Kevin Sullivan Recalls Coming Up With Goldberg’s Character In WCW

Kevin Sullivan came up with the look and character that Bill Goldberg would portray in WCW, and he recently talked about his inspirations for the role. Sullivan talked about Goldberg on his Tuesdays with the Taskmaster podcast and how modern wrestlers need to heed advice from their veterans, noting that Goldberg was “receptive like a sponge” in that capacity when he first joined WCW. You can check out highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On coming up with Goldberg’s character: “I created Bill Goldberg without really wrestling ability — until he got it. But, what I did was, I copied Mike Tyson, in a way — black shoes, the short ones, double socks, black tights. The other thing … I knew people would think, ‘Hey, he’s [looks] like Steve Austin,’ who was the hottest thing in the world. [When] people were going over what he’s going to do in his interviews, I was like, ‘He ain’t gonna talk, because once he opens his mouth, he’s dead, because people would start comparing him to Austin.'”

On modern wrestlers not listening to advice from veterans: “Some people say, ‘I don’t want to listen to Arn Anderson, Jake Roberts, or Tully Blanchard … my question is, ‘Would you learn to draw with Leonardo Da Vinci or Picasso [or] are you gonna get a crayon book?'”