If You're Reading This Wrestling Thread, It's Too Late - Part 234

[bullets]

I'm happy to see Goldberg getting one last hurrah. It will sort of make up for the last debacle. I just hope it's not a typical Lesnar squash match.

 

[Serpico Jones]

Enough with this James Ellsworth crap.

 

[Slushy]

Ok, so who do they let beat Lesnar? I mean if he is the Beast Incarnate, who can legitimately beat him?

Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns. They're the only believable guys right now.

 

[Loki882]

I mean, Carmella was right.

Not really, more like a bunch of meaningless and irrelevant nonsense.

 

[Loki882]

As for who could beat Brock, coughSomoaJoecough.

 

[cabel]

Leva Bates(aka Blue Pants) did a Broken Matt Hardy cosplay at the debut WrestleCircus show

[YT]jWP3E8oXk8I[/YT]

 

[nite-owl]

 

[LoganGambit87]

 

[chamber-music]

James Ellsworth has no chin but he does have two hands.

Sweet no chin music

Ellsworth slipping out of the chin lock because he has no chin.

Smackdown is the home of shoots and jobber victories.

D-Bry saying Raw needs to bring in old Attitude era guys for ratings while Smackdown doesn't because they believes in their stars. I think Vince was just triggered.

Baron Corbin did a hell of a promo on Talking Smack. He really sold his lone wolf and indie guy hater persona.

 

[Loki882]

James Ellsworth has no chin but he does have two hands.

Sweet no chin music

Ellsworth slipping out of the chin lock because he has no chin.

Smackdown is the home of shoots and jobber victories.

D-Bry saying Raw needs to bring in old Attitude era guys for ratings while Smackdown doesn't because they believes in their stars. I think Vince was just triggered.

Baron Corbin did a hell of a promo on Talking Smack. He really sold his lone wolf and indie guy hater persona.

TBF, he's not completely wrong there. And I could add "making the major storyline about Triple H and his actions, even though he's not shown up on Raw in awhile now and is a part-timer" to the list as well.

 

[Slushy]

I think its safe to say Bill Goldberg will be the headliner for the 2017 Hall Of Fame class and that's pretty damn cool.

 

[Loki882]

I've heard that JBL is a frontrunner as well. I'd also like to see Mickie James get in, given that she's returning for an NXT match.

 

[Bartman]

It was great to see Goldberg back, he's such a star. Here's hoping the match is better than to 2004 one.

 

[Loki882]

That match had almost everything going against it TBF.

 

[Wheels]

Ellsworth is handled better in his role than most on the roster are with theirs. How can WWE know how to book him and not Bray Wyatt?

 

[javonstokess]

Bray Wyatt SHOULD have won at least the IC title by now.

Amazing he hasn't held a title yet.

Bray vs. Ziggler should be the next IC title feud.

 

[SpideyVille]

I think its safe to say Bill Goldberg will be the headliner for the 2017 Hall Of Fame class and that's pretty damn cool.

Yeah, he'll have his match at SS and then return for the HoF.

It's a similar trend we saw in the past few years with Sting and Warrior and their involvement in the 2K games.

 

[javonstokess]

Too bad we never got the Stone Cold vs. Goldberg match.

That was one of my "dream matches".

 

[Loki882]

I loved seeing AJ and Corbin calling out DB's hypocrisy/double-standards on Talking Smack. Because I've been thinking that myself for awhile now.

 

[nite-owl]

 

[nite-owl]

 

[Pink Ranger]

Why is niteowl posting pictures from my Oscar party?

 

[Lobo]

Yummy.

 

[Slushy]

WCW was knocked constantly in the mid-1990’s for a failure to create new talent. The narrative created by Vince McMahon was that Eric Bischoff could—with the support of WCW owner Ted Turner’s checkbook—simply gobble up any wrestler he wanted. Whether the claim was fictional or not, it was proven incorrect with the emergence of Bill Goldberg in 1997.

Goldberg was, and still is, a bona-fide star created in WCW, and his popularity even surpassed Sting on the babyface side of the card.

“Sting originally set up my introduction with Goldberg,” noted Bischoff. “If you remember—in 1997, WCW was on fire. We went from a distant second, and I’m talking a million miles away from the WWE, to going head-to-head and even beating them in 1997. Bill’s personality, his character, his drive and desire, were a perfect confluence.”

Goldberg’s winning streak, which built to the fictional number of 173-0, began in his debut against Hugh Morris on the September 22, 1997 episode of Nitro.

“The whole ‘Streak’ idea originated because we wanted to bring out the best that Bill could offer without putting him in situations where he was destined to fail,” explained Bischoff. “We needed to keep his matches short and very simple, just because of his lack of experience. He’d only been in the [WCW training center] Power Plant for a few months before we brought him onto television, and that is not enough time to expect an athlete—no matter how talented—to build the skillset needed to have a 12-, 15-, or 20-minute match. If we were going to attain the maximum benefit of what Bill could bring to the table, we had to protect him. There was no other option.”


Goldberg told SI last June, “When I went to WCW, I told Eric Bischoff that I wasn’t going to be some dips--- who was thrown around the ring for $500 bucks a week. I told him, ‘I’m going to make a difference, I’m going to make an impact.’ And with a lot of people’s help—whether it’s the Steiners, or Kevin Nash, who at times was very helpful, Curt Hennig or Rick Rude—the rest is history.”

Goldberg’s irrational confidence, which irritated some of his fellow wrestlers in WCW, was necessary to succeed in the cutthroat, insanely competitive, and political world of pro wrestling.

“Bill has the same intensity today. We saw that again and again in his 2K17 interviews leading up to his appearance on Raw this past Monday night. He’s confident, he’s intense, and he’s not going to take any crap from anybody,” said Bischoff. “He’s got a very clear-cut idea of who he is and what he wants to do, and that intensity, that charisma, and energy is raw and it’s real—and that is no different today than it was in 1997. That’s why the crowd reacted the way they did to him this past Monday night, and that is the core of why people love sports entertainment. They want to live vicariously through a character, and Bill’s character is so true to himself. He’s playing himself with the volume turned up just a little bit, and that strikes a chord with a lot of people.”

A major moment in the history of WCW occurred on Monday, July 6, 1998 as “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan defended the WCW championship against Goldberg on Nitro. Bischoff has dealt with criticism over the years that the match should have main-evented Starrcade that December, instead of used on Nitro to defeat Raw in the ratings.


“Pull yourself back and look at what made Nitro such a powerhouse. It was really because we were the first ones to have the courage and the commitment to put pay per view-caliber matches on prime time television,” said Bischoff. “A lot of fans thought we should have held that match off and it would have had a more positive outcome on the future of WCW, but none of that is true.

“WCW ended up where it ended up because of the decisions that were made by AOL-Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, and those decisions were made far before we decided to have the match between Hulk and Goldberg. So would it have saved the fate of WCW? No, that’s fantasy. We put pressure on ourselves during the process to have to create a really good story, and sometimes we were successful and sometimes we weren’t, but the formula of putting pay per view quality matches on prime time television was the formula that made Nitro a success.”

The match between Hogan and Goldberg, and the idea to drop the title, was first suggested to Hogan.

“Hulk recognized the power and magnitude that it would have,” said Bischoff. “By doing so, he wanted to elevate Goldberg and WCW. If I had to do it again, I’d probably make the same decision.”

Pretty good read.

 

[Dr. Evil]

WWE officially signs Tommy End, Big Damo and Crazy Mary Dobson. I wonder how long before those three are at NXT Live Events.