During his Confessions of the Hitman podcast (subscription required at BretHart.com), Bret Hart talked about the kick from Bill Goldberg at the 1999 Starrcade PPV that ended his career:
“[Goldberg] was a gorilla. [Goldberg] was a guy that nobody seemed to have taught how wrestling really works. He seemed to think he could just pick a guy up and just slam him through the mat as hard as you could and that was good wrestling. But I always liked Bill as a person. His wrestling, his workrate was 0/10. Like, everything he did hurt – everything! He could tie up with you and hurt you. He’d tie up with himself and hurt himself!”
“The kick was the work of a total– like, somebody who had absolutely no skill at all. He literally threw me into the ropes and tried to kick my head off my shoulders. Like, there was no working aspect to it,” Hart continued. “There’s no way you can do it without hurting somebody, and the thing with Bill was that all the ‘I’m sorries’ in the world don’t mean anything when you hurt somebody for real.”
“It ended my career, and one of the things that always bothered me about Bill was about a year after he hurt me– which he never called me and he never talked to me about it. He never called to see how I was doing or anything like that, but he did say when I saw him about a year after I got hurt, in fact a few weeks before [WCW] terminated my contract, I remember he said to me, ‘it’s the nature of the business – we all know what can happen out there. It’s the nature of the business.’” Hart said, “I’m like, ‘naw, it’s not the nature of the business. The nature of the business is to not hurt the guy you’re working with. That’s your first priority.”
“If I hadn’t got hurt when I did– they ended my [contract]. I hung on ’til it wasn’t quite a year; I hung on for 10 months and then they sacked me. But [WWE] bought out WCW and the guys that both got paid out where Goldberg and [Hulk] Hogan. They both got paid out in full in their contract what was owed to them by Ted Turner as part of the deal. I would have been part of that deal. I would have been paid out in full. I wouldn’t have to go back and work for WWE. I wouldn’t have to have had to work for anybody. I would have cashed in and made $15 million. But because Goldberg’s kick ended my career, they terminated me 10 months after I got hurt and I never got anything. My contract was null and void. If I couldn’t wrestle within six weeks, you’re done. And it’s one of those loopholes in my contract, but my contract was always with Ted Turner – not with WCW, and that was the key. That’s what Hogan had and that’s what Goldberg had. They had their contracts with Ted Turner.”
(quotes courtesy of WrestlingInc.com)
