WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW President Eric Bischoff appeared on his 83 Weeks podcast episode. He discussed several topics, including the rumor that fellow WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg was originally going to be a member of the Four Horsemen in 1998.
Bischoff said, “I don’t recall this, but it sounds very reasonable to me and I would have supported it. So it’s likely true, or at least a good portion of it. Again, it’s a report from a dirtsheet, so you gotta be careful how much of it you bite on. But in this case, it’s plausible and not a bad idea, so I could see how it was either discussed or planned. It would have been interesting. Because it’s a kind of good casting, right? If you’ve got Ric Flair and Bill Goldberg in the same faction and — of course, this is kind of not good casting. But if Ric being the senior elder statesman of the Four Horsemen, is still very active, well respected, all that. But he’s the veteran, and you have this young, explosive, unpredictable, undisciplined, human killing machine in Bill Goldberg. I could just see a scenario where part of the toughest part of Ric’s job is keeping Bill under control until it gets to a point where Ric Flair goes, ‘Okay, go get him. Sick him, brother.’ That would have been kind of cool. I could see that dynamic, and it would have been a great way to take advantage of Ric’s veteran status because he’s the wise man. He’s seen all this s**t. Bill just wants to go destroy everything in his path. Well there’s a time to do that, there’s a time not to do that. Ric could have been that guy managing that piece of artillery. It would have been kind of cool, which is why I could see it happening, right? But I honestly don’t remember it. Likely because I wasn’t involved in a discussion other than going, ‘Cool, that sounds great.’ And maybe that happened. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
On how being in the group would have changed Goldberg’s career:
“How much is Bill Goldberg actually going to learn by being a part of a faction, unless — you’re not going to just learn because you’re on the ring apron watching. You’re going to learn a little bit, but it would require so much. I mean, if there was a real mentorship going on? And maybe that was the intention, I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss that. If it was a real mentorship and an opportunity really to get Bill to the next level and slowly get him into matches that were more story-driven in the body of the match, not just him going out and eating live meat? Then yeah, it would have been a good idea and a good strategy. I don’t know if that was really the case. Just putting him in the Four Horsemen in and of itself, wasn’t going to do much for Bill’s growth unless there was a commitment to mentor him as well. And maybe there was. I wouldn’t bet on it, just because I know how things were managed back then. It’s kind of there, but it’s possible. Maybe the intent was there. But the idea, just from a casting point of view the idea is a cool idea. And it would have been a better position for Bill at that point in time, as opposed to putting him in matches that he wasn’t ready for. That’s the worst idea. How many times have you heard me say, there’s two ways of killing the character. Underexpose them and over-expose them. Either one is death. And what we were doing to Bill by putting in matches that he wasn’t ready for because he’d only been in the business for 45 minutes was overexposing him. This would have prevented that to a degree.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
