GOLDBERG
GOLDBERG: WHO'S NEXT?
There are wrestlers who enter an arena.
There are wrestlers who make an entrance.
And then there are wrestlers whose arrival feels like a natural disaster.
The lights go dark.
The crowd begins to rumble.
A wall of smoke appears.
And then—
GOLDBERG.
No elaborate storyline is necessary.
No complicated explanation.
No twenty-minute entrance.
Just a man walking toward the ring with the expression of someone who has already decided that somebody is about to get hurt.
The crowd explodes.
The music hits.
Goldberg marches forward.
And somewhere in the arena, thousands of people begin asking the question that became synonymous with one of professional wrestling's most destructive forces:
“WHO'S NEXT?”
Goldberg was never the most technically sophisticated wrestler.
He wasn't trying to be.
He wasn't Bret Hart.
He wasn't Shawn Michaels.
He wasn't Kurt Angle.
Goldberg was something else.
He was impact.
He was intimidation.
He was velocity.
He was the physical embodiment of the idea that a wrestling match could be over before your brain had caught up with what your eyes had just seen.
A Spear.
A Jackhammer.
One.
Two.
Three.
The experiment was over.
And for a period in WCW, Goldberg became almost unbeatable.
Officially, WCW presented him as the owner of an extraordinary 173–0 undefeated streak, beginning after his September 1997 debut and lasting until December 1998. WWE continues to recognise that figure as one of the defining achievements of his career, although the historical accuracy of the exact number has been debated.
But numbers alone cannot explain Goldberg.
Because Goldberg wasn't merely winning matches.
He was creating fear.
---
THE MAN BEFORE THE MYTH
Before Goldberg became “Da Man,” he was Bill Goldberg.
A former University of Georgia football player and Atlanta Falcons defensive tackle, Goldberg entered professional wrestling carrying the physical credibility of someone who looked like he had been engineered specifically for destruction.
He had the shoulders.
The arms.
The explosiveness.
The bald head.
The goatee.
The intensity.
He looked different.
And WCW knew exactly what it had.
The company didn't need to make Goldberg complicated.
It needed to make him dangerous.
That simplicity became his greatest strength.
---
THE ARRIVAL OF THE MACHINE
Goldberg made his WCW debut in September 1997.
He defeated Hugh Morrus.
And then he kept winning.
And winning.
And winning.
The wins became a phenomenon.
WWE's own historical account describes the streak as beginning with Goldberg's debut and eventually reaching 173 consecutive victories, with the powerhouse destroying opponents ranging from Big Show to Curt Hennig.
The presentation was revolutionary because Goldberg didn't merely defeat opponents.
He obliterated them.
Matches were short.
The crowd barely had time to settle.
Goldberg would explode forward.
Spear.
The opponent was finished.
Goldberg would haul him up.
Jackhammer.
The building erupted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Next.
That was the formula.
And it worked.
Because wrestling fans understood something immediately:
Goldberg could hurt you.
---
THE 173–0 PHENOMENON
The undefeated streak became Goldberg's mythology.
Every victory added another number.
Every number added another layer of anticipation.
Who would stop him?
Could anyone stop him?
Would the next opponent survive?
WWE officially describes the streak as 173–0, while historical examinations have pointed out discrepancies in the underlying record. The number nevertheless became part of wrestling history because WCW successfully transformed it into Goldberg's defining mythology.
And that is the important distinction.
Whether one accepts every number literally or not, the phenomenon was real.
Goldberg had become the unstoppable man.
And the longer he remained undefeated, the more powerful the character became.
Every opponent was entering the ring with the same problem:
How do you defeat a man who seemingly cannot be defeated?
---
THE SPEAR
Goldberg's Spear was not merely a wrestling move.
It was an announcement.
Other wrestlers performed the Spear.
Goldberg launched himself.
He didn't simply tackle opponents.
He detonated into them.
His football background gave the move a sense of authenticity. There was an almost primitive beauty to it.
Goldberg would stalk his opponent.
The crowd knew.
The opponent knew.
Goldberg knew.
And then—
BOOM.
The body hit the canvas.
The Spear became one of the most recognisable signature moves in professional wrestling history.
WWE officially lists the Spear and Jackhammer as Goldberg's signature moves to this day.
---
THE JACKHAMMER
If the Spear was the explosion, the Jackhammer was the execution.
Goldberg would lift opponents above his head and drive them into the mat.
And the remarkable part wasn't simply that he could perform the move.
It was who he could perform it on.
Big men.
Heavyweights.
Giants.
People who looked physically impossible to lift.
Goldberg would simply pick them up.
That was part of the mythology.
The Jackhammer communicated strength before the audience had time to rationalise what they were seeing.
It became one of wrestling's great finishers.
And because Goldberg rarely needed anything else, the move became synonymous with him.
Some wrestlers have five finishers.
Goldberg needed two.
Spear.
Jackhammer.
That was enough.
---
THE ENTRANCE
Goldberg's entrance deserves its own chapter.
Because few entrances have ever created such immediate anticipation.
The darkness.
The smoke.
The pyrotechnics.
The music.
The silhouette.
The marching.
And then the crowd.
Goldberg did not sprint to the ring.
He didn't pose excessively.
He walked.
Almost mechanically.
Like a soldier approaching a battlefield.
That made it even more intimidating.
His entrance was a declaration that the wrestling match was not entertainment anymore.
It was an event.
The audience knew what was coming.
Goldberg knew what was coming.
And his opponent suddenly looked like the only person in the building who didn't want to be there.
---
“WHO'S NEXT?”
Catchphrases usually need repetition.
Goldberg's required almost nothing.
“Who's next?”
That question captured the entire character.
He wasn't asking who was challenging him.
He was asking who was brave—or foolish—enough to try.
It was a challenge.
A threat.
A prophecy.
And eventually, the audience started asking it too.
Goldberg had become a question that nobody wanted answered.
---
THE ASCENT TO THE WCW CHAMPIONSHIP
Goldberg's rise became extraordinary because WCW eventually put him against the biggest names in the company.
Sting.
Diamond Dallas Page.
Big Show.
Curt Hennig.
And eventually—
Hulk Hogan.
This was the moment when Goldberg's monster status became something greater.
He wasn't simply a dominant mid-card attraction.
He was ready to conquer the top of the company.
---
GOLDBERG VS. HULK HOGAN
July 6, 1998.
Georgia Dome.
A massive crowd.
Goldberg versus Hulk Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
This was symbolic.
Hogan represented one generation.
Goldberg represented another.
The past against the future.
The established icon against the unstoppable phenomenon.
Goldberg won.
And he did it with the move that had become his signature:
The Jackhammer.
WWE records Goldberg's WCW World Championship reign as beginning on July 6, 1998 and ending at Starrcade on December 27, 1998, lasting 173 days.
The image of Goldberg standing over Hulk Hogan was one of the defining images of WCW's late-1990s history.
Goldberg had arrived.
---
DA MAN
Goldberg became “Da Man.”
Not because he was the most technically brilliant wrestler.
Not because he had the deepest character.
But because he had become the most believable destroyer in wrestling.
He looked like an athlete.
He moved like an athlete.
He hit like an athlete.
And WCW presented him almost like a combat-sports phenomenon.
Goldberg was less a character than a force.
That distinction mattered.
The less Goldberg explained himself, the more powerful he became.
---
THE COLLISION WITH THE NWO
Goldberg's rise happened in the shadow of the New World Order.
Hulk Hogan.
Kevin Nash.
Scott Hall.
The group had transformed WCW.
But Goldberg represented something different.
The NWO was about politics.
Goldberg was about destruction.
The NWO talked.
Goldberg walked.
The NWO manipulated.
Goldberg attacked.
The NWO represented conspiracy.
Goldberg represented inevitability.
And eventually, the monster had to collide with the faction.
---
STARRCADE 1998: THE END OF THE STREAK
Goldberg entered Starrcade 1998 as the undefeated WCW Champion.
Waiting for him was Kevin Nash.
The match was designed to answer the question that had haunted WCW for more than a year:
Who could finally beat Goldberg?
The answer was Nash—but not cleanly.
Scott Hall interfered while disguised as a security guard and used a stun gun on Goldberg, allowing Nash to defeat him. WWE's historical account specifically identifies the interference as the mechanism that ended the 173–0 streak.
Goldberg had finally lost.
But the strange thing about the defeat was that it protected the mythology.
The message was essentially:
Goldberg didn't lose because someone was better than him.
He lost because Goldberg had been cheated.
Whether that was the best creative decision is another question.
But it preserved the idea that the machine was still dangerous.
---
THE PROBLEM WITH THE STREAK
Goldberg's streak was both his greatest strength and eventually one of his biggest creative problems.
Once you establish a wrestler as nearly invincible, every defeat becomes complicated.
Who beats him?
How do they beat him?
Does Goldberg remain special?
Can the audience believe anyone is actually capable of defeating him?
The streak had created such enormous expectations that WCW struggled to find a satisfying way forward.
And Goldberg's later WCW storylines became increasingly complicated.
The simplicity that had made him extraordinary began to disappear.
---
THE LIMOUSINE
One of Goldberg's most memorable post-streak moments came during his feud with the New World Order.
He attacked a limousine.
He smashed through the window.
He injured himself in the process.
The image was violent and shocking.
But it also illustrated something important.
Goldberg was at his best when he was simple.
The further WCW moved away from the unstoppable wrecking machine and into increasingly complicated storylines, the more difficult it became to preserve the magic.
Even WWE later reflected on how the post-streak characterisation had not always served him as effectively as the original presentation.
---
WCW'S COLLAPSE
Then came the larger tragedy.
WCW collapsed.
The promotion that had created Goldberg was acquired by WWE in 2001.
Goldberg was not immediately part of the WWE machine.
For fans, this created an enormous question.
When would Goldberg arrive?
And when he finally did—
WWE made sure everyone knew.
---
THE WWE ARRIVAL
March 31, 2003.
Raw.
Rock Appreciation Night.
The Rock was celebrating.
Then Goldberg appeared.
And the man who had spent years destroying WCW's roster suddenly entered WWE and speared The Rock.
WWE records the moment as Goldberg's official WWE debut.
It was perfect.
No complicated introduction.
No long speech.
No explanation.
Just—
SPEAR.
Goldberg had arrived.
---
GOLDBERG VS. THE ROCK
The Rock was one of the biggest stars in the world.
Goldberg was one of WCW's biggest legends.
Their collision at Backlash was therefore inevitable.
Goldberg won.
And suddenly, the WWE audience had witnessed something that WCW fans had known for years:
Goldberg could still be terrifying.
The match announced that his presence had survived the death of WCW.
The brand was gone.
The character remained.
---
GOLDBERG VS. CHRIS JERICHO
Goldberg's WWE run also included a memorable rivalry with Chris Jericho.
It was a fascinating contrast.
Jericho was cunning.
Goldberg was direct.
Jericho talked.
Goldberg destroyed.
Jericho attempted to expose vulnerabilities.
Goldberg simply wanted to hurt him.
The feud demonstrated that Goldberg could work in storylines beyond the basic “destroy everybody” formula.
But there was always a danger.
The more Goldberg talked, the less mysterious he became.
His greatest power had always been the feeling that he didn't need to explain himself.
---
THE GAME: GOLDBERG VS. TRIPLE H
Then came the rivalry that defined the latter part of Goldberg's original WWE run.
Triple H.
The Game was not merely another opponent.
He was the centre of WWE's universe.
And behind him stood Evolution.
---
EVOLUTION
Evolution was one of WWE's greatest factions.
Triple H.
Ric Flair.
Randy Orton.
Batista.
The concept was brilliant.
Flair represented the past.
Triple H represented the present.
Orton represented the future.
Batista represented the emerging powerhouse.
Together, they represented wrestling evolution itself.
WWE's history records the faction's formation in 2003, with Triple H, Ric Flair, Randy Orton and Batista establishing Evolution.
And then Goldberg arrived.
The problem for Evolution was obvious:
How do you control a man who cannot be controlled?
---
GOLDBERG VS. EVOLUTION
Goldberg became the outsider.
Evolution was the system.
Goldberg was the threat to the system.
Triple H wanted to prove that the company's most powerful man could defeat the most destructive man.
Goldberg wanted Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship.
And the rivalry became increasingly personal.
Triple H used manipulation.
Evolution used numbers.
Goldberg used violence.
The contrast was perfect.
---
SUMMERSLAM 2003
Goldberg entered the Elimination Chamber at SummerSlam 2003 as one of the most dangerous men in the match.
He destroyed opponents.
He battered Triple H.
For a moment, it looked as though Goldberg was going to become champion.
Then came the sledgehammer.
Triple H used the weapon to stop him.
Goldberg lost.
But the story was not over.
The machine had been contained.
Not defeated.
Contained.
---
UNFORGIVEN 2003
Then came the payoff.
Goldberg challenged Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship.
And this time, there was no escape.
Goldberg won.
He became World Heavyweight Champion.
WWE records Goldberg as having defeated Triple H for the championship in September 2003.
It was an important achievement because it validated Goldberg's WWE run.
He had arrived.
He had beaten The Rock.
He had survived Evolution.
He had defeated Triple H.
And now he was World Heavyweight Champion.
The WCW monster had conquered WWE's mountain.
---
THE CONTRACT
But Goldberg's WWE story was complicated by his contract situation.
His original WWE run was short.
And by WrestleMania XX, everything was heading toward an ending.
Waiting for him was another monster.
Another powerhouse.
Another freak of nature.
Brock Lesnar.
---
GOLDBERG VS. BROCK LESNAR
This matchup should have been enormous.
Goldberg versus Brock Lesnar.
Two physical specimens.
Two men built around destruction.
Two athletes who seemed almost genetically engineered for professional wrestling.
But WrestleMania XX became a strange ending.
Both men were leaving.
The crowd knew it.
The atmosphere was hostile.
And the match was overshadowed by the circumstances surrounding it.
Goldberg won.
Steve Austin was the special guest referee.
But it wasn't the triumphant farewell that such a confrontation deserved.
Goldberg disappeared.
And for twelve years, he stayed away from WWE.
---
THE LEGEND GROWS IN ABSENCE
Sometimes absence makes a legend larger.
Goldberg's WWE career had ended.
But Goldberg himself never disappeared.
The entrance remained.
The Spear remained.
The Jackhammer remained.
The streak remained.
And the question remained:
What if?
What if Goldberg had stayed?
What if he had faced more of WWE's biggest stars?
What if the Brock Lesnar rivalry had happened at its peak?
What if Goldberg had been allowed to become the monster WWE fans imagined?
For twelve years, those questions existed.
Then, in 2016—
Goldberg returned.
---
THE RETURN
Survivor Series 2016.
Goldberg walked back into a WWE arena.
The reaction was enormous.
But this wasn't simply nostalgia.
Goldberg was immediately inserted into a story with Brock Lesnar.
And WWE made a bold decision.
They didn't present Goldberg as a former star.
They presented him as Goldberg.
The monster.
The Spear.
The Jackhammer.
The entrance.
The destruction.
And Brock Lesnar learned that the old Goldberg was still inside the new one.
---
GOLDBERG VS. BROCK LESNAR II
Less than two minutes.
That was all it took.
Goldberg destroyed Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series 2016.
The match shocked the wrestling world because Lesnar had been presented as an almost unstoppable beast.
And Goldberg destroyed him.
Again, the simplicity was everything.
Spear.
Jackhammer.
Victory.
Goldberg had returned after twelve years and reminded everyone why the character had become legendary.
WWE officially records the victory as taking less than two minutes.
---
THE UNIVERSAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Goldberg's comeback continued.
At Fastlane, he defeated Kevin Owens to become Universal Champion.
It was another extraordinary chapter.
Goldberg had now become a champion in multiple eras.
WCW.
WWE.
And now the Universal Championship.
He was no longer simply a legend from the Monday Night War.
He had become a bridge between generations.
---
WRESTLEMANIA 33
Then came the rematch with Brock Lesnar.
This time, it was WrestleMania.
And this time, the match delivered.
Goldberg and Lesnar threw everything at one another.
Spears.
Suplexes.
Explosive counters.
Physicality.
Eventually, Lesnar conquered Goldberg.
But Goldberg walked away with something more valuable than another victory.
He had restored the credibility of the rivalry.
The first match had been shock.
The second was a spectacle.
---
THE UNDERTAKER
Goldberg's later WWE years brought another dream confrontation.
The Undertaker.
Two icons.
Two mythical characters.
Two entrances that could change the temperature of an arena.
Goldberg's entrance.
The Undertaker's entrance.
It felt like the collision of two wrestling universes.
The match itself was imperfect and physically difficult, but the anticipation surrounding it demonstrated the power of Goldberg's legacy.
Even decades into his career, people still wanted to see him collide with the biggest names imaginable.
---
THE FIEND
At Super ShowDown, Goldberg faced another extraordinary opponent:
The Fiend, Bray Wyatt.
And Goldberg won the Universal Championship again.
That victory made him a champion in yet another chapter of WWE history. WWE lists Goldberg as a two-time Universal Champion.
The win also demonstrated something remarkable.
Goldberg didn't need to wrestle every week.
He didn't need a long storyline.
He could disappear.
Return.
Walk through the smoke.
And suddenly, the entire audience cared.
---
THE GOLDBERG FORMULA
The brilliance of Goldberg's character is that his formula is almost ridiculously simple.
Entrance.
Stare.
Spear.
Jackhammer.
Victory.
But simplicity is not the same as lack of sophistication.
Goldberg understood something fundamental about professional wrestling:
anticipation is power.
The audience doesn't need to see everything.
Sometimes they need to fear what they are about to see.
Goldberg's greatest matches were often built around the question:
Can anyone survive him?
---
WHY THE ENTRANCE MATTERS
There are entrances.
Then there are Goldberg entrances.
Smoke.
Explosions.
The music.
The crowd.
The walk.
The stare.
The feeling that something violent is about to happen.
His entrance is one of the most recognisable in wrestling.
It works because it mirrors the character.
Goldberg doesn't arrive to entertain you.
He arrives to destroy somebody.
And that distinction makes the entrance powerful.
---
THE LOOK
The bald head.
The goatee.
The muscular physique.
The black trunks.
The gloves.
The intensity.
Goldberg's visual presentation was instantly recognisable.
You could silhouette him and know who it was.
That is the goal of great wrestling character design.
The Undertaker has his hat and coat.
Hulk Hogan has the moustache and bandana.
The Rock has his eyebrow.
Goldberg has the look of a fighter.
A man who has just walked out of a combat-sports laboratory.
---
THE VOICE
Goldberg never needed to be one of wrestling's greatest talkers.
His voice worked because it was blunt.
Direct.
Aggressive.
There was no poetry.
No elaborate philosophy.
No complicated monologue.
Just intensity.
And then the question:
“Who's next?”
That was enough.
---
GOLDBERG'S LIMITATIONS
A great legacy does not require pretending a wrestler was perfect.
Goldberg had limitations.
His move set was relatively small.
His matches were often brief.
His character was dependent on physical dominance.
And when the aura of invincibility weakened, some of the limitations became more visible.
His original WWE run also never reached the sustained heights many fans expected.
Even WWE's retrospective assessment acknowledged that his 2003–04 run was widely viewed as disappointing despite major victories over The Rock and Triple H.
But this is precisely why Goldberg is so fascinating.
He didn't need to be the most complete wrestler.
He needed to be Goldberg.
And nobody else could do that.
---
THE PHYSICALITY
Goldberg's greatest gift was physical credibility.
He looked like he could actually hurt someone.
That sounds simple.
It isn't.
Professional wrestling requires suspension of disbelief.
Goldberg made that suspension easy.
When he Speared somebody, it looked violent.
When he Jackhammered somebody, it looked powerful.
When he stared at an opponent, it looked like he was measuring how much damage he was about to inflict.
That is charisma of a very specific kind.
---
GOLDBERG AND THE MONSTER ARCHETYPE
Professional wrestling has always loved monsters.
Andre the Giant.
The Undertaker.
Kane.
The Big Show.
Brock Lesnar.
But Goldberg's monster was different.
He wasn't supernatural.
He wasn't a giant.
He wasn't a mythical creature.
He was an athlete.
A freakishly powerful athlete.
That made him feel possible.
And therefore more frightening.
---
THE LEGACY OF WCW GOLDBERG
WCW created a blueprint for the modern dominant powerhouse.
The company took a physically imposing rookie and built him around one extraordinary idea:
He cannot be stopped.
That idea influenced wrestling for years.
The undefeated streak.
The short matches.
The dominant finish.
The entrance.
The anticipation.
The monster presentation.
You can see echoes of Goldberg in many later wrestling characters.
But none had exactly the same combination of timing, athletic credibility and cultural moment.
Goldberg was born at exactly the right time.
WCW needed a new phenomenon.
And it found one.
---
GOLDBERG VS. THE GENERATIONS
What makes Goldberg's career extraordinary is the number of generations he crossed.
He wrestled in the WCW era.
He entered WWE during the Ruthless Aggression era.
He returned during the modern WWE era.
He fought The Rock.
Triple H.
Kevin Nash.
Hulk Hogan.
Brock Lesnar.
The Undertaker.
Bray Wyatt.
And many others.
Different eras.
Different wrestling styles.
Different audiences.
Same Goldberg.
---
THE HALL OF FAME
In 2018, Goldberg became a WWE Hall of Famer.
The induction was inevitable.
His résumé included:
WCW Champion.
WCW United States Champion.
WCW World Tag Team Champion.
World Heavyweight Champion.
Universal Champion.
173–0 officially promoted undefeated WCW streak.
And a legacy that extended far beyond championships.
Goldberg wasn't inducted because he had the longest career.
He was inducted because he had an enormous impact.
---
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Goldberg's career continued long after most people expected it to.
He became the kind of performer who could appear once or twice a year and still generate an enormous reaction.
That is rare.
Most wrestlers need constant exposure to remain culturally relevant.
Goldberg didn't.
His absence became part of his mystique.
The entrance became an event.
The Spear became an event.
The Jackhammer became an event.
And eventually WWE announced that Goldberg would have a retirement match in 2025, following his announcement in November 2024.
Even the final chapter had to be Goldberg:
one last fight.
---
WHO'S NEXT?
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Goldberg is that the question survived the man.
“Who's next?” began as a wrestling catchphrase.
It became a cultural signature.
When Goldberg disappeared, people asked when he would return.
When he returned, they asked who he would fight.
When he entered an arena, people wondered whether someone was about to be destroyed.
The question became larger than any particular storyline.
---
THE SPEAR AND THE JACKHAMMER
There are wrestlers whose finishing moves are remembered.
Then there are wrestlers whose finishing moves become inseparable from their identities.
Goldberg is the second.
Spear.
Jackhammer.
That's the legacy.
Not twenty complicated moves.
Not endless sequences.
Two weapons.
Two movements.
Two pieces of wrestling vocabulary that immediately conjure one man.
---
FINAL BELL
Goldberg was never meant to be complicated.
He was meant to be unstoppable.
WCW looked at a former football player and saw a monster.
It built a mythology around him.
173–0.
The number became legendary.
Goldberg defeated Hulk Hogan.
He became WCW Champion.
He tore through the roster.
He became “Da Man.”
Then the streak ended.
WCW collapsed.
Goldberg disappeared.
And WWE waited.
When he finally arrived in 2003, he Speared The Rock.
He defeated The Rock.
He battled Triple H.
He survived Evolution.
He became World Heavyweight Champion.
He left.
He returned twelve years later.
He destroyed Brock Lesnar.
He won the Universal Championship.
He fought The Undertaker.
He conquered The Fiend.
He kept coming back.
And every time the lights went down, the smoke appeared and the music began, the audience understood.
Something was coming.
Not a technical masterpiece.
Not a twenty-minute wrestling clinic.
A collision.
A Spear.
A Jackhammer.
A three-count.
And perhaps, somewhere in the darkness, the voice of Goldberg still asks the question that defined him:
WHO'S NEXT?
Goldberg didn't need to be the greatest wrestler who ever lived.
He became something different.
Something arguably more difficult to create.
He became an icon of dominance.
A human wrecking ball.
A walking explosion.
A symbol of an era when professional wrestling could make a man look less like a competitor and more like an approaching storm.
And when the smoke clears, the ring is still standing, and the crowd is still screaming—
there is only one thing left to ask.
Who's next?
GOLDBERG.
FOREVER.
