Reliving Goldberg's WCW World title win 20 Years On

The date was July 6, 1998. WCW had just been overtaken in the Monday Night ratings war by fellow behemoth wrestling company, the WWF.

WCW boss, Eric Bischoff wishing to turn the tide back in his company's favour decided to put the World title on their red-hot rookie, Bill Goldberg.

Goldberg, a former NFL player for the Atlanta Falcons, had only debuted in WCW on the September 22, 1997 episode of Monday Nitro, but got over huge with the fans due to his dynamic power based squash matches, wherein he would routinely defeat opponents within a matter of minutes.

It was inevitable that Goldberg would become World Champion one day, but few were expecting it to be on July 6. Even Goldberg himself stated that he only became aware of the fact around a week earlier; likely because the plans didn't exist before then. Goldberg was still the reigning United States Champion at that point, a belt he had only won just over two months earlier.

Goldberg was famously undefeated for the first fifteen months of his career and his unbeaten streak had made the likelihood of him winning the Championship very high, which excited WCW fans who were becoming restless as the forty-somethings, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Macho Man Randy Savage traded the belt back and forth.

Stunningly, WCW managed to pack in over 40,000 fans into the Georgia Dome for the July 6 Nitro show, which had seen ticket sales greatly increase following the announcement of Goldberg's title shot on the show. It highlighted Bischoff's poor strategy; had he not been so obsessed with winning the week's rating war, he could have popped a huge buy rate with this first-time marquee match and earned the company millions of dollars in revenue. As it was, he only earned ticket sale revenue for the biggest match in company history. He did win the ratings war that week though.

Things were never straightforward in WCW and so it proved in the storyline of the match as well, when Goldberg was forced to face Hogan's stablemate Scott Hall before he earned his shot against WCW Champion and the most famous wrestler ever at that point in history, Hogan.

Inevitably, Goldberg beat Hall and then in an extremely heated bout, pinned Hogan clean (a rarity) to lift the WCW World Championship for the first (and only) time. From there on, Goldberg would defend the strap against fresh opponents such as Curt Hennig and Diamond Dallas Page before he lost the title five months later (and his undefeated streak) in an infamous match at WCW's Starrcade event. Goldberg was defeated when Scott Hall zapped him with a taser, leaving him wide open for a Kevin Nash powerbomb and pin. It was an ignominious end to a renowned title reign. However, despite the ugly way it ended, the magic of Goldberg's title victory will always endure.