The Goldberg win streak was a lengthy series of victories that established the character of American professional wrestler Goldberg, following his debut on WCW Monday Nitro on September 22, 1997. The unprecedented win streak proved to be essential in making Goldberg the breakout star of World Championship Wrestling (WCW), propelling the rookie wrestler to main event status within a year of his first match, and would become a tool used by other promotions to build young stars into main event players. While officially cited as 173–0, a definitive breakdown of all available match results shows that Goldberg began his career at an untelevised 5–1, and that following his debut he had an actual win streak of 156 consecutive victories with two that ended in no contest before his 1998 Starrcade loss to Kevin Nash.
Background Beginnings
During the rehab following his NFL injury, Goldberg began powerlifting and mixed martial arts training. He was spotted by Lex Luger and Sting who urged him to try professional wrestling. Although not a fan of professional wrestling, he saw it as an alternative to his fledgling football career and began training at the WCW Power Plant. Training under the tutelage of DeWayne Bruce, he made his debut as Bill Gold on a dark match at a Monday Nitro event on June 23, 1997, where he defeated Bruce (wrestling as Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker). He also faced and defeated Buddy Landell (Saturday Night dark match), Hugh Morrus (house show), Chip Minton (Nitro dark match), and John Betcha (house show). His final pre-televised appearance was in a dark match on July 24 at a Saturday Night taping in a loss to Chad Fortune.
The streak begins
Now 5–1, Bill Goldberg had yet to be seen on television. As such, he was "undefeated" when he made his televised debut on Monday Nitro on September 22, 1997. Behind the scenes, it was WCW announcer Mike Tenay who came up with the concept of the Goldberg win streak. Goldberg was booked to win over Morrus, and thus began a win streak that carried over onto Saturday Night and non-televised house shows. The longer the streak became, the more popular the Goldberg character became. After rampaging through most of WCW's undercard of wrestlers, Goldberg faced Raven on the April 20 edition of Monday Nitro and captured the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. By June, he had eclipsed 100 wins, and was getting over as a main eventer. Hollywood Hogan eventually granted Goldberg a title match, which would take place on the July 6, 1998, episode of Nitro held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta with over 40,000 in attendance, but Hogan insisted that Goldberg first had to defeat his nWo stablemate Scott Hall. Goldberg won and later in the evening was also able to defeat Hogan to become the WCW World Heavyweight Champion, in turn vacating his United States Heavyweight Championship.
Conclusion of the streak
Now WCW Champion, Goldberg found himself the cornerstone of the company's efforts to stave off the WWF. The former number two promotion was now running neck and neck with WWF, and Goldberg was programmed into a feud with Diamond Dallas Page. At Halloween Havoc, the feud was settled after Goldberg defeated Page to retain the title. According to Goldberg, his match against Page was the favorite match of his career. Following technical issues with the PPV the match was aired for free on the following Monday Nitro; the huge rating that it garnered was the final time that Nitro defeated Monday Night Raw.
As Goldberg moved on to a feud with The Giant, WCW management resorted to embellishing the win streak with fictional victories. Wrestling fans who followed match results online began to catch on as Goldberg's streak grew exponentially, and he began to incur the first backlash of his career. At Starrcade, Goldberg's undefeated streak ended at an official approximate count of 173–0, and after 174 days as champion when he lost the title to Kevin Nash, after Scott Hall, disguised as a ringside security guard, made a run-in and shocked Goldberg with a taser gun.
List of matches