During one of the matches on this DVD, Tony Schiavone mentions that Goldberg was on the cover of that week’s Entertainment Weekly. This is a pretty good representation of just how popular Goldberg was in the late 90’s. He’ll always hold an important place in history as the only new home-grown talent in WCW during the “Nitro era”. In a very short period of time, he became one of the biggest names in wrestling. Looking back, it’s hard to pick out just what made him so popular. It was a lightning in a bottle type of situation, and probably would not happen today. He was never the greatest wrestler, but he was able to become popular in other ways. Watching all of his stuff in a condensed manner like this, though, his struggles in the ring come to the forefront. The DVD is rated TV-14. The first disc runs 2 hours, Disc 2 runs 2 hours 20 minutes, and Disc 3 runs 2 hours and 45 minutes.
“The Streak”: The Format
As has been widely reported, Bill Goldberg was not actually associated with this DVD in any way. Because of this, the informational segments throughout this DVD are pretty few and far between. They reminded me a lot of the segments throughout Tombstone: The History of the Undertaker, but they are not featured before every match like on that DVD. This format feels very antiquated. When they are featured, the segments do help to give some context to the matches. There just aren’t enough of the segments, though, and they aren’t always placed at the best portions of the DVD. While they do provide context, they don’t give any insights you may have gotten if there was an interview with Goldberg or another wrestler in its place. If you get the DVD, these segments are certainly worth watching, but don’t buy the DVD just to watch these little segments. If you go in with any expectations, you are sure to be disappointed.
“Who’s Next?”: The Matches
Because there are so many matches on this DVD, I’m going to use a different match review style this time. Not only are there a lot of matches throughout this DVD, the matches are all pretty similar. A lot of fans like to criticize John Cena for his “5 Moves of Doom”. Well, it’s possible that Goldberg only had 5 offensive moves in total. Ultimately, this is one of the biggest problems with the DVD. While there are some standout matches, which I’ll discuss below, the DVD becomes very repetitive very quickly.
Disc 1 is the standout of the DVD. This disc features Goldberg’s entire historic streak, as well as his first lost. The two best matches on the entire set are found within the streak: his matches against DDP from Halloween Havoc and against Sting from Nitro. These are both exciting matches; at times it feels believable that the streak could end, even with Goldberg in control for a good portion of the match. The matches run a bit longer than most of Goldberg’s early matches, but they don’t go too long and get repetitive. Easy recommendations here. The other highlight on this disc is the infamous title match against Hogan. While this is a match that most of us have seen before, it never gets old. The in ring action isn’t great, but the crowd gets so into the match it’s hard not to get excited yourself. Nothing else stands out much on Disc 1; I had high hopes for the match against Curt Hennig, but it is shockingly short, and never really goes anywhere.
From the strongest part of the DVD, we now go the weakest: Disc 2. The most interesting aspect of this disc is watching WCW nearly ruin the Goldberg character. After the streak, they never really knew what to do with Goldberg, and that’s pretty clear to see here. All that being said, here are some words I never thought I would type: the Goldberg Vs. Scott Steiner match is the best match on this disc. Even though neither man was great in the ring at this point in their careers, they play off of each other really well, and put together a fun story. Of course, Vince Russo nearly ruins it with his interference (Russo is a terrible on-screen personality, regardless of your thoughts on his writing abilities), but that doesn’t keep it from being the highlight of the disc. I would recommend checking this one out. Nothing else here is worth taking the time to watch, though. The re-matches with DDP & Sting from 1999 are both disappointments compared to the matches from 1998 on Disc 1. The biggest disappointment on the whole DVD might be the I Quit match with Sid. I was hoping the gimmick match would help freshen up the DVD, but the match is ridiculously short for an I Quit match. I guess that’s what I deserve for going into a Sid match with any type of expectations.
Goldberg’s WWE run is represented on Disc 3, and overall, it’s fine, but forgettable. The easy highlight is the SummerSlam 2003 Elimination Chamber match. Goldberg looks like a monster in this match, and you get a nice break by getting to see some other wrestlers go at it as well. It’s one of the weaker Elimination Chamber matches in history, but on this DVD, it’s a nice change of pace. For very different reasons, the other memorable match from Goldberg’s WWE run is his disasterpiece with Brock Lesnar. I’ve written about this match before, and as bad as it is, it must be seen as a fascinating piece of wrestling history. Everything else on this disc falls into the “mediocre” category. None of it is all that bad, but none of it is all that great either. The repetition starts to become a pretty big problem by this point.
“You’re Next!”: Closing Thoughts
Let’s be frank. Bill isn’t even the best Goldberg out there in the pop culture ethos. That being said, here are some (very) brief thoughts on some other famous Goldbergs:
ABC’s The Goldbergs: If you like 80’s references, you’ll really enjoy this. Otherwise, nothing special.
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg: A great documentary about the early days of television.
Whoopi Goldberg’s Eddie: A good representation of the ridiculous high-concept sports comedies of the 90’s.
Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen’s This is the End: One of the best films of the year so far.
The Rube Goldberg machine I built with the Spring 2008 Basic PTM class at Carnegie Mellon: It worked! Who doesn’t love a Rube Goldberg machine?
OK, at this point, I guess I should move onto a discussion of this DVD. Here’s the big takeaway from this release: not all compilations need to be 3 Disc DVD sets. Not counting the Superstar Collection series, we haven’t had a compilation release that had fewer than 3 discs since the Bobby Heenan DVD in December 2010 (almost 3 years ago). I don’t care how big of a Goldberg fan you are, I just don’t think anyone needs 7 hours of Goldberg matches. They are all too similar. After watching through all of the matches on this DVD, it became clear that you could easily pick out 2.5-3 hours worth of solid Goldberg matches and make a great 1 disc release. If a documentary had been included, then I would go 2 discs, with 1 disc of bonus matches.
For this reason, it’s tough to recommend this DVD as a whole. There are 4 or 5 solid matches throughout the discs, but the rest isn’t anything special. The segments aren’t going to teach you anything new either. If you are a big Goldberg fan, I’m sure you will want to get this, but unless you are really into Goldberg, I’d say that this is a pretty easy pass.
Get your copy :: Amazon.com. WWEShop.com.
UK/Europe/Australia :: WWEDVD.co.uk. WWEDVD.com.au.
Cold Hard Facts About this DVD: It shows all his matches,maybe 1-3 promo’s. That’s it. No Extras or Interviews.
I have always been an avid Goldberg as I was a young kid (11) when he first showed up on Nitro and I’ve enjoyed all the other things he’s done still going on with tv shows and movies. I hate to say it but this dvd damn disappointed me with no extra interviews and to me not worth the cost at all since you can practically watch all of his matches (and more) on the internet.
I agree with the reviewer… Goldberg’s matches are too similar… for a long time they were just… *Spear*… IT’s OVER!!! GOLDBERG WINS FOR THE 856TH TIME!!! Ok, not exactly like that… but somewhere along those lines!
I had this very long wall of text typed up on this DVD and the above review but toward the end of my writing I bumped the wrong key on the keyboard and lost everything. I hate that so much. So now I do not have the heart to re-type all that, it was probably not that interesting anyway, but I would like to comment on this, the review is great, thanks for not reviewing every match because that would have just made for too much reading, and I agree with the reviewer on which matches were good, Goldberg-DDP from Halloween Havoc 98′ is a great match, very surprised by that one, as well as the Sting match from the same year. But even after those two surprises I still have been enjoying this DVD very much, I have not made it to disc two of the Blu-Ray yet and that is all the WWE footage from 03′ and 04′ which was a few of the years when I was not watching WWE at all, so these matches will be new for me, except for the Elimination Chamber match which I have on the Satan’s Prison set from a few years back. I was a big fan of WCW from 96′ to 2000′ so I have seen most of the disc one matches when they happened, but thankfully watching them again is almost as enjoyable as watching them back then. This DVD is a surprisingly good release in a year that has so far been a very good year for WWE releases. Looking at the pre-release list for 2013 all this year and the Goldberg DVD looked like the lone stinker in a good year, but I was wrong, it is very good and I would recommend it highly. Thanks for the good review brother.
I liked this review. I don’t need a review of every single match included on these dvds. That is completely unnecessary. This is a review of the dvd. If people want reviews of individual matches, perhaps they should look into reviews of individual matches and not reviews of dvds.
First, I’d like to let everyone know that I waited years for something Goldberg related to come out after he left WWE. When I first heard this was coming out, I let all my wrestling buddies know! Now, I’m not so sure any of that was a good idea. Worth the wait? Just read and find out for yourself.
1. The cover. Terrible cover choice. For one, its a WWE photo when it should have been a WCW picture they used instead. I think the best photo they could have used is him standing in the sparks at the stage during his entrance with the WCW Heavyweight belt on. (which always looked best on him!) Instead they just took a random generic photo of him standing in the corner of the ring about to spear the living hell out of HHH? I think.
It only gets worse from here, so be prepared. If you have not bought this yet, and you were around back in the day to watch this stuff on TV, then you will be very disappointed by the next few things I say.
2. They used his music from his WWE days, in ALL of the WCW footage. Its all be HEAVILY edited to exclude the original theme “Invasion” by Christian Poulet. Its a huge upset because there is something about that original theme that was just much better than WWE’s version. Don’t get me wrong, Jim Johnston has made some of the best themes of all time, and his rendition of “Invasion” was good for what it was, but it was NOT the theme the fans remember best. But it doesn’t stop there with the heavy editing. Because of the new dub on the audio track that the editors had to do, they took out all the original camera audio as well. The camera’s that would be up close in Bill’s face would pick up all his explosive screams as he did his punch kick combos in succession with the pyro. So now, all you see is him “screaming” but you dont hear anything. Just that annoying version of “Invasion”. My best guess is that WWE does not own the rights to the original “Invasion” and didn’t want to pay up a very small licensing fee to use it in this release. Its a shame because licensing fees are usually not that expensive, especially for a $2billion dollar company. The fans (*myself and many others) would have appreciated this, but they instead copped out, like usual.
3. Michael Buffer has been removed from all entrance announcements. This was a signature WCW thing that they did with big matches. I have no idea why they did this, probably Buffer wants royalties like Jesse Ventura does for all the commentary he did for WWE’s and WCW’s shows.
4. Pyro used to be super loud and full of bass, now it sounds like a silly firecracker. I remember watching the DDP vs. Goldberg match at Halloween Havoc 1998 on ppv. I even have seen the same video on YouTube, so I know I’m not getting old or crazy. But I remember almost all of his entrances with the sparks had a deep **BOOM** that went along with them as they turned on. Yet again, WWE felt the need to edit the hell out of this as well! This is just ridiculous and really angers the piss out of me. There was no reason to do this and it takes away from that experience of watching Goldberg do his thing on that stage. So now all you will hear when you watch this is a tiny little *spak* sound as they turn on. The rest of the pyro is also very loud and boomy, but they just turned that down by about 98% I dont get it, and it really was not necessary. Nobody is going to go blowing their sound system over this, in fact, thats the part when I would have turned it WAY up!
5. They didn’t actually get Goldberg to do any type of interview for this. They didnt even use archival footage from the WCW days. I just bought the HHH “Thy Kingdom Come” last week and they just sit him down on a sofa, probably at his house and literally squeeze info out of him. But they couldn’t get Goldberg for 1 hour to do a little interview for this release. They guy is pretty made as far as money goes, and he surely loves his fans. He more than likely would have done this for little pay, or even free! That would have sent this over the top and the rest of the fatal flaws in this disc probably wouldn’t have mattered that much. But again, they chose the cheap and easy way out of this release. Shame… a real shame.
Goldberg was the best thing that happened to WCW, and he even managed to kick ass in a super competitive WWE. The fans still chant his name to this day. Yet WWE took the cheap and easy route and made this nearly painful to watch, for someone that was, and still is as big as Goldberg. They dont cheap out on their ‘superstars’ such as Rock, Stone Cold, and HHH. But they cheap out real quick when its a WCW guy. Even to as far as make his entrance less cool. Shame on you WWE. This will be my last purchase from them for quite some time for sure.
Its ok.The wwe is great.I could build goldberg up by telling you stone cold and the rock are actors.Triple h is the son in -law,I like all 3 wrestlers.I am a goldberg fan,but he was no cm punk.Brett hart was the best technical wrestler i have every seen,goldberg went head to head wit him.Listen to the stories,andre didnt like hogan he beat him up in the early days.People throw up before wrestling vader.Goldberg was real,enough said !
Goldberg was a stiff piece of sh*t in the ring. Kicked the greatest technical wrestler in the head and ended his career. So much for putting Goldberg over two guys who has more skill and can actually wrestle.
How much does it cost to license “Invasion”? I ask because you seem to know. Apparently it’s a “very small fee”?
small fee for a billion dollar company. learn to read, punk!
“He more than likely would have done this for little pay, or even free!”
Lol – really? He’d have done it for “free”? What kind of dream world are you living in, lol.
“and he surely loves his fans”
Except that he doesn’t and its always been about the money and fame for him. He’s turned down multiple offers from the WWE in the past and even TNA just because the money wasn’t good enough for him.
“Its a huge upset because there is something about that original theme that was just much better than WWE’s version. ”
That is your opinion, not fact. I like the WWE version better and you have no place claiming what fans remember best. Don’t project your crap on everyone else.
I believe the Goldberg set is not for the so called “smart fan” that care about “technical wrestling” with headlocks, submissions, 450 flips, etc. People that grew up watching Goldberg will appreciate this set.
I’m not a Goldberg fan, but I respect what he accomplished during his time and was quite possibly the biggest star in WCW and one of the biggest in wrestling from 98-99 with guys like Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Hogan, Sting at top. The reactions he use to get were amazing and people just loved him for his so called “squashes”, because he made it look badass and it worked for him. People seem to forget the guy was pretty damn agile for his size and i think he pulled off back flips occasionally.
Not everyone has to look or be like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk which seems like the only people “smart fans” care about these days while everyone else just suck because they don’t pull off technical wrestling.
I agree,but i wouldnt call it dum wrestling.In a fight,danial bryant or bill goldberg.I am taken goldberg.The truth,theres only a hand full of technical wrestlers today.Cm punk,at first i didnt like him.He looks like a punk band member.But i have to admitt he is great.Kurt angle,one of the best.Daniel bryant,I dont think he will every be as good as cm punk.Brett hart was,shawn micheals no.Example people love the under taker,hate jhon cena.So calling power wrestling dum is calling sports entertaiment dum.Isnt it surpose to entertain ?
If you took Goldberg over Daniel in a fight, you’d probably lose your money. Jericho kicked Goldberg’s ass backstage, so I’d take Bryan over Goldberg. And I own this DVD as a fan of late 90’s WCW/Goldberg. He’s not a skilled fighter so lets get real.
so what if Goldberg could do a backflip? Brock Lesnar was constantly doing the shooting star press as his finisher in OVW and just think of the replays for WrestleMania had he not screwed up the shooting star press.
First i would like to think wwe dvd news for keeping us updated.Most of my favorite wrestlers are power wrestlers.The road warriors,the geartest tag team of all time.Moat of there matches were short,because they were so powerful.Ultimate warrior,hulk hogan,van vader,andre the giant,none were technical but were fun to watch.Goldberg was a power wrestler,had he wrestled for 20 years like shawn micheals maybe he would have went to a new level.But i bought the blue ray disc and i have enjoyed it.I think wwe classics on demand is doing good so there is a market for wwe home video to put some od the older stuff out.
I thought the Goldberg DVD was good. There are a couple of matches/happenings that I think should have been added to it for WCW timeframe.
Goldberg was my favorite wrestler to ever come out of the Hart Dungeon. His Japan work on this set is truly amazing and is the reason I picked it up. His matches with Kofi Kingston and Rick Martel are true classics. I hope he comes back to WM30 to cash in MITB.
Just what were you smoking when you “watched” this DVD?
Why? Want some? I was watching South Park.
Dude, you’re comments are never funny and you sound like an idiot each time.
Bro, I could care less. And I love your photo. Is that Mario Brothers?
lol epic, best review ever good job.
hey i liked this dvd dispite was some person says on a website or whoever u know i had a choice either hhh or goldberg I PICKED GOLDBERG i did not grow up a big wcw fan but more i watch the tapes i got more i miss wcw which is why any time wwe makes a wcw release instant buy u dont gotta be biggest supporter of bill goldberg but he was a big superstart for only a short time and was a house hold name dvd wise it would of been nice for bill himself to be in this but ehh so what they did a macho man dvd with maria and matt that got BORING WITH THOSE 2 BEING OVER THE TOP but i enjoyed it so matches wise yea they get bit repeative but thats wat u get when u buy a just matches dvd sometimes they run toghter like austin after so long its the same or cena or kane or rock dont matter now some matches i think that are missing should of been on here like i hurd vs saturn in 98 or vs regal i hurd is really good i think there tazer ladder match from souled out 99 should of been on here but eh wat u gonna do in closeing if u are a fan of DA MAN!! GET IT or if u wanna see some old wcw get it if not then wait it will be a few bucks in a few months used somewhere until then WHOS NEXT!!! CUES GOLDBERG THEME 😮 xD
Is his original WCW music included?
Unfortunately his original WCW theme music wasn’t licensed for this release. They dub in his WWE theme music along with dubbing over the themes of Mongo McMichael,Sting(his Metallica song), Scott Steiner and DeWayne Bruce. They also remove all of Buffer’s intros.
The exclusion of Michael Buffer I understand (he charges large for use of his catch phrase), but the editing out of his WCW theme I don’t fully understand. His WWE theme was a reedit of his original theme, so they have some sort of rights to it. I think the exclusion was a creative decision by WWE for some reason.
The Metallica song exclusion I especially understand, with McMahon’s history with them.
Great review and for those that don’t like how he did it, just rent it first.
This set was okay, but wasn’t worth keeping 🙁 I was actually looking forward to the match at Starcade Vs Bret Hart, but it ended up being the worst match on the set! It had a ridiculous end to it! Though I did enjoy these matches
WCW;
• Vs Hollywood Hogan for his first World Title win
• 1 of his matches against Sting
• A match Vs Kevin Nash
WWE;
• Vs Rock
• Elimination Chamber match and
• Two title matches against Triple H
I usually love your reviews Joe but not this time. Why didn’t you give us a match by match review like you always do? I was looking forward to hearing your thoughts on each match.q
I’m gonna go back to that in the future, for you and anyone else who prefers that style. It just would have gotten too repetitive to discuss each match, and most of the matches I just didn’t really have anything to say about. If it wasn’t discussed in the review, that says something about the quality of that match.
I’m sorry Joe. I didn’t mean to upset you, but when it comes to reviewing wrestling some fans expect to have things like star ratings they can use so they can catalogue the matches. And yes…I don’t think it’s review when in the middle you bring up other famous “Goldberg’s”. Your a writer on a wrestling site, that kind of makes you a journalist, so ya…it doesn’t matter what matches YOU think are important…this is for other people who may want to by this set.
I’m sorry, I just need a clarification here. It doesn’t matter what matches the reviewer thinks is important, yet you still want him to give his own star ratings so you know which matches are important?
Let me clarify, I know things like that are subjective, but my point is, he only mentions a handful of matches on the set, I understand what he’s going for here…its Goldberg, I get it, but my point is a full review should still be required, especially for people who have been coming to this site for years expecting that kind of thing. So yes, in a sense I DO want to know what matches he thinks are important, but the method he used here is not professional in my opinion, compared to his other better reviews. Hope that answers your question. I was just disappointed in the lack of actual review for this set, considering the amount of content and how much of it was previously unreleased, because, lets face it, this is the last site left giving these types of DVD’s a thorough review.
I dont agree wit your review,I love the goldberg set.The reason some goldberg matches were short because he dominated almost everyone he wrestled.Who else has wins over sting,brett hart,hulk hogan,brock lesner,and could pick up the big sHow and power bomb him.I like shawn micheals,but i dont think anyone wants a third dvd set for him.He was a tag team wrestler,who got better as his career went along,but brett hart was better.
✓
I’ve never seen Goldberg powerbomb Big Show but Brock Lesnar certainly did that thought at Vengeance 2003. All Goldberg ever did was Jackhammer the Big Show while Lesnar did powerbombs, suplexes, ring implosions with the 500 pound monster.
Wish we could have gotten an actual review here…you know breaking down the good and bad matches, even if the review of the match consisted of “5 moves of doom & Goldberg wins”, insert star rating *here* because there is actually a few pretty decent matches on here and maybe…JUST MAYBE there are a few Goldberg fans here who wanna know that information. I myself picked up the set & hated the fact they dubbed his music, but that was about the biggest issue, a good amount of this is unreleased & you get a ton of matches. Even a couple standouts…Raven’s Rules, & vs. Christian in a cage match. It’d be nice to see a real review because let’s face it…no one else is gonna give us one & I thought that’s what this site was for? 7/10 for DVD.
I’m pretty sure I pointed out all of the matches I found meaningful. I think I would consider that a real review. If I didn’t mention a match, then it wasn’t anything worth talking about to me.
This is a real review. Most wrestling reviews just type out what happens move by move and then assign an arbitrary number to it. If that sounds interesting to you just watch the damn match!
Personally, I watched the entire blu ray the day I got it and thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I knew exactly what to expect from Goldberg. His music is a bit repetitive to hear so many times, but it was great to have so many matches as he is one of the biggest names and had been ignored by WWE DVDs for so long. The matches aren’t likely to make too many other compilations so its right that they should all be released here. I’m very happy to have this in my collection! Its probably a set where its best to just relax and enjoy it rather than analyse the wrestling. I will admit that nostalgia is a big reason why I liked this set. I probably won’t watch it all through again, but I liked to just pull out a match here and there anyway. Also, I see the matches as the primary source whereas the documentaries are often quite revisionist and sometimes full of lies and interview people that aren’t relevant to the subject etc etc. You don’t get any of that here. For better or worse it speaks for itself. There are a hell of a lot of WWE sets worse than this!
Think I’ll wait for this to show up either on Netflix, or a $5 bin somewhere.