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Last we left Bill Goldberg, he was running through Raven -- and his entire flock -- to win the U.S. championship on World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) flagship show, Monday Nitro. The former footballer turned power lifter turned pro wrestler was close to reaching the height of his popularity in the industry, having won his first title and slowly but surely getting recognized as a main event level player.
The problem, of course, was the political landscape of WCW was so toxic in those days that the entire roster was left scrounging for crumbs while the New World Order (nWo) completely overran both Nitro and Thunder, the secondary show that ran Thursday nights on TBS. That left Goldberg with few options for opponents until the powers that be finally recognized there was nothing left to do but catapult him into the main event to wreak havoc on both the world heavyweight title picture and the nWo.
But that comes later.
And so, on this date in WCW history (June 5, 1998), Goldberg was booked to defend his U.S. title against Hugh Morrus, the same man he defeated in his debut match back in Sept. 1997.
Morrus came to the ring with his buddy at the time, Barbarian, and manager, Jimmy Hart. What resulted was a two-on-one handicap match that lasted all of a couple minutes, the high spot being Goldberg grabbing Hart off the top rope, tossing him into the arms of Morrus and Barbarian, and proceeding to spear them while they held Hart up.
Needless to say, fans in Peoria, Illinois, blew the roof off for this and continued screaming at WCW to give this man a heavyweight title shot as he jackhammered both men to run his undefeated streak up to 95 wins (according to resident statistician at the time, Mike Tenay).
Stay tuned for that. It wouldn't take much longer to get there.
In the meantime, watch Goldberg go over on two glorified jobbers (sorry, fellas) to a crowd that loved every move he made. If only we could get audiences like this for pro wrestling shows today.