by 2003 Goldberg Debuts and Spears The Rock Following WrestleMania XIX
When WCW was at its highest peak, Bill Goldberg was standing at the top of the mountain. He was the one thing the company managed not to screw up, and perhaps their biggest asset down to its dying days. While they mangled the nWo storyline, the legend of Ric Flair and even Bret Hart arriving with the company, they never messed with Goldberg.
With the brief exception of a failed heel turn, Goldberg was easily the most popular man in the company. He was also the last WCW competitor to sit out the bulk of his remaining AOL contract after Time Warner sold the company to the WWF in March 2001. It was two plus years since anyone had seen or heard from Goldberg, as he sat at home and collected the rest of his money.
Following WrestleMania XIX, With Stone Cold suddenly retired, the WWE had a huge gap to fill, and they did so by replacing one bald headed, goatee wearing SOB, with another one as Goldberg showed up to challenge The Rock in the closing moments of the Monday Night Raw following WrestleMania 19.
Only a year prior it was the debut of Brock Lesnar that stole the show, this year it was the man who a lot of fans envisioned a dream match with The Next Big Thing. But at first, it was just The Rock talking trash until Goldberg came down and put an end to that party as the show went off air.
The bulk of the show centered around Stone Cold Steve Austin leaving the building after Eric Bischoff proceeded to have him banned from RAW in the opening moments. It was The Rock appreciation night and Bischoff didn’t allow Austin to spoil the party by barring him from the arena. He even went as far to read off Austin’s medical records, revealing his damaged neck, and reason for retirement.
It was a ban that lasted only a few weeks as he was eventually brough back as “Sherriff Austin” to help Bischoff CO GM Monday Night Raw. This is a role Austin held down until November of 2003, before losing it at Survivor Series. Yet again, he wouldn’t stay away long after that either, showing up during the stretch run to WrestleMania XX.
In what was a rare moment, the World Champion HHH, who had just battled Booker T the night before, took on a guy who wasn’t even on the WrestleMania card in The Hurricane Shane Helms in a non-title match. Sure, The Hurricane had just upset The Rock the week before, but still, are you kidding me? Perhaps the bigger shock was the Hurricane took HHH to the absolute limit and almost beat him. He got several two counts on HHH, and fans started to believe they were going to see the shocker of a lifetime, two weeks in a row.
Reality would finally set in as HHH nailed the Pedigree for the win. Booker T was credited as the reason Hurricane was able to have such a competitive match as HHH was seen as tired out from the night before. I’m still not sure if this was done to elevate The Hurricane, or protect Booker T after having him job out to HHH.
Right after that match, they cut to the back where Kane was trying to tell RVD he didn’t want to tag with him anymore after their recent loss to Val Venis and Lance Storm. It was a bit odd because Kane was completely normal, spoke clearly and was no longer the “Satan’s Favorite Demon”.
If it wasn’t for having to wear a mask, you would have thought Kane was just another normal guy. Clearly, this was done for a reason as they were about to start Kane on the biggest heel run of his career shortly afterwards, losing the mask, and attacking everyone in sight.
Before the night was over, Lance Storm and Val Venis defended the tag belts against The Dudley Boyz and Kane & RVD. The Dudleys were eliminated first, and then RVD with Kane, would cruise to victory pinning the champs ,to win the belts. In the course of one night, Kane went from telling RVD they should split up, to hoisting championship gold. It wouldn’t last long.
The other odd thing was that even though the Goldberg surprise appearance was held to the end of the show, all throughout the night they kept advertising him for the Backlash Pay Per View. With Austin kicked out of the building and The Rock holding a concert to end the show, fans just knew they would see Goldberg before Backlash.
Speaking of WCW champions on RAW, Scott Steiner was up next as he took on Christopher Nowinski. Steiner has been buried by HHH on back to back PPV’s to start the year and was slowly starting to build momentum again. He crushed the Harvard graduate in under five minutes but looked terrible in the ring. He got the easy win, but could only do belly to belly Supplex’s. It was clear that the best days of Steiner’s career were far behind him.
Maven reminded everyone who he was with a quick rollup victory over Rosie. Before Maven even had 5 seconds to celebrate, they cut to Jerry The King Lawler at the Playboy Mansion. Maven’s win wasn’t mentioned again the rest of the night. It made fans wonder what the point of the entire segment was other than to fill time.
The heavy WCW feel to this night continued as up next was Chris Jericho versus Booker T. They continued to portray Booker T was the ultimate babyface as it only took minutes for Ric Flair and HHH to get involved as they assisted Jericho in a 3 on 1 mugging. It was weird to see HHH partnering with Jericho after they spent most of the prior year feuding.
Shawn Michaels, who also had a lengthy feud with HHH before getting involve in the feud with Jericho showed up next to save the day. He couldn’t, and all of this led to both Booker T and Shawn Michaels on the receiving end of the beatdowns.
Jeff Hardy was on the dying days of his initial run with the WWE as his battle with addiction was starting to get the best of him. They tried on this night however to give him one last good run with the company by having him go over Stevie Richards with ease. To the shock of everyone, Matt Hardy had done extremely well since he began a singles career, while Jeff continued to sink.
The paint-soaked Jeff Hardy won on this night and then engaged in a little kissy face with WWE Women’s Champion Trist Stratus. It was out of nowhere, and just a little odd. They were trying everything to keep Jeff relative with the fan base. It wouldn’t work.
Speaking of odd relationship pairings on RAW, the next was Test with Stacy Keebler. It was a strange year for Stacy who had hooked up with Vince McMahon after being fired from managing the Dudley Boyz, and then spent a good amount of time around Test and then eventually, Scott Steiner.
Test was caught talking on the phone to Torrie Wilson about her playboy spread coming out the next day, and he needed Goldust to cover up for him, as Goldie was also in the locker room when Stacy walked in. Goldust territs syndrome took over and then he started shouting about Torrie Wilson being naked and Test wanting to see the magazine. Stacy figured it out fast, and stormed out.
They would try a couple more times to pair Test up with women for storylines, but it never quite seemed to work out. He and Stacy were an item in real life, but once that split occurred, this storyline was doomed. Test was just one of those guys who had a million chances, but could never make any of them work. His problems with drugs and steroids didn’t appear to help matters.
As mentioned, the night ended with The Rock holding a concert in the middle of the ring, until it was broken up by Goldberg. The Goldberg run would last exactly a year, as it flamed out heavy right at WrestleMania XX against Brock Lesnar. In the course of the year, he held the World Title once, but complained about the heavy work load of the WWE, and simply couldn’t cut it before quitting on bad terms. He wouldn’t appear on WWE television again until the tail end of 2016.
