Bill Goldberg: Encyclopedia II - Bill Goldberg - Career

Bill Goldberg - Career

Bill Goldberg - American football

He played college football at the University of Georgia, and then played pro football with the Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Rams, and attended the Carolina Panthers training camp, as well as with the Sacramento Surge of the WLAF, until his football career was ended by an abdominal injury. He tore all of his abdominal muscles, and had them surgically reattached.

Bill Goldberg - World Championship Wrestling

Goldberg became a wrestler, training in the WCW Power Plant wrestling school and entered the ring professionally on September 22, 1997, defeating Hugh Morrus. He then started on the path of what made him a wrestling superstar, his undefeated winning streak. WCW kayfabe said that he had 173 wins before wrestler Kevin Nash handed him his first loss. The count of 173 wins came from a record of televised matches, pay-per-views as well as house show matches.

He would become the WCW United States Champion on April 21, 1998, by defeating Raven. He would vacate the title after winning the World Heavyweight title.

He became the WCW World Heavyweight Champion on July 6, 1998 when he defeated the at the time nWo leader, Hollywood Hogan. He would hold the title until wrestler Kevin Nash handed him his first loss in WCW on December 27, 1998. Goldberg's streak was booked so that it took wrestler Scott Hall getting involved with a tazer gun for Kevin Nash to win.

During this time,the WWF began to make fun of Bill Goldberg by bringing out Dwayne Gill as "Gillberg"in some of the most hilarious moments in WWF history.

He would become a second time holder of the WCW US Championship on October 24, 1999 but would be defeated by Bret Hart the next day, losing the title. Amazingly enough, he would later team with Bret Hart to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship on December 7, 1999. They would hold the title for only a week, losing the titles to The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall).

In October 2000 Goldberg began a new streak, with Vince Russo threatening to fire him if he lost. The streak was broken after 35 victories on January 14, 2001 when he was pinned by "Totally Buff" (Buff Bagwell and Lex Luger) while tagging with his trainer, Dwayne Bruce in what was his last-ever WCW match. As a result of the defeat, Goldberg was obliged to "leave" WCW (in reality, he was given time off to have shoulder surgery), and WCW declared bankruptcy just two months later, while Goldberg was still rehabbing his shoulder.

Due to the fact that Goldberg was signed through Time Warner instead of directly with World Championship Wrestling, when the WWF purchased WCW, the WWF did not get Goldberg's contract with the purchase. At the time, the WWF chose not to buy out Goldberg's contract.

Goldberg suffered only six official losses in his WCW career in singles matches. Three of those losses were against Bret "Hitman" Hart. This does not include an unofficial loss in which Bret made his own three count.

Bill Goldberg - Japan

Goldberg waited out his contract after his run in WCW. He made his biggest splash in Japan with All Japan Pro Wrestling, becoming one of the biggest pulls in the country. This would finally prompt WWE to sign Goldberg.

Bill Goldberg - World Wrestling Entertainment

Goldberg would make his WWE debut on the March 31, 2003 episode of RAW, the night after WrestleMania XIX. He immediately started a feud with The Rock, culminating in a victory by Goldberg at Backlash 2003. His first win on RAW saw him defeat Three Minute Warning in a handicap match.

Later that year, he would defeat World Heavyweight Champion, Triple H, winning the title at Unforgiven 2003 on September 21. He held the title until Armageddon 2003 on December 14 when he lost the title back to Triple H in a triple threat match which included Kane.

During the 2004 Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar stormed the ring and hit Goldberg with the F-5, enabling Kurt Angle to eliminate him and thus costing him a WrestleMania title shot. This led to Goldberg appearing at the No Way Out 2004 the following month, as an "official audience member." After Brock Lesnar taunted him, Goldberg entered the ring and gave Lesnar a Jackhammer. SmackDown! General Manager Paul Heyman had Goldberg removed from the building by security, but he returned in the midst of Lesnar's WWE Championship title defense against the late Eddie Guerrero, costing Lesnar the match and the belt. This led to a match being booked between the two for WrestleMania XX. Goldberg was not seen on WWE television for several weeks before the event, as he had already worked the maximum number of dates (bar one, his WrestleMania appearance) stipulated by his contract and would have had to have been paid a supplementary salary in order to make extra appearances. This may have hurt the build to the WrestleMania match, with the last episode of SmackDown! before WrestleMania featuring a confrontation between Lesnar and Austin, not Lesnar and Goldberg.

At WrestleMania, Goldberg faced Lesnar with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the match's special guest referee. Goldberg was victorious, but both Lesnar and he received a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin. Lesnar and Goldberg had both gone undefeated for long periods of time, leading many fans to label a match between the two a "dream match". However, as both Lesnar and Goldberg were known to be leaving the company immediately after WrestleMania, the match was poorly received by the audience, who soundly booed both competitors. On March 31, 2004, Goldberg's contract expired and was not renewed.

Bill Goldberg - After professional wrestling

With aspirations to do work in film, Goldberg acted in two movies which were released in 2005. The first film of the two is the remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds film The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, in which he co-stars with fellow former wrestlers Kevin Nash and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The second, Santa's Slay, made its debut on Spike TV on October 25, 2005.

Recently, it has been noted that Bill Goldberg has been married to Wanda Feraton, a stunt woman whom he met while filming The Longest Yard. Bill and Wanda were married on April 10, 2005. They recently had a baby boy.

He now hosts the History Channel show, Automaniac, which started in 2005.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki