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WRESTLER OF THE DAY: GOLDBERG


RIPPA

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^Incredibly impressive.
 
If I recall correctly, here's what happened with Goldberg in WWF:
 
1. He comes in, Rock puts him over like Rover like the true champ he is.
2. Silly skit with him wearing a Golddust wig softens monster status in some people's eyes, but not terminal.
3. The problem: His next program is with HHH, who doesn't give Goldberg the same treatment Rock gave Goldberg. First Goldberg loses in an Elimination Chamber match, then goes way too toe-to-toe with HHH at a time in his run when Goldberg should've flattened HHH like a steamroller. End of momentum, and at that point, momentum was everything.
 
Those with better recall, feel free to chime in.

 

 

Nope, that's pretty accurate, although I'd add to point 3 that Trips was FUCKING HURT at the time, making his beating/holding his own against Goldberg even more infuriating.

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Yeah, the HHH feud was what really killed Goldberg in WWE.  The Goldust wig skit was NOTHING, nobody cared except for whiny smarks, Goldberg's crowd pops and quarter-hour ratings weren't affected one little bit.  

 

Goldberg was a guy who had flashes of brilliance, but was very limited in terms of what he was able to do out there.  Which was ironic, considering he had a fairly huge bag of tricks and more MOVEZ than practically anyone.  But he never really learned how to work a long competitive match without being led by the hand; the Rock and DDP miracles at Backlash and Halloween Havoc were very much the exception, not the rule.  His hundreds of squash matches were what got him so over, but they also didn't teach him jack shit about how to work in any other style.  Everyone tends to blame his shitty Wrestlemania bout on Brock, but remember that it takes two guys to fuck up a match up that badly.  

 

Also, he was INCREDIBLY stiff.  His offense left nothing to the imagination; in the words of Bret Hart, "Holy shit, this guy makes Vader feel like Shawn Michaels!"  That spear looked so insanely devastating because it WAS insanely devastating, he was just clobbering people as hard as he possibly could.  And considering how freakishly strong he was (he cleanly jackhammered the Giant on several occasions, and I remember once seeing him press-slam Scott Steiner and hold Scott over his head like it was nothing) that inevitably led to a lot of hurt wrestlers and hurt feelings.  

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Goldberg really didn't offer anything once you got passed the winning streak. He had some good looking power moves, couldn't really sell all that well, couldn't really cut any promos, and stiffed dudes to the point where he ended careers.

I don't think him losing to HHH had anything to do with his relative lack of success in the WWE. They didn't run with the one thing that he ever had -- a winning streak angle. He was exposed from the jump.

I would say these are the most important skills wrestlers can have:

1) DON'T HURT THE PEOPLE YOU ARE IN A RING WITH.

2) BE ABLE TO LOSE MATCHES AND HAVE AN EFFECTIVE CAREER.

3) BE ABLE TO TALK.

Which of those three did he have?

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I hated Goldberg when I was a teenager, but it was mostly because at the time it seemed like his presence implicated that Sting was never going to defeat the NWO. 

 

My favorite thing about him in the WWF was the rumors of the Jericho incident. 

 

But of course, despite having never liked the guy, I was really pissed when HHH buried him, because HHH 2003. 

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Sometimes I feel like Goldberg's career died so Cena's could live. What does that mean? The Cena boo birds were Goldberg boo birds before Cena came around.  Still, Goldberg had a great, great look of a naturally big tough guy and had presence to him. You can't teach or fake that. Which is why he was success in only a couple of years while some guys take forever to catch on.

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WCW booked Goldberg as an unstoppable monster.

 

when Goldberg came to the WWF, he was a top face. That means he has to both take and give in matches/feuds. Since he wasn't used as an unstoppable monster, people say he was misused.  But if the ONLY style you can work is "nobody ever gets over on me and i crush everybody", then i'd say maybe you should learn to work.

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