Goldberg has spoken about his infamous thrust kick at The Bret Hart which ended his career in WCW. He has said that the latter was his idol and he did not intentionally hurt him.
On Inside the Ropes show, the WCW legend said, "It was an honour and a privilege, and I very much looked up to him and listened to everything he said. Like you said at that time, there were many people who gave opinions, and you did not know whether they had their best interest at heart. You don't know if they had the company's best interest at heart or your best interest at heart. I still don't know, but I don't care because at the end of the day, I can control what I can control and that is it. I'm not going to sit and complain about anything. I'm just going to try and do my job. I would have loved to have worked a little more with Bret Hart, and I would've loved more than anything to not have kicked Bret Hart in the head,"
Goldberg points out that he could have severely injured Bret Hart if he had the intentions of hurting him. "There have been things said on the internet either by Bret or by other people that I was malicious or he should not have been in the ring with me, and I'm really sorry man, but if I really wanted to hurt the guy, he would never have gotten up. I am no joke. He would not have gotten up," he claims.
The WCW star added that Bret Hart wishes that he could undo the incident. "But accidents happen and he was an idol of mine, still is, and that's one thing I will forever be remorseful for is the misplaced kick. He did kind of know it was coming, but you know there are a couple things in my career that I wish I could have changed that was one of them. There are a couple things in my career that I wished I could have changed. That was one of them. The length that I had an angle with him and my inability to be professional enough to pull the kick, but it meant very much to me to be believable,"
In the match held at the Starrcade PPV in 1999 in WCW, Goldberg's hurt Hitman's head with a kick. The consequence was such that the latter suffered post-concussion syndrome and forced him to take early retirement in 2000.
According to Goldberg, he did not want to be a character like a Ric Flair and entertain people. "I'm a competitor. I'm not an entertainer so if what I do in competing entertains then I'm ecstatic, but I didn't set out to be a sideshow by any stretch of the imagination. My two to five to 10 minute, I'm stretching it a little bit, matches were basically like a throwing people to the lions. Okay, it was messy and it was violent. It was over before you knew it. That's what people loved. It was something different," he ended.
