wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Why Do Some Fans Hate Goldberg?

January 17, 2020 | Posted by Ryan Byers
Goldberg SummerSlam Credit: WWE

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 Wrestling. I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling.

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Brad is starting us off on a morbid note:

I have kind of a sad question that hopefully won’t be taken the wrong way. Can you try to identify the most recent 1-on-1 WWE match that aired on TV or PPV where both wrestlers have since died? Fortunately the number of really young deaths seems to have dropped off.

This is a question where I will be more than open to somebody correcting me on the answer, because it’s a difficult one to research short of going back and reading the results of every WWE match until you find a bout that qualifies.

However, what I attempted to do was review a fairly comprehensive list of wrestlers who died in the last decade and from there looked into who had been on the WWE roster in the relatively recent past.

After doing that, the result I came up with was a February 26, 2008 match between Balls Mahoney and Big Daddy V (a.k.a. Viscera) which aired on Smackdown. The next closest match that I ran across was Umaga defeating Balls on the June 11, 2007 edition of Monday Night Raw.

Perhaps not surprisingly, all three of the men mentioned in this answer died of heart attacks, with Umaga being 36 years old, Big Daddy V being 43, and Balls Mahoney being 44. Of the three, only Umaga’s passing was formally linked to drug use, which as we know has contributed to the early deaths of many wrestlers. The families of both Mahoney and V joined in the 2016 concussion lawsuits against WWE, but those suits were ultimately dismissed.

Tyler from Winnipeg is developing quite the streak of questions answered in this column:

I don’t see any flaws in Bill Goldberg; why do some fans dislike Bill?

I’ve followed wrestling the entire time that Goldberg has been involved in it, so I’ve seen some fans who have vehemently hated him from the very beginning. I would say that, over the years, they’ve leveled three main criticisms against the WCW phenom:

1. They claim that he’s not a particularly good in-ring performer. It is true that Goldberg is not Bret Hart or Toshiaki Kawada. You’re not going to see that style or caliber of performance out of him. Thus, if that’s all you like in terms of matches, you’re not going to like Bill Goldberg. However, Goldberg was EXCELLENT in short, explosive encounters, and, in my opinion, those have their place in professional wrestling. Plus, when he was younger and in his athletic prime, he was capable of being carried to quality longer bouts as well, with his encounter with Diamond Dallas Page at Halloween Havoc in 1998 being a prime example.

2. They claim that he didn’t “pay his dues.” Some fans get their noses really bent out of shape when a wrestler shows up and gets a very quick push right out of the gate, which is something that I’ve never really understood. If somebody is entertaining and/or talented and they are heavily featured as a result, why do I care if they have been in the industry for six months or sixteen years? However, some people do feel differently about that, and they weren’t happy with the fact that Goldberg was beating Hulk Hogan for the World Title within a year of his debut, nor were they particularly happy when he showed up at beat Kevin Owens for the WWE Universal Title almost out of the blue in 2017.

3. They claim that he’s reckless and injures other wrestlers. During his initial WCW run, there were some competitors who wound up on the injured reserve after wrestling Goldberg, including La Parka and, most notably, Bret Hart, who suffered his career-ending concussion in a match with Goldberg. Though those incidents were certainly unfortunate, I don’t know how much I blame Goldberg specifically for them as opposed to their just being things that happen from time-to-time in professional wrestling, so I’ve never felt particular ill will towards Goldberg arising out of those scenarios.

That’s my best understanding of why some folks just can’t get behind Bill Goldberg. I’ve never agreed with them, but I can understand the arguments.

James wants to follow up on a question from a few weeks ago regarding how many pole matches Vince Russo booked. This is actually the second follow-up on that question, which I never would have guessed would have legs to this degree:

Regarding the Russo/Pole match question it shows that he booked 2 a year as you said, on the flip-side of the coin how many “on a pole matches have been booked before he’s been in a company and after?

i.e.: are the majority ever booked under his book or have there been more booked and people just naturally attach the stop to Vinny and he gets the blame for them all even when he’s not there…

I’m not defending the man’s booking in any way, I’m just intrigued.

For those who don’t want to click back and read the original pole match question, the short version of the answer is that Russo booked 22 pole matches in approximately 11 years at the head of various promotions, which breaks down as 3 pole matches in 33 months with the WWF, 10 pole matches in 9 months with WCW, and 9 pole matches in 102 months with TNA.

Looking at the WWF/WWE, there was only one pole match in the history of the company that I could find record of before Russo became the head writer, that being the Big Boss Man vs. Nailz nightstick on a pole match at the 1992 Survivor Series. That’s one match in over forty years if you trace the WWF back through its WWWF and Capitol Wrestling Corporation days. Even if you mark the beginning of the WWF proper with the formation of Titan Sports, Inc. in 1980, that’s one pole match in seventeen years before Russo showed up as head writer.

The pole match did retain a degree of popularity in the WWF after Russo’s departure in 1999. I checked the records from ’99 through 2012, and, in that period, there were 16 pole matches in 159 months, which breaks down to one every 10 months or so. That’s slight more often than Russo’s time with the WWF, when there was an average of one pole match every 11 months.

For those who might be curious, the pole matches in question were: Rock vs. Mankind (Pink Slip on a Pole – Raw, 12/27/99); Torrie Wilson vs. Trish Stratus (Paddle on a Pole – Raw, 7/23/01); Trish Stratus vs. Terri Runnels (Paddle on a Pole – Raw, 4/1/02); Nidia vs. Torrie Wilson (Paddle on a Pole – Smackdown, 2/18/03); Sylvan Grenier vs. Rob Van Dam (Flag Match – Raw, 5/26/03); Nidia vs. Molly Holly vs. Victoria (Pole Match – Raw 7/5/04); Candice Michelle vs. Torrie Wilson (Paddle on a Pole – Raw 8/28/06); Sandman vs. Matt Striker (Singapore Cane on a Pole – ECW on SyFy 10/17/06); Sandman vs. Carlito (Singapore Cane on a Pole – Great American Bash 2007); Natalya vs. Cherry vs. Maryse vs. Victoria vs. Layla El vs. Michelle McCool (Gold Star on a Pole – Smackdown 6/3/08); Michelle McCool vs. Victoria vs. Cherry vs. Maryse vs. Kelly Kelly (Gold Star on a Pole – Smackdown 7/1/08); Maria Kanellis vs. Maryse vs. Victoria vs. Brie Bella vs. Natalya (Fuzzy Dice on a Pole – Smackdown 10/14/08); Mike the Miz vs. Eugene (Contract on a Pole – Raw 8/10/09); Brie Bella vs. Natalya vs. Alicia Fox vs. Nikki Bella vs. Kaitlyn vs. AJ Lee vs. Tamina vs. Rosa Mendes (Mistletoe on a Pole – Smackdown 11/29/11); Ted DiBiase Jr. vs. Hunico (Flag Match – Smackdown 1/20/12); and Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto Del Rio (Contract on a Pole – Raw 6/25/12).

In WCW, the company came in to existence in late 1988, meaning it was around for almost eleven years before Vince Russo showed up. Specifically, it was 126 months, and, in that time, there were three pole matches. Those were Sting vs. Jake Roberts in a Coal Miner’s Glove match at Halloween Havoc 1992, John Tenta vs. Big Bubba Rogers in a Carson City Silver Dollar match at Bash at the Beach 1996, and Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash vs. Roddy Piper & The Giant in a Baseball Bat on a Pole match at Spring Stampede 1998. So, from 3 matches in 126 months to 10 pole matches in 9 months, the rate of pole matches definitely increased under Russo.

After Vince Russo was brought in to WCW for the first time, there were roughly eight months during which he was not involved in creative. He was taken out of power from roughly January through April of 2000, and then he was cycled out again in roughly October 2000. Of course, the company closed its doors in March 2001. In these periods where Russo was not in charge, there were three pole matches, namely Tank Abbott vs. Big Al in a Skins Match at Superbrawl X, Brian Knobbs vs. Norman Smiley vs. The Dog vs. Rick Fuller vs. Adrian Byrd vs. Dave Burkhead in a Hardcore Title on a Pole match on the April 1, 2000 episode of WCW Saturday Night (the last episode of that show where original matches were presented), and Meng vs. Crowbar in a Chair on a Pole match on the January 3, 2001 episode of Thunder (taped on December 22, 2000). Three pole matches in eight months is one match every 2.7 months, which is less than the slightly one match per month when Russo was in charge.

TNA is an interesting case, because I actually couldn’t find ANY pole matches booked in the times when Russo was not part of the creative team. It’s not really fair to comment on what things were like before he arrived there, because the promotion was only open for a small handful of months before he came on board. As far as the post-Russo period of TNA is concerned, the company appears to have been taken in a completely different direction, so it’s not surprising that the over the top gimmick matches are gone.

So, what conclusions can we draw from all of this data?

In the cases of WWF/WWE and WCW, the introduction of Vince Russo in to the company definitely increased the prominence of pole matches, as they went from something that happened far less than once per year to something that happened every few months. In the WWF/WWE, the rate of pole matches increased slightly after Russo was gone, whereas it decreased slightly in WCW and completely died in TNA. Thus, there doesn’t appear to be a consistent pattern in what happens with pole matches after Russo departs a promotion.

There you go. Hopefully that’s the last we have to talk about pole matches for a little while.

APinOZ wants to talk about . . . pole matches? So much for that hiatus:

In Australia’s wrestling territory of the 1970s, which was called World Championship Wrestling (Jim Barnett being the promoter no doubt helped that name), a battle royal was called a Russian Roulette. The rules for a Russian Roulette were the same; throw your opponents over the top rope until there is only one man left. The winner then received a cheque (check) for a certain amount. Sometime in the mid 1970s (from ’76 onwards I think), a lot of these Russian Roulette matches were changed slightly, and the money was put in an envelope and hung from a pole in one of the corners. So wrestlers could now eliminate each other or climb the pole at any time to retrieve the prize. Andre The Giant always won these matches when he was involved because he was – y’know – so much taller than anyone else, and he usually did it right at the start. He would then agree to eliminate himself from the match and share the prize with whichever other wrestler survived. If it was a babyface, they’d share the winnings. If it was a heel, (and the heel was usually Bruiser Brody), they’d fight the following week for the cheque, again in a pole match.

So pole matches existed in Australia from the 1970s, though there was no coal miner’s glove (even though Australia has a lot of coal mines)

AP is actually following up on our last column, in which somebody asked me when the first pole match took place and I suggested that it might have been the Coal Miners Glove match that was brought in to the Pacific Northwest territory by Dutch Savage in 1972.

However, I did some follow-up on AP’s comments, and, according to the website AustralianWrestling.org, the first Russian Roulette match took place at a World Championship Wrestling show in Sydney on March 4, 1966, with Nick Bockwinkel emerging victorious.

Assuming that this Russian Roulette match had the same rules that AP described, this would mean that the Australians invented the pole match six years before Dutch Savage busted out his infamous glove.

Thanks, Aussies.

Marc wants to take the guerre out of a nom de guerre:

Here’s a tough question. On the night that Ted Petty died, he was supposed to wrestle a match for Pro-Pain Pro Wrestling against Gary Wolfe for their heavyweight title. Since Petty didn’t make it (RIP), they had a big masked guy called Dead Man Walking.

The only other “Dead Man Walking” appearance is at the NWA 50th Anniversary show where he teams with the Pitbulls and Stevie Richards against Steve Corino, Lance Diamond, Rik Ratchet, and Doug Gilbert with the NWA World Heavyweight Title on the line.

So my question is . . . who is Dead Man Walking?

As unsatisfying as this may be, I think the answer is that Dead Man Walking . . . was Dead Man Walking.

To give some backstory to the folks who may not be familiar with the circumstances surrounding the death of Ted Petty (a.k.a. Rocco Rock of Public Enemy), it occurred on September 21, 2002, which was a Saturday. On the day in question, Petty had himself booked on an afternoon indy show and an evening independent show. On the afternoon show, he wrestled Devon “Crowbar” Storm, and then he got into a car with his girlfriend and headed off to the Pro Pain Pro Wrestling (3PW) show that Marc references, where he was supposed to wrestle Gary Wolfe. However, he had a heart attack while on the road, and emergency crews couldn’t get to him in time to save his life.

Though it may seem insensitive for 3PW to trot out a guy called “Dead Man Walking” as the replacement for a wrestler who, well, died, the fact of the matter is that the folks running the show weren’t aware that Petty had passed away. They were only aware that he was a no-show. As a result, when Gary Wolfe came out to defend his 3PW Title, he was greeted by this:

View post on imgur.com

I’ve watched the Wolfe/DMW match, and it’s not much to write home about. The Dead Man is a tall guy (he managed to step over the top rope), but he wasn’t in any sort of athletic shape, which is apparent even through the jumpsuit he was wearing as ring gear. His body type was unique enough for the independent scene of that era, meaning that, if he was somebody else semi-noteworthy, he probably would have been identifiable. The Pitbull dispatched him quickly, and then he faded off in to obscurity.

Though Marc was only aware of two Dead Man Walking appearances, I actually found a handful more. According to Cagematch, he wrestled at least three other matches for Pennsylvania independent groups in 1998 and 1999, with his only somewhat noteworthy opponent being the Rockin’ Rebel in a six man tag on June 18, 1999. The May 31, 1999 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter also shows him popping up on a May 21 indy show in New Jersey that year, which is not in Cagematch’s records. Chances are good that if we have records of him wrestling this many matches over a several year period, then he also worked on other small shows in this timeframe, results of which simply didn’t survive to present day.

So, even though it’s not the sexiest answer in the world, chances are good that Dead Man Walking was just a rando northeast indy wrestler who for some reason happened to be backstage at 3PW’s show with his gear when a replacement for Ted Petty was needed.

For what it’s worth, there was also a Dead Man Walking around this time who appeared on shows for the San Francisco-based Incredibly Strange Wrestling in the late 90s and early 00s, but I’m pretty confident that this is not the same guy as the east coast Dead Man Walking who would have appeared for 3PW. There are some photos of the ISW Dead Man still online from a 2002 show, and they look like completely different men.

If I’ve missed something and anyone out there in the comment section has more information on either of the Dead Men Walking, feel free to let us know.

That will do it for this week’s installment of the column. We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected].