AUSTIN VS. GOLDBERG - Who Was Bigger? Full Head To Head Ratings Comparison At Their Peak

Steve Austin vs. Bill Goldberg Head To Head. Looking at the peak of Austin and Goldberg at the same time in the one year period of April 1998 to April 1999. Reason for that is RAW had the second hour unopposed before Nitro went for 3 hours in 1998, and again in 2000 when Nitro went back to 2 hours. In addition to that Goldberg's rise as a difference maker started around February-March 1998 and was clear to see by April. Goldberg was injured at the start of May 1999 and when he came back, the gap was unreachable besides a few segments. Austin had weeks off in August-September 1999 and then was out for neck surgery in November 1999, We're looking at equal (or close to it) time on screen so they can actually make a difference in the number of their show. There were some instances that one does an unadvertised run-in in the last minute of a segment or that the other's match ended in the first minute of a segment, we don't count that as it's not head to head. As for the * in the numbers, surprisingly, even though Goldberg won this comparison, some of the RAW numbers were even misleading against him as they had minutes unopposed because Nitro went off the air before them 8/17/1998 RAW had 4 minutes unopposed as Nitro's Goldberg/Giant match ended early. The realistic gap was probably 6.3 to 3.5-4.5 8/24/1998 RAW had over 5 minutes unopposed as Nitro had a two minutes overrun which did a monster 7.4 head to head. The actual last quarter was 6.5 to 3.8. If they were going head to head the gap most likely would have been huge. Realistically the overrun number was closer to a 7.4 to 3.0-4.5. Looking at other aspects, the only merchandise information we had is the money per head in the arenas which for both WWF and WCW were pretty similar at that time as they were both drawing sellout crowds. There was never a detailed report of the percentage per person at the shows. Meaning if we know WWF/WCW sold 10$ per person at a show, we don't know how much of that was Austin and Goldberg unless you're reading some "report" that Meltzer was releasing which is more like fabricated, z level source, masked personal opinion as report. Taking that into account, until the rise of Rock in the Summer/Fall of 1998, WCW had another mega hot non-Austin/Goldberg seller in the business with the nWo Wolfpac and nWo Hollywood which was at the same level as them so the Austin % was likely higher. PPVs is difficult as Goldberg only truly headlined 3 PPVs during that time (Arguably 2 as Havoc had Hogan/Warrior) Halloween Havoc 1998 vs. DDP Starrcade 1998 vs. Nash Souled Out 1999 vs. Hall All doing great/very good numbers. Comparing that with 3 Austin PPVs is picking and choosing but the B PPVs average is pretty similar. Again, small sample size as Austin drew huge numbers in hyped for months programs while Goldberg almost never had a real program on the show. #Austin #Goldberg #WWF #WWE #WCW #RAW #Nitro #Wrestling