It’s been a while since we had some of This Day in Wrestling History moments, and there’s plenty more out there to dive into.
This one comes to us from WCW’s Halloween Havoc on October 25, 1998. Diamond Dallas Page was challenging Bill Goldberg for the WCW World heavyweight Championship, and things got a little confused.
DDP is known as a meticulous planner, and many, including Goldberg, have said their best matches were with DDP because of that.
Goldberg talked about how he appreciated DDP in his book, I’m Next and he explained how DDP left a spot early to avoid a spear and Goldberg knocked himself out on the ring post.
He finished the match, but he didn’t remember the end of it.
DDP recently shared his memory of that night on his Instagram account.
Pulling it out
“I’ll Never forget Halloween Havoc 98. Crazy thing about this match, Bill F’d himself up so bad towards the end. After I narrowly, and I mean NARROWLY dodged a spear in the corner, Bill took 100% of his running momentum on his shoulder from the turnbuckle pole and then a fall outside the ring. His shoulder was completely JACKED. It gets worse… when he does finally hit the spear, he lands HEAD FIRST spiking himself on the mat. If he didn’t have those huge traps to support his neck, I don’t see how it wouldn’t have broken. Afterwards, he goes for the Jackhammer and fails on the first… I just think holy shit he’s Actually selling for me…truth is his shoulder just shot out….And his lights! HE’S KNOCKED OUT. Then he goes to Jackhammer me with one arm because the other is fucked. He can barely get me up before I hit a Diamond Cutter reversal and we both go down. Now here’s where I get hot about the kickout. I know he’s supposed to kick out of this, but it’s supposed to go long and slow, really work the crowd for that pop. Kick out at just a millisecond under 3…. 2 and 9/10th’s! I go for the pin and it’s a quick 1, 2 KICKOUT. No Suspense! I was SO PISSED OFF. That was THE MOMENT, you dont kick out of the cutter right away. We still finish the match strong, the crowd has a deafening pop, it was great. Bill picks up the W and later offers me a hand up and we hug. You see us talking and what I’m saying is “HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU KICK OUT AT 2!?!”……. he goes “ D……I don’t remember ANYTHING” 🤣 💥💎”
While Goldberg’s kickout frustrated him, it’s a testament to how well planned the match was and how well they worked together that they could keep the crowd into it.
In the end, the pay-per-view went over time and thousands missed the match. So WCW reaired it on the following WCW Nitro for free. It ended up being one of the highest viewed matches in wrestling history.
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