Few Superstars in wrestling history have been as fiercely protected as Goldberg during his iconic WCW streak.
Even the most dominant records have their cracks, though – even if they’re almost impossible to detect.
Goldberg became a wrestling legend off the back of his undefeated streakWWEThough Goldberg was effectively WCW’s main man during what was WWE’s Attitude Era, the latter have woven the fierce competitor’s almighty unbeaten run into its own history having bought out their rival entity at the end of the Monday Night Wars in the early 2000s.
They, too, acknowledge that Goldberg boasted a flawless record nearing 200 matches before being beaten, but not all is as it seems.
Chad Fortune, a former NFL tight end who later made a name for himself in the world of monster trucks, holds a curious footnote in wrestling history: he was Goldberg’s first official loss. And yet, over two decades on, WWE – just as WCW did – continues to act as if it never happened.
Fortune’s win came in July 1997 at the filming of an episode of WCW Saturday Night, when Goldberg was still fresh-faced and unproven, yet to even feature on television.
The future megastar – who was embarrassed in a backstage fight shortly after his WWE debut – had only just begun his path to the top. The famed winning streak that the company now markets as a 173–0 run wasn’t officially recognised until months after.
But Fortune, who wrestled under his own name at the time, beat him clean.
“Goldberg and I would work on a bunch of different things together in the Power Plant,” Fortune told the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast.
“So we wrestled in a dark match (a match for the benefit of the live crowd and not broadcast on television) and the booker was Arn Anderson. He said to me: ‘Chad, you’re going over (winning) tonight.’
“I hit him with my finish, pinned him, and we got the hell out of there. I didn’t think much of it until Bill said it in his book years later that I was his first loss.”
By all normal record-keeping standards, it should have counted. But when Goldberg was repackaged with his undefeated mystique later that year, WCW quietly retconned the early blemish.
WWE, who would later buy WCW and absorb its archives, simply went along with it.
WWEChad Fortune (left) enjoyed limited success as a wrestler[/caption] Chad Fortune traded the wrestling ring for monster truck racingYouTube/Monster Jam“No one would really know that Goldberg lost except Bill, Arn Anderson, and myself,” Fortune added. “One day, about a year or so later, they were trying to figure out his record for the streak. I go up to them and say: ‘Well, he didn’t beat me,’ and we’d have a good laugh about it.”
That’s led to the unusual case of a match that a crowd watched, featured a clear result — but is officially scrubbed from history.
For Fortune, the moment was just one beat in a wildly varied career. After his NFL stint, which included time with the Indianapolis Colts and Miami Dolphins, he found himself in the wrestling ring with WWE.
He was part of a less-than-memorable tag team in Tekno Team 2000 – WWE even calling them ‘boring’ in a video upload on its YouTube channel.
Leaving in the mid-1990s, he ventured to WCW where his duties included that fateful night with Goldberg.
Departing the squared circle, his next act was arguably the most surprising: he became a full-time monster truck driver. Fortune was one of the best in the business, driving trucks like Superman and Captain America to national acclaim.
Fortune went from the NFL, to the wrestling ring and later the race circuitWWE/YouTube:Monster JamHe won several major competitions and became a regular fan favourite at Monster Jam events across the US, often featuring in wrestling-themed trucks, no less.
He’s spoken proudly of his time behind the wheel, once describing it as “the most fun I ever had getting thrown around on four wheels.” Yet, despite his success in the sport, Fortune has long carried the quiet satisfaction of knowing he handed Goldberg a rare defeat.
Goldberg himself has rarely acknowledged the loss. WWE’s documentaries and match histories don’t mention it. And in the grand narrative of his career — from streak to champion to Hall of Famer — the Fortune result remains an inconvenient footnote.
But fans who saw it know. Fortune’s win may not have come at Starrcade or in front of 40,000, but it happened.
And for one night in 1997, decades before Goldberg’s iconic career heads towards its own close and before his streak began and the myth was born, Chad Fortune beat the unbeatable.
However, charged with carrying the weight of a classic piece of revisionist wrestling history begun by WCW, don’t expect WWE to ever admit it.
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