by Rick Scaia
OnlineOnslaught.com

Certainly he set things in motion on that first night, by confronting the boastful Rock (who was in the middle of claiming he'd beaten everybody in the business when Goldberg decided to make his entrance and retort that there was at least one guy Rocky had never beaten).  But it was how things played up leading to Goldberg's first WWE match at the April PPV that really told the story...

Rocky was in full chickenshit mode for most of the "feud," which included a memorably hilarious "Rock Concert II" (where Gillberg made an appearance, and Goldberg unintentionally added to the comedy by being unable to operate the stick shift on his bad-ass sports car), and did everything humanly possible to get the fans to view Goldberg as an ass-kicking machine.  But maybe Rocky was TOO good, or fans were just too resistant to Goldberg coming in as an instant main eventer.  Even by the time their PPV match rolled around, about a quarter of the audience was still audily behind the Rock.

Looking at ratings, we get another story: Goldberg's debut on the post-WM edition of RAW drew a 3.7 (or down from the February peaks RAW had hit).  Already, not good, as Austin and Rock's RAW comebacks had boosted RAW into the low and mid-fours.  In the next two weeks, RAW would drop a few more tenths before boosting back up again just in time for the PPV (to a 3.8).

From there, RAW held steady as Goldberg became an active member of the RAW roster.  He even banged a 4.4 rating for his first RAW match (a cage match against Christian).  Unfortunately, RAW would not match that number for the entire rest of the year.

Project Goldberg continued over the course of the summer, and did eventually result in decisively-positive crowd responses and a World Title reign.  But it could also be argued that Goldberg didn't exactly come out of the gates running... 
 

IN OTHER NEWS

• In storylines, Steve Austin was fired by GM Eric Bischoff for fudging his medical condition to get clearance to wrestle. In reality, Austin was never specifically sidelined by any doctor, but his neck simply did not hold up to his return schedule the way he had hoped it would. The pain and potential for future degeneration led Austin and WWE management to decide to pull Austin entirely from an active wrestling schedule. The move was designed to extend Austin's career by allowing him a handful of future "special appearance" matches; if he had kept up a full schedule, it would have meant a career-ending second fusion surgery by the end of 2003. Now, that surgery can be put off until a proper in-ring send-off can be set-up for Austin. The firing at Bischoff's hands set the next phase of Austin's non-wrestling career in motion, as four weeks later, Austin was announced as Bischoff's "Co-General Manager" at the order of Linda McMahon, due to Bischoff's abuses of power...
• SD!'s mirror image of RAW's "Steve Austin gets fired" storyline was Vince McMahon sending Hulk Hogan home, to sit out the remainder of his contract (with pay). Vince's logic is that Hogan, if out of sight, would also be out of mind. Thus, the legacy of Hulk-a-Mania would rot for another year while Vince prevented Hogan from ever showing his face on TV. Just 2 weeks later, promos hyping the debut of a mysterious "Mr. America" began running, and Hogan was immediately pegged as a likely candidate to play the role under a mask....
• Defying all conventional wisdom, Rena "Sable" Mero returned on the first SD! of April. Given the tumultuous way she left the company the first time, many thought the reports from the 4/1 tapings were an April Fools' joke. But nope: her attitude apparently repaired, Sable was brought back to "feud" with Torrie Wilson over which Playboy Cover Girl was hotter. And -- sing along with the Rick, now -- the real winners were the fans...
• Roddy Piper's return at WM19 was astounding enough, but it was quickly announced that he was returning to the Fed in a regular role (as the host of Piper's Pit, and eventually as the manager of promising, but directionless, Sean O'Haire). In interviews, he claims he was first invited back four months previous but that he turned the Fed down because that's when corpse-raping and what-not was prevalent. Of course, in the same interviews, he said that he showed up as an invited guest at WM19, but that once he got in the ring, it was completely a spontaneous shoot, and that neither Vince nor Hogan knew what he was going to do. Yeah, right, Roddy...
• Chris Jericho instituted the "Highlight Reel" interview segment on RAW in direct response to the return of "Piper's Pit" on SD!, and it quickly became a very effective outlet for Jericho's talents. It even seemed, for a time, like Piper vs. Jericho would be a cross-brand feud that might burn slowly, possibly even until some sort of combined match/battle of wits at WMXX. It wouldn't quite turn out that way....
• Goldust, in full stuttering and twitching mode, appears in a few interviews (including on Howard Stern and Byte This) and takes advantage of staying "in character" to rip hard into his ex-wife Terri for being a shallow, too-much-make-up-wearing bitch (among other things). Nobody ever established, for sure, whether he was just joking around or not, though my suspicion at the time was that it was all just a gentle rib...
• Kevin Nash, absent for almost a year, returned to WWE TV in April. After a brief flirtation with his old buddy, Triple H, Nash revealed his allegiance to an ever-older buddy, Shawn Michaels. This set up a six-man feud, with HHH/Jericho/Flair taking on Michaels/Nash/Booker...
• Jericho and Bill Goldberg got into a backstage confrontation on only Goldberg's second night of work. Heated words did lead to some scuffling, but in true internet fashion, the confrontation was exaggerated as a full-blown fist fight on the basis of "bad blood" from the WCW days. In reality, Jericho never had any bad feelings towards Goldberg in the WCW days (those bad feelings were more directed towards management and those giving Goldberg his advice), and the two had actually worked together at a few charity hockey events in the subsequent years. The backstage situation was actually pretty minor, was defused quickly, and the two were civil with each other by the end of the night. They would, in fact, work a PPV program together starting late in the month....
• Because he protested the firing of Steve Austin, Jim Ross was at odds with Eric Bischoff, and after some friction, quit his job as announcer of RAW. This not only set into motion the series of events that begat the annoying Announcer Feud, but also led JR to miss his first PPV (Backlash) in over four years...
• A half-dozen or so episodes of the XWF (Xtreme Wrestling Federation, headed up by Jimmy Hart) air in a PPV format starting airing in April. One of the most striking features: Curt Hennig appearing in at least two main events for the promotion. The matches, you see, were taped almost 18 months prior, and took this long to find an outlet. Also appearing from beyond the grave: Ted "Rocco Rock" Petty. From the April 2003 WWE roster, Hulk Hogan, Jerry Lawler, Roddy Piper, Dawn Marie, Sable, and Gene Okerlund were also participant on XWF shows. Based on the performance of the PPVs, the group hoped to stage additional tapings over the summer to keep the project rolling; of course, no such thing happened, and a revival of the XWF has only in January 2004 again become a viable topic of discussion...
• WWE announcer, web personality, and in-general jack of all trades Kevin Kelly was let go by WWE. Though he'd been mostly invisible on TV the last few years, Kelly was still the host of "Byte This," and with his departure, the dumbing down of the Fed's online product only accelerated...
• Masanori Murakawa -- well-known to wrestling fans as "The Great Sasuke" -- was elected to his local assembly in the Iwate Prefecture in Japan. He did it by campaigning in his wrestling mask and maintaining his full in-ring character at all times, and pledged to legislate without losing the mask. Unfortunately, the assembly voted that he'd have to show his real face, for security reasons if nothing else...
• Rene Dupree and the evil French referee from No Way Out, Sylvain Grenier, debut as "La Resistance," Frenchmen who despise America and its policies. They briefly align with Chris Nowinski, who does a test run for what would eventually become Rob Conway's French-sympathizing American gimmick, against Goldust, Scott Steiner, and Test...
• Viacom announced plans to re-name "The New TNN" (which itself had been "new" for 2 and a half years) as "Spike TV," setting into motion an incomprehensibly retarded series of events that involved a lawsuit from Spike Lee that delayed the planned re-branding several weeks past its scheduled June 16 drop date...
• UPN greenlights "The Mullet Brothers," a sitcom intended to capitalize on the network's wrestling audience. OO is lucky enough to scan a script from the pilot and is essentially non-plussed...
• WWE won a British Court decision allowing them to continue distributing videogames with the old "WWF" scratch logo embedded in them; the court ruled that the World Wildlife Fund had not proven that sale of the games would in any way damage their enterprise and that, regardless, they could not claim exclusive ownership over the consecutive letters "W," "W," and "F." To date, the ruling hasn't really had much affect domestically; all instances of the scratch logo are blurred out, and no return to the "WWF" name seems imminent. But it was still nice to put one over on those assholes at the Wildlife Fund, even if only in a minor battle...
• Over the weekend of April 21, WWE and Jeff Hardy parted ways. The Fed actually instigated the separation, though Hardy didn't exactly kick and scream on his way out. The two sides had attempted various measures to get Jeff to "recharge his batteries" and again show an active interesting in his wrestling career, including a seriously reduced schedule. But nothing worked, and Jeff continued to be lackadaisical both in his performances and in his backstage behavior. Thus, the separation, which freed Jeff up to pursue his other, more pressing hobbies, including his music and his motorcycle jumping over his homemade volcano. And possibly a few other recreational activities that shan't be discussed on a fine Family Website like this one...
• Lita returned to RAW, and announced she would be ready to return to action in just a few more weeks. However, in reality, she was still several months away from her return, and Eric Bischoff stepped in and said after the mess with Austin, he wasn't risking another neck injury to one of his stars. So he offered Lita a non-wrestling role "like Torrie Wilson's on SmackDown!" (insinuating that Lita would have to do Playboy to keep her job). When Lita refused to give him a private audition, Bischoff outright fired her. It was this abuse of power that led Linda McMahon to determine that Bischoff needed a co-GM...
• At the Backlash PPV, Brock Lesnar was booed and Cena cheered in their SD! main event match, foreshadowing the paths each would take to remarkable break-out success later in the year...
• Following his Backlash PPV loss to Goldberg, Rock broke character and admitted to the live crowd that he was leaving WWE for a while to do a movie, but promised he'd be back. He'd make good on that promise before year's end...
• Speculation ran wild on less-reputable websites that WWE had approached Lex Luger about the "Mr. America" character. OO promptly promised to eat a bug if they panned out. Two days later, WWE unveiled Mr. America at TV tapings, Luger was under arrest following the discovery of prescription drugs in his house after the unfortunate death of Miss Elizabeth. Needless to say, no bugs were eaten in the preparation of this Year in Review...
• NWA-TNA promoted its biggest show in its existence on the last day of April, headlined by the first-ever showdown between NWA Champ Jeff Jarrett and WWE defector Raven. Fans were pumped for the show, which unfortunately ended with a sloppy and anticlimactic win for Jarrett, instead of the title change many had anticipated. It was a case of business necessity over-riding the correct creative decision, as Raven had refused to commit to an extended contract before the match, and TNA did not want to put their title on a guy not locked in to a long-term deal....
• The OO Forums fall prey to the dreaded cannot open xmb_threads.MYT error, and are closed for over a week. Before the error is fixed, almost four months worth of posts were deleted, and thousands were inconvenienced. They had to do, you know, actual WORK at work...
   

NOTABLE quOOtables

RATINGS TRENDS
(Note: RAW's cable ratings are converted to broadcast numbers 
for our monthly comparisons)

PAY-PER-VIEW RESULTS

TITLE CHANGES

Jerry Lynn/Amazing Red beat Triple X to win NWA Tag Team Titles on 4/16... Jazz beat Trish Stratus to win the World Women's Title on 4/27... Amazing Red beat Kid Kash to win the TNA X Title on 4/30...

E-MAIL RICK 
RETURN TO OO FEATURES HOME

All contents are Copyright 1995-2009 by OOWrestling.com.  All rights reserved.
This website is not affiliated with WWE or any other professional wrestling organization.  Privacy Statement.