Bill Goldberg

Bill Goldberg

An Article by Mike Mooneyham

Published Feb. 24, 2001

It’s a good thing former creative head Vince Russo won’t be part of the team when WCW plans to relaunch in May with its new product.

Russo left behind quite a few enemies, but perhaps none more vehement than Bill Goldberg, who said on a recent radio show: “Not only is he a hothead, but he thinks people pay money to see him. They don’t give a damn about him. They don’t care if he’s involved in an angle with me or any one else. He has no place in the ring and as far as his ideas, he doesn’t have a place there either as far as I’m concerned.”

There’s also no love lost between Goldberg and Scott Hall, whom Goldberg blames for the near career-ending incident in which he put his arm through a wind shield during a Nitro angle last year.

“I should’ve killed him but I didn’t,” said Goldberg. “Scott Hall is very unprofessional and he often breaks character and does things I don’t agree with. I try to be professional and set a positive example, but unfortunately he doesn’t share the same views. Vince Russo couldn’t control him and we had an issue, and instead of being unprofessional and making him pay, I took my frustrations out on that limousine.”

[ad#MikeMooneyham-336×280]Rumors that Bischoff has talked to Hall about a possible return have raised eye brows in a number of circles, not the least of which from Hall’s estranged wife, Dana.

Hall is scheduled to wrestle for the first time in several months on New Japan Pro Wrestling’s March tour. Hall, who last wrestled in a pair of appearances for ECW late last year, is scheduled to team for the majority of the tour with former NWO sta blemate Scott Norton.

“I have stated before that the last place Scott needs to be is in a wrestling ring, and my children and I had prayed that he wouldn’t want to be,” Dana Hall said recently. “No amount of money could be worth more of this pain, and I can almost guarantee nothing good will come of this. I am sorry New Japan has chosen to employ him in his present state of mind. I had hoped that no one would until he gets the help he so desperately needs and remains sober for a long period of time. If he was serious about his life or career (what is left of it), he would be going to a treatment center and not Japan.

“I only wish he cared enough about him self and his children to go to rehab and stay there. Thirty days has never been enough and cannot even begin to fix an over-20-year alcohol and drug addiction. You can’t get sober by being around people who are doing this and in an atmosphere of such temptation. A ‘pill’ cannot cure this kind of sickness or denial. Only God and drastic change can. This is something Scott has never been able to do, and avoids at all cost. The cost of his family, marriage and career have not been enough as of yet. His choice to remain in denial and others to enable this will only have irreversible repercussions if allowed to continue. I am not sure if he will ever take the steps to do this, I only know as long as he can find people to employ him and a reason not to face his problems and grow up, he won’t. He will never let go of wrestling until wrestling lets go of him.

“Signing a wrestling contract is like sell ing your soul to the devil. You sign away your identity, your privacy, time with your kids that you never get back, all to be a wrestling `superstar,’ and the money makes up for all they lose? It is so sad that they can put a price on this. I know Scott sold us out for his $1.1 million dollar contract. I guess every man his price. Greed, ego and arrogance can do terrible things.”