In looking at Bill Goldberg for our new “Moves of Doom” feature, I rewatched his WCW Nitro debut against Hugh Morrus—formerly WWE Performance Center trainer Bill DeMott—in late September 1997. While the match was meant as a showcase for the company’s new super rookie, the spotlight didn’t simply belong to him.
Tale of the Tape
We’ll have to do a “Wrestling Salvage Yard” on Morrus soon as he is one of those then-young WCW heavyweights that piqued my interest. The company had several heavyweights come through who were either solid in-ring but didn’t stand out, probably generic in-ring, and as a character, they looked great but were meh in-ring, or they just weren’t…WCW should’ve charged the wrestler for wasting their time.
Morrus fell into category one. He was solid but didn’t stand out when you saw him. Honestly, he could’ve been the third member of High Voltage and no one would’ve batted an eye. His ring work was mostly power brawling mixed with some surprising agility for his build.
Meanwhile, Goldberg fell into category three. The guy looked like he was in phenomenal shape, he had strength and agility—he had a chunk of the tools to be a star that WCW could use. He didn’t really stand out as special as there have been several bald, muscular wrestlers in black but he came along at the right time as the badass-in-black was about to run at the end of the decade. In the ring, he wasn’t particularly special.
Goldberg could do some stuff in the ring and looking at his build, you’d expect him to be capable of a lot more but you’d be mistaken. What you see in his TV debut is the majority of what he was capable of in the ring. Some of that little bit was cut in future matches so that when he used it in future matches it looked like new tricks in his bag.
Goldberg vs. Hugh Morrus: WCW Nitro 09/22/1997
This was a super short affair where Goldberg and Hugh Morrus wrestled a pretty basic opening match. There is nothing particularly special about this match but there are some “Wow!” moments. While the hold wasn’t cinched in, big Goldberg being able to roll through into a leg scissors was impressive only because you didn’t expect it and he hit it so quickly.
Mind you, we would see this move several times from the cruiserweights and from the TV title picture’s mat magicians but seeing a heavyweight of the future Hall of Famer’s size and build was impressive in 1997 WCW. More impressive was Morrus’ agility in scaling the middle turnbuckle a popping Goldberg with a springboard clothesline.
The crowd also responded well to Morris’ No Laughing Matter moonsault and a basic but clean powerslam from the future World champion. His Jackhammer finisher got some love from the crowd but they seemed more impressed by the powerslam and the springboard clothesline, really.
These two worked together very well for Goldberg’s debut. While I was more impressed by Hugh Morrus, this was Goldberg’s party and he looked fine. He wasn’t exposed at any time, he didn’t do too much in the ring, and the time given was used very well. The only flaw is that it didn’t wow me to the point that I was anticipating more Bill Goldberg next week.
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