J.J. Dillon Talks Getting Into Physical Altercation With Scott Steiner After Shoot Promo On Ric Flair

Scott Steiner and J.J. Dillon's time with each other in WCW was not very friendly, according to the former Four Horsemen manager.

Dillon made his weekly appearance on "The List & Ya Boy" podcast and recounted the time Steiner decided to take matters into his own hands in a 2000 promo on Monday Nitro and shoot on Ric Flair. Dillon was not happy that Steiner chose to ignore to cut a promo to advance an angle with Flair and instead shoot on Flair. Steiner was then told he would be suspended by Dillon and the two got into an altercation.

“It was a situation where we were doing Nitro live,” Dillon said. “Scott Steiner had an issue at the time with Ric Flair and he had a set verbiage that he would use and then Ric was supposed to come on right after him in the ring and be able to respond to what Scott said, which was going to further the story for where we going for the upcoming event. Scott had a personal dislike for Ric Flair… But Scott Steiner went in the ring and totally went on a tirade about Ric Flair, but it was not storyline-related. It was very, very personal and it went on and it went on and of course, the show was timed out and you don’t have a great amount of flexibility and more importantly was Ric to go out there next and respond to what our understanding was what Scott would say on live TV to further the storyline. Obviously, I was upset because, how do you adjust to that on live TV. It was embarrassing for Ric. It was embarrassing for me because Scott went out there, with no prior warning and just made what he said very, very personal. I called Scott on it and he’s very high-strung and so of course, he took exception and he continued to prolong Flair backstage with me and I said, ‘your personal views with Ric are personal with you and him and live television when we have a storyline, that is not a place to carry on and air your personal opinions.’ Bill Busch was in charge of the company at the time. Eric [Bischoff] was on hiatus and so Bill’s first impulse was to fire [Scott] and then he had to deal with Brad Siegel and the decision was to suspend [Scott] I want to say two weeks without pay. I’m at a room at the WCW offices which relocated from CNN towers to the suburbs of Atlanta, met with him, had to break the news that the decision was to suspend him without pay. I guess I didn’t consider the possibility that he would get physical with me. He’s a big guy and I never had to have a fight with anybody inside the business. I always handled it at a professional level and in this case, he wasn’t happy.”

Dillon would then state that years after the incident, Dillon appeared at a meet and greet event which Steiner was also attending. Dillon would try to say hi to Steiner only to be met with profanities yelled back by the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion. 

You can listen to Dillon’s comments in the video above at around the 31:00 mark. “The List & Ya Boy” podcast, starring Fightful owner Jimmy Van and Fightful managing editor Sean Ross Sapp can be seen live on Fightful every Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.