WINC Watchlist: Goldberg's Greatest Matches

Whenever there's a big show coming up, like "WWE Saturday Night's Main Event" this weekend, it can be instructive (not to mention fun) to go back and watch some older, related matches in the lead-up to the event. There are as many different ways to watch wrestling as there are individual wrestling fans, but here at Wrestling Inc., we love to cut up and rearrange wrestling history in interesting and unique ways, selecting a variety of matches with some sort of through-line connecting them and placing them side-by-side. We've already gone put together a list of top shelf "SNME" matches throughout history; this time around, with Goldberg wrestling (presumably) his final match against GUNTHER in Atlanta, we're honoring his career with five of our favorite Goldberg matches (actually there are technically six, but we'll get there).

Moving through Goldberg's career in chronological order means we'll start in WCW, where he first became a nationally televised superstar. But while he wasn't immediately brought to WWE after the demise of WCW, Goldberg would ultimately prove to have a far longer shelf life than Eric Bischoff's promotion, with career highlights not just from his initial WWE run in the early 2000s, but even from his later returns. If you're of the mind to look back fondly on all your memories of Bill Goldberg — or if you're a newer fan looking to get into his catalogue for the first time — join us in rewatching WINC's top matches from the man known for headbutting doors, breathing smoke, and declaring "You're next!"

One of the most historic matches in the history of World Championship Wrestling for both the right and wrong reasons. Given that it's WCW, the wrong reasons are catastrophic to say the least. Goldberg's WCW World Championship match with Diamond Dallas Page was the main event of the 1998 Halloween Havoc pay-per-view, but due to the broadcast running longer than expected, the PPV feed cut off right before the main event was supposed to start, leading to thousands of people receiving refunds for not getting what they originally paid for. However, in what is quite possibly the most WCW scenario ever produce, the people who had their feeds cut missed out on one of the greatest WCW main events of all time.

Goldberg as a wrestler is someone who needed one thing more than anything to succeed; structure. If you shut your eyes and thought of any Goldberg match from his undefeated streak in WCW, it would probably look something like cool entrance, people chanting his name, spear, jackhammer, win, and leave in that order. So when he was the WCW World Champion, facing opponents who weren't exactly fond of the idea of being steamrolled in less than a minute, Goldberg's matches needed to be longer, have more drama, but ultimately suffered because the structure that got him over wasn't being used. Enter DDP, a man famous for scripting his matches to the microsecond.

Combining Goldberg's need for a strict script to follow and DDP's attention to detail, you end up getting a breezy 10 minute match that doesn't attempt to go overboard on the theatrics, it just tells a simple, well paced story. Goldberg is still undefeated, meaning DDP knows the danger he's in if he lets the champion get even a sniff of momentum, keeping his distance and frustrating Goldberg until he makes a mistake. After all, Bill is still relatively green at this point, making DDP's plan even more believable, which is hammered home by the commentary team.

Even at just over 10 minutes, the fans are rocking by the end of things, with Goldberg spearing the ring post by accident but still hitting a spear, only to not have the strength to hit the jackhammer, resulting in Page hitting a Diamond Cutter to a thunderous response. The champion kicks out, and upon trying to go for what looked to be a jackhammer of his own, DDP ended up being hoisted into the air and slammed down for Goldberg to get the victory.

Thanks to this match airing on "WCW Monday Nitro" the night after Halloween Havoc as a make-good for the technical difficulties, more people watched Goldberg vs. DDP than any other match in WCW history, with over 10% of people with cable watching the bout. What those people watched was one of the rare WCW main events worth checking out, and quite possibly the greatest match that Goldberg has ever had. It's not a technical masterpiece, but it is a damn fine professional wrestling match.

Written by Sam Palmer

Goldberg was never known best for his gimmick match work, or even the length of his matches, but his 1999 bout against nWo's Scott Hall in a 20ish minute stun gun ladder match at WCW Souled Out is one for the history books. It's a match veteran wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer rated 3.5 stars, one of Goldberg's highest rated matches in his career not even two years after he had first set foot in a ring. To be fair, Hall already had a five-star ladder match under his belt against Shawn Michaels in the years prior, so he was a perfect dance partner for Goldberg in this match.

Prior to the pay-per-view match, Goldberg's undefeated streak had been snapped the month before by Kevin Nash, prior to the infamous "finger poke of doom" that awarded the gold to Hulk Hogan, and Hall had assisted his nWo stablemate by attacking Goldberg with a stun gun during the bout, costing him the championship. The future WWE Hall of Famers would get the main event of Souled Out following another brutal attack involving the weapon. The victor wasn't determined by pinfall or submission, but who could climb the ladder, retrieve the stun gun suspended above the ring, and zap his opponent first.

Hall attempted to overpower Goldberg, with no luck, at the beginning of the match which did start out a bit slow and it took awhile for the single ladder to be introduced to the match. Goldberg went in to the match with his knee in a brace, and Hall inflicted another injury when he busted open his opponent's head with the ladder, causing the blood to run down Goldberg's face.

As Goldberg almost had his grasp on the stun gun atop the ladder, Disco Inferno interfered in the match and got Hall back on his feet. Hall got the stun gun, but Goldberg kicked it out of his hand. Goldberg threw the stun gun outside of the ring before hitting a spear, followed by a jackhammer to Hall. Only then did he get the stun gun to shock Hall for the victory.

The match occurred in what many were already considering the "end times" of WCW post-"finger poke of doom," but it's still one of Goldberg's best matches. The legend goes the distance against Hall in a chaotic gimmick match that might not have been the most technical bout in wrestling history, but was fun and enjoyable. It might not have a huge place in WCW's overall history, especially after Goldberg's streak was snapped, but with a 3.5 star rating and the fact it was the first and last match of its kind earns it a place on the list of Goldberg's best matches and one his fans should go out of their way to see.

Written by Daisy Ruth

By the time Fall Brawl 2000 came around, there were very few marquee matches that WCW hadn't burned. Sting and Hogan had faced off multiple times, Bret Hart was broken beyond repair, Booker T was on the rise, and Kevin Nash had steamrolled much of the roster. The fact that Goldberg and Scott Steiner had only wrestled two times on TV before their match at Fall Brawl is nothing short of a miracle.

Goldberg was back from a grievous injury. He returned at Great American Bash and was re-establishing himself as the dominant force he'd been from 1997-1999. Scott Steiner was becoming one of the biggest heels in the business, partially because of his unhinged nature, and partially because all the other major heels had some kind of baggage weighing them down. The two men had only wrestled in two televised matches that, in true WCW fashion, never ended clean. On September 17, 2000, the two combustible elements were thrust together, and for once, WCW didn't get in their own way.

One of Goldberg's longer WCW matches, the 15-minute battle with Steiner is one of Goldberg's few true-blue classics, one that belongs in the same conversation as his 1998 Halloween Havoc bout against DDP. Steiner is a tremendous foil for Goldberg, unwilling to be made a fool. The match is basically just two guys trying to beat the crap out of each other. It's not a pretty match, but as far as Goldberg matches go, and as far as Steiner matches go, there are few matches that capture the intangible badassery of both men. There is very little to write home about when it comes to 2000s WCW, but Steiner and Goldberg's match is a true gem of pugilism in a desert of sports entertainment.

Written by Ross Berman

Within his first year with WWE, Goldberg was already making history as one of the first six entrants in the annual staple Elimination Chamber, competing for the World Heavyweight Championship held at the time by Triple H. 22 years on, Paul "Triple H" Levesque welcomes Goldberg back into the fold and he is due to wrestle potentially his last match for the World Heavyweight title held by Gunther. 

Goldberg would not win the title in this match, though he would further down the line, but this was a unique machination for the time that looked to make that path much more arduous. It also didn't help things for Triple H, but that was portrayed as the idea "Stone Cold" Steve Austin had in mind when he made the announcement as co-General Manager. His counterpart, Eric Bischoff, had previously booked the match to be a singles contest between Goldberg and Triple H with the title on the line, then that was changed after the fact to a No Disqualification bout, thus prompting Austin to further alter the bout to incorporate Chris Jericho, Kevin Nash, Randy Orton, and Shawn Michaels. 

The match began with Jericho and Michaels in the ring, with Orton then Nash entering the equation, the latter being eliminated first before Triple H and Goldberg emerged from their pods. Goldberg almost immediately eliminated Orton with a spear, further spearing Jericho through a chamber pod before hitting Jackhammers to both him and Michaels to eliminate them. Within moments, Triple H had been left alone with a seemingly unstoppable Goldberg, though he would try to hide within one of the chamber pods. Goldberg then ripped him from it, but Ric Flair had passed a sledgehammer through the cage to his protege to steal the victory and title retention. 

The debut of the Elimination Chamber combined with the bullet train momentum of Goldberg, it just makes for excellent viewing.

Written by Max Everett

I may be something of a vulgar autuerist when it comes to professional wrestling, but even I cannot defend Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar from WrestleMania XX in 2004. That being said, they've never had a bad match since. Divisive as they may be, Lesnar and Goldberg's matches at Survivor Series 2016 and WrestleMania 33 are the closest WWE ever came to understanding the "how" of booking Bill Goldberg.

Survivor Series 2016 was built up as a "mega match." Lesnar, Goldberg, the match they couldn't, or wouldn't, have in 2004. Neither man on their way out of the company, Lesnar at the pinnacle of his dominance, and Goldberg returning to the ring for the first time in ages. It was a hard match to predict. Then Survivor Series arrived, and one spear and one jackhammer later, it was over, and Goldberg had toppled "The Beast." You could practically hear Vince McMahon howling with laughter backstage as fans looked gobsmacked. 

"That's it?" they thought. It was the kind of match that even WCW wouldn't have dreamed of booking with a star like Lesnar. For much of the 2010s, Big Matches were ... well ... just that, Big. Lesnar and Goldberg turned the idea of a big match on its head. While there was a certain mad brilliance to it at the time, the payoff several months later is what made it truly a stroke of genius. 

Come April of the following year, Bill Goldberg had toppled Kevin Owens at WWE Fastlane to win the WWE Universal Championship, giving Lesnar the opportunity to get his revenge. At WrestleMania 33, the two men wrestled for roughly five minutes, but because of the brevity of their first match, it might as well have been a marathon of violence. All high spots, no filler. It was a tremendous contest, one I legitimately wish Goldberg could've seen as his retirement, but instead it's just a delicious payoff to one of the crazier matches of the 2010s.

Written by Ross Berman