CHRIS JERICHO VS. (NOT) GOLDBERG

 The opening video to the event goes through the teams in tonight’s main event War Games match. (Here)

Tony Schiavone welcomes us to Winston-Salem North Carolina and brings our attention to the TWO rings in the arena. That’s also for the War Games main event, the person that gets victory for his team gets a WCW Championship match against Goldberg at Halloween Havoc the following month. The commentary team welcome us and Schiavone is going over the revised rules for the 9-man, 3 team War Games match, taking so long I wonder if he’s over-complicating it. We cut to a video from earlier of Ernest Miller being pulled apart from a brawl with an unidentified individual. Tony says Miller isn’t popular right now. Heenan goes on to make his prediction for the main event, by typically not making an actual prediction.

"Mean"Gene Okerlund is at the top of the ramp, he runs down tonight’s card before Chris Jericho and his high ponytail show up. Chris Jericho says he gave the fans a view of Jericho backstage on the previous episode of Thunder and Goldberg didn’t appreciate it. He says tonight he’s going to face Goldberg in a winner takes all match, his newly won WCW Television Championship against Goldberg’s WCW Championship.

Tony Schiavone, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Mike Tenay are on commentary for this match.

Immediately before the match, Gene’s made his way backstage. Buff Bagwell is with Scott Steiner in Steiner’s locker room. Steiner says he’s injured tonight and can’t wrestle his brother, Rick Bagwell even has a Dr’s note but Okerlund wants to talk to JJ Dillon first. Luckily Dillon shows up. He says the Dr’s note isn’t worth shit and he had already explained at Road Wild that if Scott didn’t face Rick Steiner tonight he would be banned from WCW for life. At this point they may have been considering it WCW’s life in the contract, not Scott Steiner’s.

  Chris Jericho makes his way out first, being shown from his locker room with his Personal Security including Ralphus. They get lost on the way to the ring giving me time to give you the recent history.

  Chris Jericho was Cruiserweight Champion until Road Wild where he lost the title to Juventud Guerrera. He quickly go over it though, winning the TV title 10^th August episode of Nitro, defeating Stevie Ray, who had been given power of attorney over the Championship when the champion, Booker T, got injured. After a tour of the arena Jericho finds his way back to where he saw Mean Gene 25 minutes previously. He gets some pathetic pyro and doesn’t like it but Brain and Schiavone are loving life. Goldberg’s music plays and commentary are of course expecting Da Man. Mike Tenay mentions The Streak is 143-0. The pyro is working and it envelopes the man that walks to the entranceway. But it’s not Bill Goldberg. It’s just a bald man with a goatee. I’d like to hear anything that people know about him. He has a title belt but he’s not the WCW Champion, he does all of Goldberg’s mannerisms as he walks to the ring, speaking of which, this match is in what I’ll call the “far ring” furthest from the entrance ramp.

CHRIS JERICHO VS. GOLDBERG

WCW Television Championship 

WCW Fall Brawl 1998 (13^th September 1998)

  They lock up and Chris Jericho shoves “Goldberg” down. They trade arm wringers, Jericho knocks the impersonator down with a clothesline as the fans chant “bullshit.” Jericho hits a suplex and puts his foot on (not) Goldberg’s chest, but he kicks out at 2. Tony Schiavone completely buries the poor guy “well even that guy kicked out from that cover.” Not-Goldberg hits a Spear but Jericho shoves it off, booting the bloke in the face and knocking him down. Chris Jericho lays in boots to whichever part of the impersonator he can reach before slapping his head for some added humiliation. Chris Jericho finally puts the live crowd out of their misery, and puts the impersonator in the Liontamer so he can tap out and collect his check.

WINNER: CHRIS JERICHO

It’s too short to give a star rating to. This was one of the best stories in WCW for the year, in my opinion. Chris Jericho genuinely wanted a match with Goldberg so he could prove himself and for whichever reason you may have heard that sounds plausible, it never happened. I didn’t hate this as much as the live crowd, but then again I wasn’t expecting to see Goldberg, so it’s understandable. [N/A] 1.5/10

  Chris Jericho keeps the Liontamer locked in as he looks down the camera lense. The referee is shouting at Jericho and waving his finger, but not actually doing anything effective, allowing Jericho to release the impersonator when he pleases. Jericho shoves the referee and is handed both belts, he rips up “Goldberg”s belt before leaving and Schiavone hilariously reminds us that the real Goldberg is still undefeated as we get some crowd shots. I see a Taz T-shirt as we go to Rick Steiner in the WCWwrestling.com area backstage.