Bret Hart has for years blasted Goldberg for the kick that ended his career, but that wasn’t the most unprofessional thing the WWE legends has seen in a ring.
Hart has proclaimed for all to hear that he doesn’t have a lot of time for the bruising brute Goldberg; the Canadian’s legendary wrestling career – barring one fleeting cameo run – was effectively ended in 2000 due to the lasting impacts of a match against the WCW icon.
WWEBret Hart’s career came to a gradual halt after a serious injury in 1999[/caption]
Duelling at Starrcade in 1999, Hart took a severe blow to the head after an errant kick from the behemoth was delivered with a little too much force.
While the Canadian was able to continue the match – and to wrestle for a short while after – he never fully recovered, and ended up calling it a day when it looked as though his career might have had years to run.
Goldberg has since admitted his remorse at what he called ‘the biggest mistake of his life’, but Hart has rarely been able to say a good word about his former foe since. Counting the cost of the incident in a 2019 interview he said: “When Bill Goldberg kicked me in the head, I honest to God, I lost about 16 million dollars in like one second.
“I just signed with WCW for three million a year for another three years on top of the two years I had left on my original contract, so it was bad timing, and unfortunate.”
Though Hart undoubtedly has felt the impact of that single moment more than any other in a wrestling ring over the years, it doesn’t rank as the most unprofessional thing he’s ever seen.
In his 2007 autobiography, and even with the Goldberg incident long since passed, Hart gave that dubious honour to one scary incident involving British wrestling star Tommy Billington – better known to fans as The Dynamite Kid.
The pair were close for many years and spent much of their formative wrestling careers together in Canada as they made their way in the industry and, before both starring in WWE in the late 1980s, shared many a bloody battle in Stampede Wrestling, effectively Hart’s family business.
During one particularly bruising run of encounters in 1978, Hart was preparing to blade – the now lesser used action of intentionally cutting yourself with a razor or similar item to give the illusion that a wrestling match had drawn blood – when Billington took an almighty swipe.
The Hitman wrote: “Anyone watching Dynamite and me wrestle for the three weeks leading up to our Boxing Day match in December 1978 would have had plenty of reasons to think it was real.
“Under the guise of ‘working’, Tom stiffed me, over and over, until I just did the same back to him. One minute he’d smash me right in the face or kick me as hard as he could or simply throw me with complete disregard and then, just as suddenly, he’d be working again, calling spots and taking bumps for me.
“Even though Dynamite had been stiffing me every night, I was still giving him the benefit of the doubt. I finally realized that Tom was intentionally stiffing me when he intentionally soccer-kicked me in the face just as I was cutting myself.
“The kick alone was bad enough, but because of the blade, he could have severely injured me. I still can’t think of anything more unprofessional.”
A stocky and powerful wrestler, The Dynamite Kid was a renowned high-flyer who achieved fame across the pond when it was rare for Brits to do so.
Alongside compatriot Davey Boy Smith, he was a tag team champion as one half of The British Bulldogs, and racked up accolades in the US, Japan and his native UK.
He often courted controversy, however and was branded a ‘bully’ by a WWE producer, for his constant backstage pranks on fellow wrestlers.
Billington’s actions caught up with him in the late 1980s, however, when he was punched in a backstage attack by Jacques Rougeaus that left a ‘scary’ amount of blood coming out of the Brit’s mouth – not to mention his front teeth.
The star continued to wrestle sporadically up to 1996 – despite breaking his neck – by which time a string of health issues compounded to end his career.
He died back in his home country in 2018, aged 60.
