Welcome to another edition of
OFF-TRACK with A-TRAIN
Where I make fun of stupid stuff in wrestling.
It's kind of my specialty.
________________________
As it turns out, Goldberg almost wasn't Goldberg.
He almost had another name.
Sean Waltman, aka Syxx in WCW, was a guest co-host on the Tomorrow Show and told a story about when Goldberg was starting out in WCW and came to Waltman and Scott Hall for a little advice.
“When Goldberg first started, he'd come up to Scott (Hall) and I (for advice). And he ran this idea by us about a name for himself, and he’s like, ‘what do you think of The Hybrid? I want to call myself The Hybrid.’ And we’re like, ‘ehhh, The Hybrid, it’s kinda, eh, you know.’"
Sean Waltman and Scott Hall were right.
"The Hybrid" is kinda, eh, you know.
In fact, it's trash.
"The Hybrid" is what your 14 year old, 135 pound cousin Steve insisted on calling himself when he would come over to do suplexes to his other weird friends on your backyard trampoline. They'd do their own commentary, trying and failing to sound like JR or Tony Schiavone, and they'd all have ring names they gave themselves, like Rock Hardley and The Darkness and your cousin Steve would insist on being called "The Hybrid." And then they'd come in the house and ask you "what you got to drink around here?" and when you told them "I think we have some diet coke in the fridge in the garage" they'd be like "what? you got no Sunny-D?" and then they'd laugh way too hard amongst themselves and really all you wanted was for them to leave so you could do your homework in peace, but you had to be nice to them because your mom told you that your cousin Steve "was having a really rough time of it, you know, because of the divorce." But what your mom didn't know is that Steve was a weird little douche before her sister left his dad and moved to Argentina with a guy named Pasquale, and Steve was probably always going to be a weird little douche. And now twenty years later, your cousin Steve is in jail for soliciting prostitution from an undercover cop, so you were right. Still weighs a buck thirty five, too.
THAT'S who wants to call himself "The Hybrid."
It's so perfectly 1996. And that's the only year it would have worked.
"The Hybrid" would never have become WCW Champ.
"The Hybrid" would have had a three month feud with Glacier and been out of the company.
And he wouldn't have been brought into the WWE. And he wouldn't have beaten The Rock and Triple H and Brock Lesnar.
And he for damn sure wouldn't have been brought back at the age of 50 to take out the guy who broke the Undertaker's streak by pinning the streak-breaker in 86 seconds.
You really think we'd be getting Brock Lesnar vs "The Hybrid" as the main event of WrestleMania in 2017?
So, thankfully for everyone, Hall and Waltman talked some sense into Goldberg.
"And Hall’s like, ‘why don’t you just use your name?’ And he goes, ‘my name’s Goldberg, that’s not cool.’ And Hall goes, ‘it is cool if you make it cool. If you’re cool, Goldberg’s cool.’ Sure enough.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Watch the entire podcast below. The discussion about Goldberg begins around the 34:05 mark.
