[1998-08-08-WCW-Road Wild] Battle Royal

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes. This was Goldberg and both NWOs. Sting, Luger, Giant, Hennig, Norton and Goldberg remain. This looks ... thrilling, with Goldberg's big spots getting the only thing resembling a reaction. It comes down to Goldberg-Giant. To his credit, despite looking horrible otherwise, Giant eats a spear and jackhammer really well. I think pinfalls counted in this battle royal, but most guys were just tossed over because ... well, WCW top guys and jobbing, you know how it goes.

[soup23]

What an awful way to display Goldberg again. Goldberg vs. Giant should have been a singles match for sure. Sting feels completely like an afterthought in this match.

[Childs]

It's unbelievable they couldn't think of anything better to do with Goldberg a month into his title reign. I guess they thought his big moment would come from saving Jay Leno after the main event. Fucking WCW.

[PeteF3]

Pretty bad 1980s WWF house show-esque action. WHY would you give away the big Goldberg-jackhammers-the-Giant spot in a nothing match like this? This is a match that could have main evented or semi-main evented a PPV based on the intrigue of whether or not Goldberg could pull the move off. Clearly WCW never really had a plan for what to do with this guy once he exploded, because they've been winging it with him since before he even won the U.S. title.

[DMJ]

Just saw this. As others have said, this is classic WCW shit booking, but I felt an urge to really detail it for future generations.

 

At the previous month's Bash at the Beach, The Giant beat Kevin Greene (who was promoted as Goldberg's buddy). The crowd at that show chanted "Goldberg" during the match. WCW knew they had something in Goldberg/Giant and September's Fall Brawl was practically begging for it as you already had nWo Hollywood/nWo Wolfpack building with Nash leading his squad against Hall's team (with or without the Hulkster).

 

Hall and Nash leave early in the battle royal - which is smart because the battle royal really only needed to do two things: build towards Hall/Nash and build towards Goldberg/Giant.

 

...And then the rest of the battle royal happens and it is boring and Giant eliminates only one guy while Goldberg takes everyone out (they should've each eliminated 3-4 guys). Goldberg spears Giant and things haven't turned to shit just yet. It's the Jackhammer that seals it, though. Why not have Goldberg fail to lift Giant? Then, Giant can toss the winded Goldberg and you have your Fall Brawl title match. Goldberg can still have his undefeated streak because who counts battle royal losses? The Giant, who was over, could gloat that Goldberg was just another "little guy" that couldn't overcome his size and strength. Goldberg could say that he was going to Jackhammer him.

 

The cherry on the shit sundae is that the battle royal ends in a pinfall (!). Even if Goldberg had just somehow tossed The Giant, the Giant could've at least still claimed he'd never been pinned by Goldberg. Instead, the battle royal, with its thoroughly decisive ending, serves as the blow-off to a feud that, up to this point, WCW had booked perfectly.

 

Side question - was Bret Hart getting paid by appearance or something? He didn't need to be in the battle royal, but him interfering to knock out someone like Sting would've given the Stinger some direction (and maybe Hart too - he was US Champ, but what was he doing? Lower midcard angles with Booker and Benoit?).

[Cowboy Hats 4.0]

WWE posted this match to their youtube page over the weekend. It's real dumb!