25 biggest pro wrestling ‘what ifs’ of the past 25 years

11. What if Goldberg’s undefeated streak in WCW goes longer?

Trust me, there’s nobody more than me that likes seeing Goldberg’s undefeated streak ahead of The Undertaker’s WrestleMania undefeated streak on any type of list so just know that this pains me even as I write it. However, the end of Goldberg’s streak at Starrcade in 1998 just has more impact on the business as a whole as it began a series of unfortunate booking errors by WCW that eventually led to the end of the company.

I don’t ever pretend to be a Goldberg guy. I just can’t do it. However, when he debuted in 1997, you just couldn’t help but take notice. He was a monster that was insanely athletic and despite his lack of real wrestling ability (just watch that match with William Regal), he had that “it” factor and he rose through the ranks of WCW at an insane pace, quickly becoming one of the biggest draws in the world. Not even 10 months after his television debut, he defeated Hulk Hogan clean on an episode of Monday Nitro, which isn’t something that really happens that often.

He went on to have a great program and match with Diamond Dallas Page at Halloween Havoc, even though a lot of us didn’t get to see all of it that night due to a pay-per-view error, and I’m not talking about the error that was the sequel to Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior. But I digress. Goldberg made it all the way to Starrcade, WCW’s version of WrestleMania, and defended the Big Gold Belt against Kevin Nash, who had broken away from Hogan and his version of the nWo to form The Wolfpac. The match was not very good at all and the ending was worse as Scott Hall used a taser to stun Goldberg and Nash took advantage, hitting a powerbomb and ending the streak at 173 (not sure how real that number is but that’s for another day).

So what happens if Nash doesn’t beat Goldberg at Starrcade. The biggest thing here is that we likely never get The Fingerpoke of Doom, which became the catalyst for WCW’s downfall. That took place a week after Starrcade as Hogan made his return and challenged Nash for the title. We all know what happened from there. What could have been done is what should have been done. Let the streak keep going. Hall and Nash and Hogan were already stars and WCW needed to make some new ones. There was so much young talent in the company that just never got a chance to shine and letting one of those guys, perhaps someone like Chris Jericho, be the one to end the streak could have changed the entire course of WCW. By the time they realized that the next generation was full of talent, those guys were already gone and/or it was just too late to fix.