Power-Slammed

Goldberg Vs. Steven Regal: What in the Hell Really Happened

Is there any business out there that isn’t cutthroat?! I mean, is there one industry where folks are not trying to stab the next man in the back just to get ahead and a little more bread?! And you wonder why we’re all still slaves on the got’damn plantation!

I'm afraid no industry's immune to the bullshit of bureaucracy which includes the professional wrestling business.

I've been watching a lot of wrestling lately. From old matches and shoot interviews to me catching a little bit of WWE's Summerslam recently. It's definitely been an exciting time for any wrestling fan.

Out of all the wrestling stories I've been binging on, this Goldberg vs. Regal thing caught my eye. 

I've seen interviews of William Regal talking about the match and he's always stated that an agent, who he didn't name told him to have a 6 minute match with Goldberg.

Now a 6 minute match sounds incredibly, short to today's wrestling fans. After all, we just saw MJF & Ospreay go damn near 60 minutes.

The thing was, this was back when Goldberg was running through the competition on a nightly basis in 90–120 seconds.

I went back and watched the match about 10 minutes ago. 

I spent a little bit of time looking for a HD quality version of the video but I had to stick to the convenience store-quality footage over at Youtube instead.

Now I have to disagree with Regal about Goldberg looking like a complete fish out of water here.

I thought he did very well for the most part considering the fact that he's only been wrestling for nearly a year up until this point.

In comparison, William Regal had been wrestling well over 10 years here which makes him the ring general in this situation.

That means he holds all the cards here which also means that he can make Goldberg look really good or make him look really bad.

The main problem with the match was that there was some miscues on BOTH of these men's parts. 

Not just from Billy but from you too Willy.

Like I pointed out earlier, you're the grizzled ring veteran at this point and Goldberg's clearly not so what's your excuse?!

Also, they should've "went home" (ended the match) about a minute earlier. 

Regal, in the interview I was watching, said they went 6 minutes which isn't too far off.

Cagematch.net clocked the match at 5:02.

I thought the match was decent even with the few botches that were in it. It showed Regal as a worthy challenger but made Goldberg look like the unstoppable monster he was back then.

I do think whoever told Regal to do what he did in the match was someone trying to sabotage Goldberg. 

Interesting thing was when they got to the back, Eric Bischoff asked Regal what he was doing out there all while the agent was standing next to him not saying a peep.

He just let Regal take all the heat. 

Obviously, said agent knew what he was doing and he knew Regal all too well.

In fact, all the boys in the back knew what Regal was going to do according to Stevie Ray, one half of the legendary tag team, Harlem Heat. 

According to this interview, Stevie Ray says,

"And the thing is, we all knew he was going to do it." When asked by the interviewer if Regal told him he was going to do this, he would go on to say, "Didn't have to. We know Regal. Regal's not finna lay down for nobody." 1:18–1:31

Ray was also asked if this was the reason why Regal got fired from WCW and he said that he believed that it was. 

Ray would also go on and tell a very weird story of how Regal got suspended when he urinated on a flight attendant.

I agree with Stevie Ray but I also believe that the agent put the battery in Regal’s back just like Vince McMahon Jr. did “Dr. D” David Schultz with the Jim Stossel shit back in the day.

See, you have these "office types" that like getting rises out of people and then when shit goes haywire, they have plausible denialibity. 

Now, that doesn't mean I'm letting Regal off the hook at all because after hearing that Regal/flight attendant story, the guy just doesn't seem wound too tight at all and the agent knew it and used it to his advantage.

I also believe that Regal "went into business for himself."

He might've been told to go the 6 minutes by an agent with an ulterior motive but Regal also had his own agenda which was to make Goldberg look like a complete amateur out there and the agent knew this as did everyone else. 

Goldberg would bounce back from this "mid" performance and would go on carrying the company on his enormous shoulders for the next year.

As for Regal? Well, he got shit-canned.

I just wished he would've dimed out that agent on his way out because he needed to receive his walking papers just the same.