WWE Hall of Famer “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson recently appeared on an episode of his ARN podcast, where he discussed a number of topics including agenting the infamous Goldberg vs. William Regal match in WCW.
Anderson said, “Yeah, it was me. I had that match. And I delivered instructions that I was given, you know. For Regal to have taken all the grief that he’s taken over the years about that match? This is my personal opinion. It’s the best match that Goldberg ever had. Because it was one of the first contests that he was ever in where it was a 50-50 fight. And you know, when you’ve been given eight minutes or nine minutes, or whatever it was, you can’t just go out and slaughter a guy like William Regal for nine minutes. You have to have a competitive match.”
On Eric Bischoff being upset about how the match went:
“Well yeah, I didn’t jump up and stick my chest out and go throw my boss under the bus, which would have been Eric. When we discussed this beforehand. I said, ‘Eric, we got eight, nine minutes here. You know, you certainly don’t want this to be just a squash job. You can’t squash your guy for eight or nine minutes, and why would you [with] a top hand like Regal?’ He said, ‘No, no, no. They need to have a match.’ Well then, when it didn’t come to fruition for everybody’s happiness I guess, when they actually went out and had a match and had a fight. And you know, I’m sure it was the first time Bill had been having to work, and having to think about what he was doing because basically, he just steamrolled everybody up until that point. And I personally thought he was having to work and dig. And I think wrestling fans — I don’t know, they can tell me. Do you like for a guy to have to work for what he gets, especially the company babyface, the face of the company? Do you want to just go out and steamroll all your heels, or do you want a contest? And that’s what they got. And you know, I’m sorry that Regal got his ass chewed out. I wasn’t aware that he got fired over it. But yes, I passed this information: ‘Guys have a hell of a match, right? Have a competitive match.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)