as we cruise into early 98 and we know in just a handful of months man he's going to have so much momentum and then we know what happens in july at the georgia dome so we're talking less than a year from his debut until he becomes the top guy and i bring that up because these days there's a lot of discussion about who's a good wrestler and who's not a good wrestler. I guess some under oath testimony from Stephanie McMahon leaked last week, and people

were having some fun with it, where she was basically saying Hulk Hogan wasn't a good wrestler. And people just got all over it. I mean, he's easily the most recognizable wrestler in the world. And there's a discussion about whether or not he was any good as a wrestler. And I don't know, man, just that makes me laugh because we would all sort of agree in the internet wrestling community. Well, Bill Goldberg wasn't a great wrestler, but that doesn't matter. Like if you want to see the best boxing in the world and you're really not wanting to concern yourself with clouded judgment of performance enhancing drugs and big paydays and you know, fixed fights and promoters and pay-per-view and ticket sales, hey man, go watch Olympic

boxing. That's what that is. But the minute you start putting it on pay-per-view and you start a promotion and you start selling tickets and merch. The actual skill of being a wrestler and having a great match, like, who would say The Rock is one of the best wrestlers ever? I mean, when most people, that's what I mean. And either was Steve Austin.

No. They were just the biggest stars who made the most money. Like the things that drew Steve Austin the most money were swearing, middle fingers, drinking beer. And I'm good at all of those things. And I never made that much money. that's what I'm saying it's not it's not you know technical holds and you know

450 splashes and crazy suplexes and by the way I'm a fan of all of wrestling but I just think it's interesting that it becomes this hey I know he sold more tickets and generated more revenue but he wasn't very good it's like what the fuck is that like this is a business again you're bringing me back to why I have so much when people ask me he's like why we're 70 years old why you still you know fucking with Dave Meltzer and what's wrong with you and it's like first of all it's fun for me it's my hobby I don't play golf it's too cold outside here in Wyoming right now anyway even if I did I'd still do but number one it's easy and it's fun and it's fun to watch these people react

but if you it's so uh sound like I'm picking on AEW and I really don't want to do that but it's one of the challenges when you come out and say AEW where the best wrestle well Define best, what does best mean to you? It's a very individual perception based on your own biases. You perceive someone to be the best because they do things. They're very, very athletic and you find stimulating. So you think that person is the best. Let's pick, I don't know, Will Osprey.

I'm a fan. I enjoy watching Will Osprey wrestle. He's a million miles from the best because he's not drawn any money. He's not drawing ratings. He's not drawing anything. He's really, really good at what he does. But he's certainly not the best wrestler because my definition of best wrestler is about the business of the wrestling business because without the business,

there is no wrestling. My idea of the best wrestler, and this is not my quote, but the best worker in a business is the guy that makes, or gal, that makes the most money. That's it. That's the best. If you're in the professional wrestling industry,

just like if you're in the movie industry. Hang on, Eric. I want to tag in on something you're saying there. I think you're going on the, I think I speak Eric sometimes. And I think what you're saying there, about the best wrestler is the one who makes the most money.

You don't mean the best wrestler is the one who negotiates the best contract for himself, although there is an argument for that. I think what you mean is the best wrestler is the one who generates the most revenue. Like, better way of saying it, thank you for that clarification. Yes.

Stone Cold Steve, a Hulk Hogan. Stone Cold Steve Austin. So Steve Austin is going to tell you he's the best tactical wrestler out there. Not even with Hulk Hogan. But you can go back. and look at some Steve Austin matches and you'll know that he has that he had you know he had injuries along the way but at one point in time he could go out there and bang with anybody yes he could

chain wrestle with you he could do all that stuff he just couldn't make any money doing it but when steve austin when stone cold Steve austin emerged and that character came to life the character is what drew the money not the moves inside of the ring and that's where the day meltsers of the world and his little cult of creepy wrestling fans have followed him and believe everything he says that's where they fall apart because they don't understand the business of the business and they since they perceive the will ospreys of the world to be the best based on what they like their bias and they're completely ignorant of when i say your lack of information and knowledge i don't mean it to sound derisive it is but it's lack of information

they have no insight as to how the business really works their only insight is their perception of what what it is somebody does that they like and that's why the internet is such a fun community and you get such intelligent dialogue it's just fascinating to me to take a look and see a guy like goldberg here who's getting i mean he is less than a year from starting wrestling school. And he's already getting big reactions and big pops. And when we step out of that comfort zone of what's working and we ask him to go wrestle a six minute match on pay-per-view with Mongo, it's just not good. But we come back on like January 12th in Jacksonville. We got a sell out there, 8,700 fans. And he's going to wrestle Jerry Flynn. They had just done

this match at a worldwide taping. And it was so hot and well received, they decided to do it on nitro. And man, it was awesome. Flynn even cut Goldberg's tongue with a sidekick to Goldberg's face. They're working really, really stiff. They're trying some submission holds. It only goes a minute and 23 seconds. And Dave says, the opener was a great UWF style match as Bill Goldberg beat Jerry Lynn in 124. And he says the idea is, or I'm sorry, Wade wrote this. This is about as real looking as a worked pro wrestling match gets and that's what's working like i want to read that again this is about as real looking as a worked pro wrestling match gets we want to believe eric we want to get lost in it and it becomes an expose when you have goldberg and mcmichael

trying to do things they're really not ready to do now jump in there it takes us out of it is where i was going go ahead yeah no it does take it out of it, but going back to, but specifically your comment towards Bill and and McMichael in that match and the fact that it fell apart, it did neither of them any good and in my opinion was a mistake. I'll take the responsibility. It happened under my watch. Might not have been my idea or it might have been, but it was my responsibility so it doesn't fucking matter. My bad. Part of what made the decision, whosoever it was worse, and this is where Bill was really vulnerable in a way.

Bill knew what he didn't know. Bill was very aware that he was green. He was doing something. It's completely out of his element. It's 180 degrees opposite of what he's been doing since he was six years old in terms of the way he approaches his performance. He handled all that pretty well.

The part he didn't handle too well is you had three or four or five people in his year at all times. And the real lack of experience that got to Bill at that point in time wasn't necessarily the lack of experience in the ring. It was his lack of experience in being able to sift through the people that were trying to influence him. Some were good people that were looking out for him. They may have bad perspectives.

They may have suggested some things that weren't necessarily 100% right, but their intention was. But there were also people in Bill's ear. They were really excited to see him fall. They want to see him fail because it's more likely that they'll be in that spot that he's in. And I don't want to give the impression that that was like really prevalent, but it existed and it certainly existed with Bill. That was one of the biggest challenges with Bill.

He didn't have enough of his own experience to go, that's bullshit. He didn't know. And therefore, he would listen to a lot of people and not everybody had Bill's best interest at heart. Well, we know we've got your best interest at heart. And I know you believe in this one. wait to talk about the perfect gene. Let's talk about jeans for a second. Eric and I both recently got a pair from the perfect gene. And they basically are the unicorn of jeans. They fit like a dream. They look fantastic and they're so comfy that you kind of forget your even

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Yep. it's like I mean it looks tacky as fuck but it's comfortable yes so I can kind of relate because at the end of the day when you're flying everything else is so miserable at least you want to be comfortable when you're in a plane and I can't get myself to wear my pajamas because some asshole be taking pictures and putting it on the internet and it would look horrible however my perfect cheese are just as comfortable as pajamas and I definitely save them I I wear them on flights all the time you see i'll be wearing them in huntsville but check it out man go look up the perfect gene and then be sure to use the code

83 weeks 15 you'd be glad you did so listen we're talking about what's working with goldberg here you know i said fans want to believe like we wanted to believe that mike tyson was the biggest badass on the planet he's the baddest man on the planet he can knock everybody out he's unbeatable blah blah blah and then of course we find out well maybe some of that's not true But man, while we believed the world stood still when he fought, man, he was a pay-per-view juggernaut, just eclipsing record after record after record. And it feels like that's what we're trying to do with Goldberg. But man, when we deviate from these short bursts, like I remember my parents when I was

growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. So it was a big deal for them to say, hey, we're going to buy this $40 pay-per-view or whatever it is. And I remember it being like, hey, you can't go to the bathroom or get a drink. you may blink and miss it. This is before DVRs, we could all just, oh, let me just rewind it or let me pause that. You had to be in the room because you knew Mike Tyson is going to knock somebody out and it's going to be quick. But when we deviate from that, this is not as good.

And that is a prime example of what happened on WCW Saturday night. Mike today and Scott Hudson are doing commentary for Goldberg and Ming. It's the main event. And they go about six minutes. Goldberg gets blown up and accidentally drops Ming on his head. and of all the people you could accidentally drop on their head, Ming would be near the top of the list of guys I wouldn't want to do that to. And then he doesn't move with Jimmy Hart.

And he's going to lose control of Jimmy, who's on the top rope, ready to take a big bump for Goldberg. And he drops Jimmy on his head. So now, Tenae and Hudson are trying to make some chicken salad. This is, it's a tough go, man.

But thankfully, it's on Saturday night. It's not on Nitro. As crazy as that sounds, you know, you wouldn't want this on Nitro. it is a smaller audience. It's not quite the same thing.

But when you're seeing, hey, we tried a six minute match with him at Starcade and it just died. And then we did it again here with Ming and now Ming and Jimmy nearly died. We got to get back to the basics. We need some more of that Mike Tyson shit, right, Eric?

Yeah. And this is why you're explaining all this and covering it, it brings something to mind. Had Bill gone to WWE, which almost happened, by the way. I'm going to back this up. I'm going to back up a little story in the timeline here.

But when, and I don't remember who it was, it might have been Steve Borden, Sting, or Lex, because Bill worked out of the gym. There was some kind of a connection. Steve or Lex or DDP or whoever it was who knew Bill from the main event fitness facility that Sting and Lex Lugar both jointly are the ones that set up my initial meeting with Bill. But I was a little busy in 97. I was running really ragged. And every time I had, you know, I had a meeting set up with Bill and I had to, you know,

reschedule it and I maybe spent two or three days before I got back to Bill. And Bill got very impatient. And I remember getting a phone call from somebody. I don't remember who it was. It said, look, if you don't have time, that's great. He's going to go to WWE and take a shot there. I went, all right, let me get to this because I gave him my word to somebody that was sending it up, that I would get to it right away.

And I felt bad that I let it slip from me. however long i let it slip and i got a hold of bill and we you know patched it up real quick and he joined wcw had bill gone to wwee we would have done what wcdb we would have done what wcdb failed to do i'm guessing they may have who knows if they would have or not if they would have introduced bill the same way we did and turned them into that short match killer are taking advantage of us, the same thing we took advantage of. They would have seen the same thing too. And it's likely they might have done the same thing, possible.

But while they were doing the same thing we were doing, they would have also made sure that Bill was training, much like they did with Kurt Engel, who came in as an Olympic gold medicine, all the athletic abilities in the world, but no professional wrestling training. Kurt threw himself into training, to become a professional wrestler and became one of the very best in extremely short order.

Had WCW done that same thing with Bill and trained him? Now, it would have required a big commitment for Bill because Bill would have been training three, four, five hours a day, but giving Bill the skill set so that when it was time for him to have this six-minute match with Ming or whomever or Steve McMichael even, Bill would have had more confidence. He would have had more of a repertoire. He would have been capable of doing more stuff. He would have been better at selling without dying,

which is an art form in it itself. It takes just a lot of time to develop that skill set. In that feel, it's not a skill, it's a feel. And you don't get that feel until you're out there doing it. You can study film and all that, and that's helpful. But you don't really learn how to sell until you've done. develop that experience by doing it and getting your right reaction when you do. All that being said, well, I'm grateful that Bill ended up in WCW.

The truth is, had he ended up in WWE, he would have had a different, and I dare say, more successful career because he would have had the tools to work with that were never developed at WCW, especially by the time we were demanding those skills from him and putting him in situations that he wasn't capable of executing. Man, what is that for honesty? How's that for just cutting through the bullshit? As Larry would say, bullshit.

By the way, Larry is my father. Eric has hung out with my dad. My dad has a southern drawl. You think I got a southern accent. Listen to my dad talk. We got a lot to talk about here because I do want to mention the more infamous match people have been waiting on us to talk about this for quite a while

February 9th El Paso, Texas there's 9,00085 fans here and it's Bill Goldberg and Steve Regal we're not doing another squash match it's five minutes and one second simply put it doesn't matter the opponent Goldberg's matches have to be 90 seconds he was totally exposed here and everyone in the crowd saw it with their own two eyes there's some heat on Regal because they thought he was kind of exposing him since Regal is a legitimate shooter as opposed to a paper shooter. But Regal was just doing a wrestling match and Goldberg only has three spots and his quick burst of intensity is lost doing almost anything else. The fans were chanting Goldberg here. They're popping for the entrance. And the announcers, including Bobby

Heenan, are trying to sell this as being Goldberg's toughest test to date. And Regal goes for a single leg. Goldberg won't go down. When Goldberg takes Regal down, Regal reaches the ropes, but kicks Goldberg in the face as Goldberg is breaking the hold. Goldberg was legitimately stunned for a minute, and the match had several instances that looked like legit many battles with Regal testing Goldberg's mat skills and shooting on him a bit. Regal refused to take a swing into the ropes at one point. In the ring, Goldberg or Regal did the job after a tackle and a jackhammer. It was an interesting match and there's been a lot written about this regal has uh talked about this a lot too when we eventually got through the match and got to the back straight away bill apologized to me

this is what regal wrote something else he seemed to forget about later when he retold the story quote i'm sorry i just didn't know what to do out there we had a chat shook hands and everything was fine then eric came in and started chewing bill out, which I took as my cue to leave. Then I was called into the office in front of Eric and the people who laid out the match. Eric was screaming, going absolutely berserk. I told him, Eric, I can't hit myself. It's not my fault. How do you expect someone who's never wrestled for more than a minute and a half to go out and do six minutes? He won't know what to do. That was the truth of it. It wasn't Bill's fault. I'd always like Bill because he was always nice to me.

And ever since that match, every time I've seen him, he's gone out of his way to shake my hand and even hug me always but i haven't seen him since he wrote about that match in his book and he slag me off for it i thought he was more of a man than that if he had a problem with that match he could have come and confronted me about it at any time we must have met a hundred times since it happened and he never said anything to me about it not until he printed it in his book the incident earned a night of bollicking off eric bischoff i've always gotten on well with eric but i know that he could have gotten sick of me by then he was right too he knew what he knew what I could do and he saw me wasting my talent not doing it.

Eric was always straight with me. If he didn't like something, he'd tell me and I was the same with him. So let's talk about this. This is an interesting time for Bill. He's, uh, maybe not in his best physical shape. He's not taking care of himself. He's maybe dabbling.

You meant Steve. You meant Steve. Steve. My apologies. Steve Regal is, you know, he doesn't like his physical self. He's under his peak. He's just not focused.

and some of that is he's got some substance stuff going on at the time, which he's been open about and written about in his book. But this match has just developed a life of its own. But what a lot of people I don't think talk about is that when they came back through the curtain, Goldberg apologized to Regal and then both Goldberg and Regal got blessed out by you. What do you remember about this? I remembered exactly the way Steve wrote about it.

What I didn't know it. the time. I'm going to be careful how I say this. You don't have to. This is out there. Let me help you with this. I mean to cut you off. I know you hate that.

But Regal did a podcast with us at podcast Heat. And he said he was, he did exactly what he was told to do. He didn't name the agent at the time. But fast forward to a couple of months ago, Arne Anderson has finally admitted that he was the agent on this. He was standing by and, and giving the instructions to Regal.

and told him to go out there and, you know, see what he can do. Well, he did. And it wound up working against what you wanted for the vision. So that was a big mystery for a long time. But Arn has said, hey, I was the agent for the match. So if you were going to tiptoe around that, Arns revealed that on his podcast. You don't have to do that anymore. Good.

Well, I appreciate that because I wouldn't do that. I, you know, I had a long conversation with Steve about this situation, long after it took place, like maybe a year or two ago. We had a very long conversation about it because it was important to Steve. I had forgotten all about it, but it was important to Steve because Steve felt like he let me down, he let the company down, and Steve knew that I didn't have all the information because Arne at that time, who was in that room, didn't speak up, didn't take any responsibility, allowed me to think that the match was laid out

properly based on what we were expecting from the match and it wasn't. Steve was told one thing, Bill was told at expecting another. That's not Steve's fault. That's not Bill's fault. That was ours fault. It's water under the bridge now. We've all grown.

We've all changed. We've all morphed and evolved. And it's not worth carrying around one measure of anger or anything like that. It just was what it was at the time. But it was a very unfortunate situation for everybody involved. It's interesting because I don't think everybody remembers this part. But, and here's this was written in the torch.

Eric Bischoff was upset with Stephen Rangel for his lack of cooperation in the match with Goldberg and fired him on the flight afterwards. No word on whether or not it was one of Bischoff's 30 minute firings or if it's premature, but there was no sign of Regal on live TV since then. And then

a couple of weeks later, it would be reported in the torch. Eric Bischoff did indeed give Steve Regal his 90-day notice. Apparently in great part due to his conduct in the Goldberg match, but some suspect it was due to Regal not being in quote-unquote wrestling shape recently and having some health problems.

Regal had a contract with the 90-day rollovers, so he's working dates until his 90 days are up. And Meltzer would say, I'm not so sure about that. And then a week later, reveal, yep, Steve Regal, Bobby Walker, Vincent, and David Taylor were all given pink slips. Meaning is that when their 90-day rollover expires, they'll be let go. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Regal since once he gets back in shape, he's going to be one of the most talented wrestlers in the business. I suspect the WWF would be very interested in him if he got. in great shape again.

No doubt his match with Bolt Goldberg was a catalyst in this happening. And the torch would say that it was largely due to this match and him not being in the best shape. Now, we know that, and we didn't know this at the time, maybe you did, but the internet wrestling community didn't know that Regal was really struggling in his personal life. But the narrative is that he got fired because of this match. Is that true, Eric? It was a combination. It was the challenges Steve was facing.

But more than anything, it had nothing to do with him being out of shape. I would never fire someone for being out of shape. I may say something to them. Tony Schumani will tell you all about that. But I would never fire somebody for it. That had nothing to do with it. I would say it was 75% of the match and knowing that there were other issues involved. As a reminder, and we're not, you know, this is all written about in Regal's book.

So we're not trash and Regal. I think you and I both think a lot of Regal. So that's not what this is at all. But a year prior, he did have an incident on an airplane. And so if you've got an incident on an airplane, which makes you think, hey, maybe he's got some stuff he needs to get together. maybe he's not in the best shape and now he maybe exposes a guy you really started to develop some plans for well and and and and i'm led to believe that it was his choice to go out and expose that

guy so it looked like oh yeah i'll show you what bill goldberg's really worth that was the perception that was created for me it's it's it's really look remember what i said earlier when there's a lot of people that were in Bill Zier and not all of them had his best interest in mind I'm not saying that this was that example but it's an example of that example it is crazy to think you know that because let's just talk about

what a fucking man Rangel is he does exactly what's asked of him and now he's getting fired for it and he don't say shit he just took it yep now listen a lot of people in the world will not be willing to let go of their six figure gig their dream gig based on a lie but rather than rat out one of the boys because that was the perception yep he just took it yep which is also why to this day

in public, including this podcast, it's Mr. Regal. Yes, sir. And people wonder why I have the level of respect. It's about what he accomplished in the ring and what I know he's capable of doing. And I see him doing in WWE. I saw it a couple of months ago, a month and a half ago when I was done at NXT. It's an incredibly valuable asset to the wrestling industry, specifically right now, w we that's not why i call him mr regal he's mr regal to be because of what you just said

that's some man shit man you know what that's cool i don't know how you don't hear that story and have more respect for mr wriggle on the other side of it because he doesn't talk about it yeah and never did which is crazy even when you know i mean if you were in the circle you knew but like it was just this big mystery and now we could put all the pieces together I do want to spend just a minute and talk about how the mainstream was starting to pick up on Goldberg just a couple of weeks after this regal match he's got a big story in the Atlanta journal constitution now these days that's probably not that big a deal but boy in 1998 having coverage in a major newspaper like that talking about one of your talents that's a big deal and it's not

the only person writing about him of course Mike Mooneyham has his wrestling column, but I'm saying bigger than that. The Baltimore Jewish Times picks up a story here in March of 1998, and they're saying, here's the title, Jewish muscle. Bill Goldberg makes his local wrestling debut next Wednesday at the Baltimore Arena. And it's a female writer. Amanda is writing, he's 6'4, 285 pounds of solid muscle, and bench presses 500 pounds. He's the last guy you'd ever want to bump into in a dark alley, and he's coming.

to the Baltimore Arena on March 25th. Professional wrestler Bill Goldberg gives new meaning to the phrase nice Jewish boy. When he's in the ring, he may be Jewish, but he's not very nice. Man, what a great story. I mean, you couldn't buy this sort of coverage, and it's totally free. I mean, this is checking another box from a marketing standpoint. And I know people are going to be upset about that. But if you're getting this sort of free press, man, what a blessing this is.

But did you even consider? the fact that, hey, wait a minute, we may excite a Jewish fan base for WCW we've never really been able to market to? I never thought about that going in because I don't think about marketing towards segments of audience based on race or religion. Right. Take that back. I do think about demographics.

I have always thought about demographics because you're catering to that world and you have to satisfy the needs and desires of advertisers. In that respect, of course, we're looking for African-American viewers. We're looking for Hispanic viewers. But nobody ever said to me, hey, Eric, what about the Jewish viewer? That never comes up in conversation or you don't see it much in media. But here's what I figured out. Holy crap.

There's a whole lot of Jewish wrestling fans out there that had gotten excited about wrestling that hadn't been excited about wrestling in a long, long time because now they've got a hero too. it became very, very obvious after the fact. Again, not by design, by default. And I was thrilled, thrilled with it. I want to mention this because this is in that same article that's written in Baltimore. Although Mr. Goldberg originally wanted to be known as, I'm probably going to butcher this, my apologies, the Mossad, the name of the Israeli

intelligence agency, he ended up keeping his given name. That wasn't my intention in the beginning. I didn't think it would work, but I'm very luckily to have gotten the support. I have using a nice Jewish name like Bill Goldberg. As a Southern Baptist from Alabama, I did not know what the Mossad was, but the name of the Israeli intelligence agency, is there a scenario where Turner Broadcasting would have allowed you to use that name? Do you think in 1997?

Do you remember that ever even being discussed? Because this is the first time hearing of it. Yeah, the first time I've ever heard it, too. So let's just, you know, kind of acknowledge the fact that maybe it did or didn't happen. Okay. But I don't ever remember hearing that before. This is the first time I've heard this as well. Again, could have been something the Bill thought about and shared with somebody privately, you know, driving down the road.

I don't know. As far as whether or not Turner would have had an issue with it, I doubt it. there wasn't a heightened sense of political correctness at the time in Turner and simply referring to yourself as, you know, the Israeli version of the CIA isn't necessarily offensive to anybody. So I doubt it would have been an issue, but I also don't know that it never really happened either. So we'll let it stand as a possibility. Well, something we know is happening, and I'm so pumped for this, it's happening this weekend. Prize picks, man, it's the best place to get real money action, real money, sports action. We're talking more than 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings.

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today. Price Picks. Use our code 83 weeks and you'll get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Price Picks. Run your game. So listen, let's talk about what's going on in the torch here. This is going to come out in early April. Goldberg merchandise is in production and WCW is anticipating a boon and the already record merchandise sales when his stuff comes out. Goldberg's been getting rave reviews from management for his business sense, his intelligence, and his drive,

but he still has a lot to prove to the locker room in terms of his ability to sell for mid-card and upper card wrestlers who he will soon be facing regularly. and I got to say WCW's merchandise game definitely got up in a big way in 1998 when compared to 96 and even 97. And you've said for a long time that you felt like this was an area that WCW was way behind the WWF. How did you start to close the gap here? In 98, we don't just have the black and white NWO shirts, but we've got the Wolfpack coming. Sting's been one of the hottest merch sellers, Diamond Dallas page shirts are starting to fly off the shelves. We're going to start to see Chris Jericho.

and Monday Night Jericho shirts, but now the Goldberg stuff, like these shirts just, and that was the primary thing. Clearly there was other merch, but shirts were probably your number one merch item. Would you agree with that, Eric? Definitely.

So what changed from 97 to 98? How did it become more of an initiative than before? I think we got better at reacting. We weren't planning. There was no, for example, in early 97, when we started seeing Goldberg taking off and getting hot,

that would have been a great time to bring some really talented people in and start developing merch ideas. Again, out of 100 ideas, maybe only three of them will be viable, something you really want to invest in. That's okay. And when you're in an advanced planning mode, you have plenty of time to get ahead of success. so that when success occurs, you've got the merchandise,

you've got the distribution in place. You even have the advertising and a promotion in place. Take a look at Penta, WWE recently. Perfect example. That's advanced planning. His merchandise came out before he did. It's true, but I love the phrase. But it's, you know what I mean?

That's a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. WCW never got that. Ever, ever, ever developed that. level of planning and architecture to their merchandising program. What we did get good at is reacting. The problem with reacting is you miss 30 or 40% of the market. Because by the time you finally go, okay, it's time to get some merchandise. How long is it going to take to get merchandise?

Well, by the time we actually get it, it's going to be three months. You're burning daylight. your lost opportunity value there is very high because you're not pre-planning. So we got good at reacting. We could capitalize in something three or four or five or six months after it got hot. But we never did develop the kind of expertise that WWE started with. Never really had a mature licensing and merchandising program. We had a licensing and programming, excuse me,

licensing and merchandising division that was forced to react but never learned how to develop. I can't wait for us to talk about this next piece because this is something that you and I've never discussed. And I know that we've talked about a lot of Goldberg topics in the past, but even when we talked about the regal match, we could never really talk about it the way we did today. Well, this, I think, is another one of those things. Let's jump right into it. It's reported in the observer here, and this is in early April. There's now talk of bringing back Rick Flair and reintroducing a new four horseman with Arne Anderson as the spokesperson and Bill Goldberg is one of the members, largely to put Goldberg in the spotlight, but still protect the public from seeing his weaknesses.

This is similar to what Dusty Rhodes did with Lugar back in 1987, where he was groomed to be the next Hogan to stand in the background and watch and learn all the tricks of the trade from Rick Flair. even the torch would say plans are now locked in for Arne to return to an on-air role as a spokesperson for the horseman. Flair will be the veteran leader of the group of wrestlers, while Goldberg will be the young anchor. Dean Malinko is expected to fill the third spot when he returns, which could now be May or June, and Steve McMichael, who seems to have fallen out of favor with management, isn't expected to be a part of the group. Chris Benoit has a 30-70 chance of being in the group since W. WCW wants him to be in the group with Brett Hart, the British Bulldog and Jim Knighthart

in a team Canada faction. Benoit's been wearing Brett Hart T-shirts to the ring lately, and a number of other names have been speculated. From Eddie Guerrero to Chris Jericho to Kurt Henning, expect Henning to remain with the NWO though. Now, so there's a discussion. We're going to bring back, this is in April of 98. We're going to bring back Arne Anderson, and he's going to be the spokesperson, much like

JJ was once upon a time, maybe. and we did see that late much later in the year in greenville but the other members we know that benoit's going to be there and we know that malinko's going to be there but the idea that one of those guys was supposed to be bill goldberg i didn't know about and i almost sort of chuckled at and said that couldn't have been but then i want to throw this at you wcw announced the previous the previous monday that flare would be on thunder on april ninth in tallahassee florida to make an announcement concerning his career. Remember that now. They're teasing on Nitro, tune into Thunder. Rick Flair is going to make a major announcement concerning his career. The idea was for Flair

to announce the formation of the new four horsemen. At the time, the plans were to include Bill Goldberg, Lex Lugar, and one other individual, not Chris Penois, whose spot hasn't completely finalized with Arne Anderson returning as the manager of the group. Flair worked the house shows on April 7th and 8th in Fort Myers and Fort Pierce, Florida, and when given tickets for the tour, was given tickets to fly home late Wednesday night. And as such, he had made plans to go to Detroit the next morning where his nine-year-old son Reed Flair was going to be competing in his age group of freestyle wrestling nationals from the 9th to the 11th. Well, we know this is the time where he doesn't show. He no shows thunder. There's the big hubbleau about the jet and the

costs and I think as the story goes the only way for him to make it to thunder would have been if you guys sent a private plane and I guess you said hey we'll split it with you Rick was offended saying you wouldn't make Hogan split it I'm not coming but had he been there had this thunder announcement actually happened would he have reformed the horseman and do you think there's even a snowball's chance that Goldberg could have been one of those members in April of 98? I don't recall this, but it sounds very reasonable to me. Yeah.

And I would have supported it. So it's likely true or at least a good portion of it. Again, it's a report from a dirt sheet, so you've got to be careful how much of it you bite on. But in this case, it's plausible. and not a bad idea. So I could see how it was either discussed or planned. It would have been interesting.

Because it's kind of a good casting, right? If you've got Rick Flair and Bill Goldberg in the same faction, and, of course, this is kind of not good casting, but if Rick being the senior, the elder statesman, of the four horse, but still very active, well-respected, all that. But he's a veteran. And you have this young, explosive,

unpredictable, undisciplined, human-killing machine in Bill Goldberg. I could just see a scenario where the toughest part of Rick's job is keeping Bill under control until it gets to a point where Rick Flair goes, okay, go get him. Sick him, brother.

That would have been kind of cool. I could see that dynamic. And it would have been a great way to take advantage of Rick's veteran status because he's the wise man. He's seen all this shit. Bill just wants to go and destroy everything in his path. Well, there's a time to do that. There's a time not to do that.

Rick could have been that guy managing that piece of artillery. Would have been kind of cool, which is why I could see it happening. But I honestly don't remember it. Likely because I wasn't involved in a discussion other than going, cool. That sounds great. And maybe that happened. I don't know. I don't remember.

Here's what's interesting to me, though. You know, we all know what happened with you and Rick and it becomes a, it becomes an FUFU and we're going to sue each other. And we all know that. We've beat it up. It's in the archives, 83 weeks.com.

But what I never really understood was, why was this thunder so goddamn important? It was the B show. Who gives a shit if he misses thunder? Like in the scheme of thing, hang on. Hang on. I get,

I get where you're going. but I'm saying if we didn't know it was advertised, if we didn't know it was promoted, it's like, well, just do it next week. What the fuck? It doesn't matter. But if we really think, oh, well, we had teased on TV, Rick Flair is going to be making an announcement about his future, tune into Thunder, and then he's not there. And you had all these other plans with a hot young property that you were hot to try with

Goldberg. Because clearly by April, I mean, you're printing merch for the guy. You know, this guy's going to be a megastar. Respectfully, you probably didn't have that fire in your belly for Lex Lugar or for Arne Anderson or for Rick Flair or for Dean Malinko or even Chris Binawa. But you do for Goldberg. So I could see how it would be like, damn it. The audience did for Goldberg.

That's what I mean. It was about what the audience was. Yes. Yes. Well said. But it just feels like to me the Eric I know would be like, he can't, he can't just do this. It just derailed the whole thing.

We got all these plans. We got this merch, blah, blah, blah. I got to make an example. And at first I didn't get it. But if this is really the connective tissue. and what a headline that is. Goldberg was supposed to be a member of the four horsemen. Goldberg was supposed to be a horseman.

If that's real. Like does that, and it may have actually worked out, I would even argue it works out better for Goldberg that it didn't happen. Because I don't know that if he was just a background figure in the horseman, would he have been wrestling Hulk Hogan in three months at the Georgia? I don't know.

Here's good point, Conrad. Here's the other thing. How much is Bill Goldberg out? actually going to learn by being a part of a faction unless you're not going to just learn because you're on the ring apron watching yeah you're going to learn a little bit but it it would require so much i mean if there was a real mentorship going on and maybe that was the intention i shouldn't be so quick to dismiss that if it was a real mentorship and an opportunity really to get built to the next level and slowly get them into matches that were more story

driven in the body of the match, not just him going out and eating live meat, then, yeah, it would have been a good idea and a good strategy. I don't know if that was really the case. Just putting him in the four horsemen in and of itself wasn't going to do much for Bill's growth unless there was a commitment to mentor him as well. And maybe there was. I wouldn't bet on it just because I know how things were managed back then. it's kind of there.

But it's possible. Maybe the intent was there. But the idea, just from a casting point of view, the idea is a cool idea. And it would have been a better position for Bill at that point in time, as opposed to putting him in matches that he wasn't ready for. That's the worst idea. How many times have you heard me say? There's two ways of killing the character, underexposed them and overexpose them.

Either one is death. and what we were doing to Bill by putting in matches that he wasn't ready for because he'd only been in the business for 45 minutes was overexposing him. This would have prevented that to a degree. Well, we want to prevent you guys from paying too much on your credit cards

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know what to expect when we sit down and click record, but I love talking about the rise of Goldberg, but I think we're probably just going to cut it off right here with the whole bombshell about Goldberg could have been a horseman. We'll pick up our conversation the next time we get together and talk about Goldberg because we've still got to talk about him winning the U.S. title, him winning the world title, and then him dropping the world title. What a crazy year 1998 is. We're just in April and business is just about to start picking up for Mr. Goldberg, getting it it does it is indeed and if there's enough there happy to do another episode on bill anytime because it's a fascinating story i think when we look back at you know if we step back

and just kind of look at all of the big moments that's happened in wrestling over the past 20 years 25 years now you know the rise of fall bill goldberg it wasn't really much of a fall he's still out there but the rise of bill goldberg in particularly is fascinating it has a lot to do with just the heightened state of interest in the industry at the that time, peak of the Monday Night War's, WWE was growing and successful, Nitro was growing and successful, and guys like the Rock and Kurt Angle and Bill Goldberg kind of emerged out of nowhere, really. Not that they weren't anywhere, obviously.

Kurt was an Olympic gold medalist. Bill played the NFL, Rock, you know, played football in college and pros or semi-pros. So these guys have been around. But in terms of their wrestling cue score. they came from out of nowhere and dominated the business. So much had to do with where the state of the business is. I'd look forward to doing another part two version of Bill Goldberg anytime. I can't wait to talk about it either because I do think it's something that could be studied.

You know, there's a lot of people behind the scenes in wrestling looking for what's the next big thing. And a lot of people reach for, is there a free agent that we could go grab and bring them over? And then we get all of their brand equity and all of their fan base come. and now we just create something that everybody wants to see. And that's worked before. Certainly it worked with Holcogin and Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. But there is another way to do it. I mean, this is a guy who's fresh out of wrestling school.

And he's going to become one of the biggest stars in the world. But he's not having a banger match. He's not having five-star matches on cagematch.net. Like, he's a character. He's Mike Tyson. It's short bursts. It's about storytelling. It's about something we can believe in.

It's about something. Character development. Yes. It's just a fascinating study in how to generate revenue and accentuate the positives, hide the negatives. And what's the story you're trying to sell? Mike Tyson was a big draw in boxing. And we know Goldberg's going to be quite a big draw here in WCW.

Don't forget to join us this Saturday night. Saturday night's main event is back. It's going to be live on NBC. It's going to be live on Peacock. And Eric and I are going to be live. live on YouTube right after totally free and you don't want to miss it the only way to make sure you don't miss it and you get to interact and ask eric questions live you'll be there he'll be there hit him with whatever you want we'll make it happen it's 83 weeks dot com go hit the subscribe

button turn on your notifications bell and eric i hope you and the fam have a great time traveling down to tampa i can't believe that north florida's getting snow right now and i can't believe that top guy rumble is next week this is going to be a lot of fun eric I can't wait. Mrs. B is going to be there with me. She's a bigger hit at these things than I am, but that always makes it fun for me. We're looking forward to seeing you and Megan and the new lakehouse and hanging out for a few days

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