Goldberg's from Oklahoma, where his father is a gynecologist, his mother a violinist. He went to Georgia on a football scholarship, then played on the defensive line of the Atlanta Falcons until injuries ended that career. Then he ran into Bischoff at an upscale Atlanta club--the sort with dancing ladies--and they got to talking.
Now the former line mule makes something like $2 million a year and may be the No. 1 idol of Jewish kids in America. All he has to do is snort and take care of business in the ring--none of that comedy stuff. "It's not," he says, "in my repertoire."
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday November 29, 1998 Home Edition Calendar Page 87 Calendar Desk 2 inches; 38 words Type of Material: Correction
Wrestling czar--A Nov. 15 Calendar article incorrectly reported the disposition of a New York case in which Vince McMahon, the head of the World Wrestling Federation, faced federal steroid conspiracy and possession charges. McMahon was acquitted on all counts in 1994.
Goldberg heads off to a see some members of the Phoenix Cardinals football team who have come to the matches and want to meet him backstage.
Bischoff has a headache too. He says he learned of the problem with the PPV when he phoned his 12-year-old son from the MGM Grand at the end of the matches. The boy was yelling at their local cable company because the broadcast had been shut off after three hours on many outlets--depriving 10% to 20% of the viewers of the Goldberg match.
Bischoff, 43, worked for an agricultural equipment manufacturer before he decided, on a whim--he loved the Saturday morning TV matches--to join a Minneapolis-based wrestling outfit. He later auditioned to join McMahon's company--as an announcer--but wasn't hired and wound up, instead, with Turner's WCW.
In addition to leading the move to go head to head on Monday nights, he and Bradley J. Siegel, the president of TNT, began campaigning to convince advertisers that wrestling now draws a large computer-literate, college-educated audience, one far more sophisticated than the rural, trailer-park stereotype. WCW thus helped schools like Dartmouth hold wrestling nights and sent wrestlers to spring break promotions. It doesn't ignore the redneck set--it sponsors Monster Trucks and race cars, bringing in the Cartoon Network as a partner in that next year. There's a WCW MasterCard, as well, and the first Nitro restaurant next spring will go, Bischoff says, on the Vegas Strip.
TNT's Siegel has encouraged the use of wrestlers, such as Hogan and Roddy Piper, in made-for-TV action movies. "These are our stars," he says, "and part of my job is that we build the career of our stars."
Bischoff says all the effort to position wrestling as mainstream entertainment is one reason he is worried by the recent turn in McMahon's rival show, toward "adult-oriented content."
