Back in 1998 Goldberg was one of the biggest stars in all of professional wrestling. He was the WCW World Champion and he had an impressive winning streak of 173 matches. On December 27, 1998 Goldberg defended his WCW World Championship at the sixteenth annual Starrcade in a match that would be the end of his winning streak and the end of his title reign.
Goldberg put the WCW World Championship on the line in a no disqualification match against Kevin Nash in the main event of the show. He had the upper hand but then had to deal with interference from Disco Inferno, Bam Bam Bigelow and Scott Hall attacking him with a stun gun. Kevin Nash then hit the Jacknife Powerbomb on Goldberg to win the match.
The ending was met with a lot of of criticism and what followed was one of the most infamous moments in WCW history. On the January 4th episode of Nitro, Kevin Nash was supposed to face Goldberg in a rematch, but Goldberg was arrested after he was falsely accused of stalking Elizabeth.
Nash would go on the face Hollywood Hulk Hogan in a World Championship match where Hogan beat him with the “Fingerpoke of Doom.” After being poked one time by Hogan, Nash dropped to the ground and laid down allowing Hogan to get the three count and win the World Championship. Nash and Hogan then reunited the New World Order.
WWE ran a taped episode of Raw on this same day and it just so happened to be the episode where Mick Foley won the WWE Championship. WCW spoiled the ending of the match for viewers before it aired by having announcer Tony Schiavone say the following:
“Fans, as Hollywood Hogan walks away and you look at this 40,000 plus on hand, if you’re even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, fans, do not, because we understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here one time as Cactus Jack, is going to win their world title. Ha! That’s gonna put some butts in the seats, heh.”
Many viewers tuned out of Nitro and turned the channel to Raw when they found out about Mick Foley’s big moment. This mistake on WCW’s part helped propel Raw to a 5.7 in the ratings which beat out Nitro’s rating of 5.0.
Goldberg’s match with Kevin Nash at Starrcade set a strange set of events in motion. The “Fingerpoke of Doom” is often referred to as the most destructive moment in the history of WCW and it started a pattern of declining ratings for the company. Now WCW is no more and it goes to show the big impact that a few bad booking decisions can have on an entire industry.
