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Bill Goldberg

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Bill Goldberg
File:Billgoldberg17.jpg
BornDecember 27, 1966
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Bill Goldberg
Goldberg
Billed height6 ft 3 in (190 cm)
Billed weight285 lb (129 kg)
Billed fromAtlanta, Georgia
Trained byDewayne Bruce at
WCW Power Plant
DebutSeptember 22, 1997

William Scott (Bill) Goldberg (born December 27, 1966 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a former professional American football player turned pro wrestler, often promoted simply as Goldberg. He first gained fame in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). From March 2003 until March 2004, he wrestled for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) on its RAW brand. He is also an actor and television show host. He is of Jewish descent.

Career

American football

Goldberg played college football at the University of Georgia, and then played in the National Football League with the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles Rams. He also played with the Sacramento Surge of the WLAF, He attended the first Carolina Panthers training camp, until his football career was ended by an abdominal injury.


World Championship Wrestling

Goldberg trained in the WCW Power Plant wrestling school, and made his televised debut on September 22, 1997, defeating Hugh Morrus. He then started on the path of what made him a wrestling superstar, his undefeated winning streak. WCW claimed that Goldberg had a record of 173 wins and zero losses before his first loss to Kevin Nash after much outside interferance. The count of 173 wins came from a record of televised matches, pay-per-views, as well as house show matches.

He would become the WCW United States Champion on April 20, 1998, by defeating Raven. He would vacate the U.S. title after winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on July 6 1998, when he defeated Hollywood Hogan. He would hold the title until Nash handed him his first loss in WCW on December 27 1998.

During this time, the WWF began to make fun of Bill Goldberg by bringing out Dwayne Gill as "Gillberg."

He would become a two-time U.S. Champion on October 24 1999, but would lose the title to Bret Hart the next day. Amazingly enough, he would later team with Bret Hart to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship on December 7 1999. They would hold the title for only a week, losing the titles to The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall). Holding the Tag Team, US and World Heavyweight Title makes Goldberg what is known in the buisness as a Triple Crown Champion

Also on October 24, 1999, at WCW's annual Halloween Havoc pay-per-view event, Goldberg answered an open challenge from then WCW Champion Sting, following his match with Hulk Hogan (in which Hogan laid down for the pin, only to leave the ring immediately afterwards). Goldberg stormed the ring and pinned Sting within minutes of the opening bell. He would be proclaimed WCW World Champion for the second time in his career, only to have the decision reversed the next night on WCW Monday Nitro. WCW "comissioner" J.J. Dillion ruled that the match was not officially sanctioned by WCW and therefore the result was void. However, rather than give the title belt back to the former champion, the championship was vacated. A tournament to fill the vacancy would begin that night with the final match to be held at WCW's Mayhem pay-per-view event in November.

In October 2000 Goldberg began a new streak, with Vince Russo threatening to fire him if he lost. The streak was broken after 35 victories on January 14, 2001 when he was pinned by "Totally Buff" (Buff Bagwell and Lex Luger) while tagging with his trainer, Dwayne Bruce in what was his last-ever WCW match. As a result of the defeat, Goldberg was obliged to "leave" WCW (in reality, he was given time off to have shoulder surgery), and WCW was sold to World Wrestling Entertainment just two months later, while Goldberg was still rehabbing his shoulder. When WWE purchased WCW, the purchase did not include Goldberg's contract. At the time, WWE chose not to buy out Goldberg's contract from Time-Warner, which was then the parent company of WCW.

Goldberg suffered only six official losses in his WCW career in singles matches. Three of those losses were against Bret "Hitman" Hart. This does not include an unofficial loss in which Bret made his own three count.

Japan

Goldberg waited out his contract after his run in WCW. He made his biggest splash in Japan with All Japan Pro Wrestling, becoming one of the biggest pulls in the country. This would finally prompt WWE to sign Goldberg.

World Wrestling Entertainment

Bill Goldberg visiting the USS Ronald Reagan

Goldberg would make his WWE debut on the March 31, 2003 episode of RAW, the night after WrestleMania XIX. He immediately started a feud with The Rock, culminating in a victory by Goldberg at Backlash 2003. His first win on RAW saw him defeat Three Minute Warning in a handicap match.

Later that year, he would defeat World Heavyweight Champion, Triple H, winning the title at Unforgiven 2003 on September 21. He held the title until Armageddon 2003 on December 14 when he lost the title back to Triple H in a triple threat match which included Kane.

During the 2004 Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar stormed the ring and hit Goldberg with the F-5, enabling Kurt Angle to eliminate him and thus costing him a WrestleMania title shot. This led to Goldberg appearing at the No Way Out 2004 the following month, as an "official audience member." After Brock Lesnar taunted him, Goldberg entered the ring and gave Lesnar a Jackhammer. SmackDown! General Manager Paul Heyman had Goldberg removed from the building by security, but he returned in the midst of Lesnar's WWE Championship title defense against the late Eddie Guerrero, costing Lesnar the match and the belt. This led to a match being booked between the two for WrestleMania XX. Goldberg was not seen on WWE television for several weeks before the event, as he had already worked the maximum number of dates (bar one, his WrestleMania appearance) stipulated by his contract and would have had to have been paid a supplementary salary in order to make extra appearances. This may have hurt the build to the WrestleMania match, with the last episode of SmackDown! before WrestleMania featuring a confrontation between Lesnar and Austin, not Lesnar and Goldberg.

At WrestleMania, Goldberg faced Lesnar with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the match's special guest referee. Goldberg was victorious, but both Lesnar and he received a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin. Lesnar and Goldberg had both gone undefeated for long periods of time, leading many fans to label a match between the two a "dream match". However, as both Lesnar and Goldberg were known to be leaving the company immediately after WrestleMania, the match was poorly received by the audience, who soundly booed both competitors. On March 31 2004, Goldberg's contract expired and after short negotiations was not renewed.

In an article of 2-13-06 Democrat and Chronicle Rochester NY newspaper, it states that Goldberg will be returning to wrestling for TNA

After professional wrestling

With aspirations to do work in film, Goldberg acted in two movies which were released in 2005. The first film of the two is the remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds film The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, in which he co-stars with fellow former wrestlers Kevin Nash and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The second, Santa's Slay, made its debut on Spike TV on October 25, 2005.

Recently, it has been noted that Bill Goldberg has been married to Wanda Feraton, a stunt woman whom he met while filming The Longest Yard. Bill and Wanda were married on April 10 2005. They recently had their first child, a boy.

He was host of the History Channel show, Automaniac, which started in 2005, but it was cancelled after only one short season.

In wrestling

Quotes

  • "Who's next?"
  • "You're next!"
  • "Believe the hype"
  • "Want me to SPEAR YOU DOWN?!?!"
  • "Fear The Spear!"

Finishing and signature moves

Championships and accomplishments

World Championship Wrestling

Defeated Raven - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Vacated on July 6, 1998 after winning World title
Defeated Hulk Hogan - Atlanta, Georgia
Lost to Kevin Nash on December 27, 1998
Defeated Sid Vicious - Las Vegas, Nevada
Lost to Bret Hart on October 25, 1999
Teamed with Bret Hart
Defeated "Creative Control" (Ron & Don Harris) - Madison, Wisconsin
Lost to The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall) on December 13, 1999

World Wrestling Entertainment

Defeated Triple H - Hershey, Pennsylvania
Lost to Triple H on December 14, 2003

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

  • Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked him # 75 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003.
  • He also won two PWI Awards in 1998. He won Rookie of the Year and Most Inspirational.

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • 1998 Rookie of the Year

Trivia

  • He used to be a bouncer, but was fired for being underage.
  • Goldberg steadfastly kept his real last name as his wrestling moniker against the advice of many. Goldberg has stated that he does so as a show of pride in his Jewish ancestry (other Jewish wrestlers of his "peak" era included Barry Horowitz, Raven, and Dean Malenko). Ironically enough, he would later star in a movie, Santa's Slay where he plays a murderous Santa Claus.
  • His character was criticized by some (including Vince McMahon) as being a copy of that of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Despite character history and storylines being different to the extreme, the aforementioned similarities include both men wearing short black tights, sporting bald heads and goatees, using similar wrestling styles, and uttering similar catchphrases. However, Eric Bischoff has stated that his character was created to mock Ken Shamrock when he was in the WWF, not Austin.
  • During the later years of WCW, critics made accusations that WCW's production crew was "piping in" chants of "Goldberg", but this has never been proven.
  • Many Internet wrestling fans consider Goldberg to be the one responsible for the ending of Bret Hart's career, although there is no longer bad blood between Goldberg and Hart, and they have come to a respect in recent years. Goldberg had delivered a mule kick to Bret Hart while in WCW, and the injuries Bret suffered due to this kick, combined with his continuing to wrestle for several weeks afterward and his multiple concussions, essentially put an end to his career.
  • Goldberg regards WCW wrestler Meng as the toughest man he has ever met.
  • Before WWE purchased WCW, Goldberg was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Jay Leno brought about the subject of accusations of Goldberg being a "copy" of Stone Cold Steve Austin, to which Goldberg replied with an open challenge to Steve Austin. This challenge was later mentioned in a "call out" speech by Bret Hart on the episode of WCW Monday Nitro in which Bret Hart pinned Goldberg and delivered his own three count after being speared by Goldberg. After the pin, Bret Hart reveiled that he was wearing a steel plate underneath his clothing which knocked out Goldberg during impact of the spear.
  • He was the first player cut by the Carolina Panthers in team history, but later successfully sued them for misdiagnosing his abdominal injury and loss of pay due to his release.

Movies, television, and other media

  • Goldberg featured in the video for Megadeth's "Crush 'Em," which featured on the soundtrack for Universal Soldier: The Return, and also temporarily used the song as his ring entrance theme.
  • He played the title role in a movie that was released straight to video in (2005). The name of the movie is Santa's Slay. Goldberg plays an evil Santa Claus.
  • In his first television hosting role, he has a show on the History Channel called AutoManiac (but Goldberg calls it "Inside the Ride" in an interview). To quote Goldberg from an interview he did: "It's a 30-minute show with 13-episodes, talking about the history of automobiles and motorcycles, and what’s their historical perspective. The first (episode) that we shot was, mob cars. We’ve also shot police cars and extreme bikes." This show debuted in early June of 2005.

Autobiography

  • I'm Next: The Strange Journey of America's Most Unlikely Superstar (with Steve Goldberg)
WCW World Heavyweight Championship
Preceded by:
Hollywood Hogan 		First reign Followed by:
Kevin Nash
World Heavyweight Championship (WWE)
Preceded by:
Triple H 		First reign Followed by:
Triple H
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