Scott Steiner and DDP: Brutal Real-Life WCW Fight

When Scott Steiner took a live microphone in WCW and made things personal with Diamond Dallas Page and Kimberly Page, it did not feel like storyline heat. It felt like something far more personal. What followed turned into one of the ugliest real-life confrontations of WCW’s dying days, a backstage fight that multiple wrestlers say left DDP oozing around the eye that Steiner tried to gouge out. The roots of it all trace back to Tammy Lynn Sytch, better known to fans as Sunny, and a locker room accusation that quickly spiraled out of control.

How The Trouble Between Scott Steiner And DDP in WCW Began

By the time their real-life issues boiled over in 2000, both Diamond Dallas Page and Scott Steiner were major players in late era WCW.

DDP had completed one of the most unlikely rises in wrestling history. Once dismissed as a manager and personality, he fought his way into the main event and became a three-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Fans bought into him because he felt real. He was older than most breakout stars, carried himself like a fighter, and connected with audiences as an underdog who had earned every inch of his success.

Steiner had gone through a transformation of his own. After years of tag team glory alongside his brother Rick Steiner, he reinvented himself as Big Poppa Pump, an explosive, heavily muscled, wildly unpredictable force who looked and sounded like he could snap at any moment. By WCW’s final stretch, Steiner was one of the company’s most volatile stars both on camera and behind the curtain.

They were bound to cross paths at the top of the card. But their most infamous collision had little to do with championship pursuits and everything to do with personal loyalty, bruised pride, and a backstage culture already hanging by a thread.

How Kimberly Page And Tammy Lynn Sytch Sparked Backstage Heat Between Scott Steiner and Diamond Dallas Page

Kimberly Page had been part of WCW from the company’s hottest years onward, first as The Diamond Doll, then as the leader of the Nitro Girls, and later as a regular television presence alongside her husband, Diamond Dallas Page.

Tammy Lynn Sytch arrived in WCW in 2000 after becoming one of the most recognizable female personalities of the 1990s as Sunny in the WWF. But by the time she joined WCW, the company was already in chaos, and the environment backstage was far less stable than it had once been.

According to accounts that have circulated for years, the trouble began after paraphernalia was reportedly discovered in the women’s locker room. Somewhere along the way, Kimberly Page became tied to the story, with rumors spreading that she had informed management that the items belonged to Sytch.

That version of events has taken on a life of its own over the years, but Kimberly has firmly denied it.

In a June 2000 statement published on her official website, and later referenced by IGN, Kimberly wrote:

"I walked into the women’s locker room after a bottle had already been discovered and was being discussed by the eight to ten women present. I looked at it and didn’t recognize the name. I had no idea what it was… I turned and went straight to the makeup department, sat in a chair, and didn’t say another word about it to anyone. It’s none of my business. I don’t get involved in any of that stuff. Period."

Years later, speaking with The Hannibal TV, Kimberly again pushed back on the story many fans had long accepted as fact.

"I hear all the time these wildly inaccurate stories of the day that happened. I was not even there. I was out in the arena, as I was very well known to do. We would have Nitro Girls rehearsal, and then we’d finish up, have a couple of hours of dead time, and I’d sit out in the arena and read a book. And that is what I was doing.”

She continued, “I came back into the locker room, and a syringe had already been discovered in the bathroom. I wasn’t even there for it… I don’t know how it got turned into me ratting her out or me being the one who found it, because none of that is true."

Whatever the full truth of the original incident, the rumor was enough. Heat built quickly, sides were taken, and Scott Steiner reportedly took Tammy Sytch’s side.

The Unscripted WCW Monday Nitro Promo Where Scott Steiner Targeted Diamond Dallas Page And Kimberly Page

In professional wrestling, there is always an element of danger when real resentment starts bleeding into live promos. WCW, especially by 2000, was hardly the kind of environment known for restraint.

As the story goes, Steiner’s anger toward Kimberly spilled outward until it became an issue with Diamond Dallas Page as well. At some point, the problem stopped being about locker room gossip and became about respect, reputation, and publicly drawing a line.

Then came the promo, which you can watch below:

On December 18, 2000, during WCW Monday Nitro at the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia, Scott Steiner took a live microphone and made things personal. Fans have long pointed to it as the moment the issue truly exploded, because once Steiner aired it on live television, Page was not going to simply let it slide.

Looking back years later on The Hannibal TV, Steiner made it clear he had no fondness for Kimberly during that period.

"She was a Nitro Girl. She thought she was a big part of the show… She thought she was a big star. I never had a problem telling the truth."

That kind of comment only added fuel to the fire. DDP had heard enough, and once Steiner came through the back, the confrontation was waiting for him.

Diamond Dallas Page Confronts Scott Steiner Backstage (and the Fight Turns Ugly Fast)

According to the most widely repeated version of events, Scott Steiner returned backstage after the promo and encountered Diamond Dallas Page near the tunnel. Whatever words were exchanged at first, the situation escalated almost instantly.

Speaking with The Hannibal TV, DDP recalled the moment Steiner crossed the line for him:

"Scotty said some things in that interview that put me over the top. When he got down to the edge of the stairs, I said, ‘You think I’m a p****, motherf*****?’"

What happened next was fast, violent, and chaotic.

"Scott Steiner put his head down and he drove me. It had to be 20 feet before we landed. When we landed, somehow I had him in like a guillotine and I’m like, ‘Holy ****, I got him.’"

That moment of control did not last.

DDP said people rushed in to separate them, but Steiner was so powerful at that stage that even trying to contain him was a job in itself.

"The guys are coming around to pull him off… When they pick him up by all arms, Scotty was so big back then, man. He was like, ‘Get off of me’ to them. I was like, ‘****, he’s scary.’"

Then came the part of the fight that has lived on in wrestling lore ever since.

"I went into the fetal position trying to protect myself… His hand kept coming in and I didn’t really realize it until I went, ‘Oh my God, he is trying to take my eye out.’"

DDP said he tried to defend himself the only way he could in that moment.

"I turned in trying to bite a hold of him. By that time he pulled up and we both came up swinging."

That image, Steiner going after Page’s eye rather than simply throwing punches, became the defining detail of the fight.

With hundreds of amazing Pro Wrestling Stories to dive into, where do you start? Get the inside scoop – join our exclusive community of wrestling fans! Receive 10 hand-picked stories curated just for YOU, exclusive weekly content, and an instant welcome gift when you sign up today!

Buff Bagwell And Lash Leroux On Witnessing Scott Steiner Go For Diamond Dallas Page’s Eye

DDP was not the only one to describe Scott Steiner targeting the eye.

Former WCW star Buff Bagwell, who said he witnessed the altercation near the go position, gave one of the most vivid retellings of the fight on his YouTube channel in 2024. Bagwell recalled that once the two men went down, Steiner worked his hand upward and began digging at DDP’s eye.

"Words were exchanged and they’d lock up, man, and Dallas kinda takes him by the head and they go down. Scott Steiner worked his hand up and was trying, it looked like, to rip Dallas’ eyeball out. He was digging and it was seeping and he was raking his eye. Dallas had a real big scar."

Another former WCW wrestler, Lash Leroux, discussed the incident on Café de René with René Duprée, noting how quickly real backstage altercations unfold and that the detail that stayed with him was Steiner going straight for Page’s eye.

"The thing I remember about that though is Scotty went straight for his eye. I think Scotty was going to fish hook his eyes."

Leroux also gave DDP credit for standing his ground despite the obvious danger of tangling with Steiner.

"Paige, through his credit, I think he’ll be the first one to tell you that he’s not Mr. Tough Guy and he’s not trying to prove himself as Mr. Tough Guy. He’s just a guy that stands by his principles and he wasn’t going to back down, even to Scotty."

Scott Steiner Did Not Deny How Far It Went

Scott Steiner has never shied away from his version of the fight. Speaking with The Hannibal TV, he walked through what happened the moment Diamond Dallas Page confronted him in the darkened tunnel backstage:

"I’m going through the dark tunnel, he says something to me, and I just double legged him… I took him down and I was going to rear back and punch him in the face. They had to grab my arm."

Then came the line that has stuck with fans ever since: "I almost was going to rip his eye out… but they grabbed that too."

Steiner himself did not brush off the eye-gouging claim. He all but confirmed it.

Security got hold of him before he could fully follow through, first on the punch, then on the eye. He wanted to do real damage.

Diamond Dallas Page’s Eye And The Scar That Stayed

When the dust settled, Diamond Dallas Page was marked up.

The area around his eye had been raked and scraped badly enough that Buff Bagwell, who was close enough to witness the fight, later said Page had "a real big scar."

What made the incident hard to dismiss was that its aftermath was not confined to locker room gossip. In the weeks that followed, attentive fans have long pointed to visible damage around Page’s eye on WCW television, lending the story a physical footprint that many backstage fights never had.

The injury did not leave Page permanently impaired, but the scar remained.

How Scott Steiner And Diamond Dallas Page Resolved Their Real-Life WCW Heat

As brutal as the fight was, it did not become a lifelong feud. DDP later explained that he and Scott Steiner eventually sat down with Eric Bischoff and talked the situation through.

In typical wrestler fashion, once the smoke cleared and the adrenaline wore off, both men were able to move on.

"We had to do a sit down with Bischoff… I had a little scab when I walked in the door. Scotty goes, ‘You don’t look so bad.’ We sat down, we talked it out. That was done."

DDP also made clear he had no interest in dragging old bitterness around forever.

"There’s no reason holding any of that stuff. Guys fight all the time. It is what it is."

Both men eventually treated it like many other explosive wrestling locker room incidents: ugly in the moment, but not something either felt the need to carry for the next 20 years.

What The Scott Steiner vs Diamond Dallas Page Fight Reveals About Late-Era WCW’s Locker Room Culture

More than two decades later, the backstage fight between Scott Steiner and Diamond Dallas Page remains one of the most infamous real-life confrontations of WCW’s dying days, not because of how many people were involved, but because of how brutally and swiftly it escalated.

It started with a locker room discovery. Then came the rumor. Then, a live promo that made things personal in front of the world. From there, it spilled into the tunnel, where words gave way to a takedown, a scramble on the ground, and fingers driving toward a man’s eye.

That is what gives the story its staying power. Every part of it feels ugly, personal, and believable. This was late-era WCW, a place where grudges were left to fester, management struggled to keep a lid on the chaos, and wrestlers often handled problems themselves, whether they should have or not.

For Kimberly Page, the fallout began with a story she has denied for years, one that stuck to her name anyway. For Diamond Dallas Page, standing up for his wife led to a fight that left him battered and scarred. For Scott Steiner, it became another chapter in a career already filled with stories of volatility, intimidation, and real danger.

And the damage remains there on DDP’s face.

Yes, the two men eventually sat down, cleared the air, and moved on. Time did what time usually does. In a business built on controlled chaos, what happened in that tunnel was as real as it gets.

Sometimes, the most dangerous thing in professional wrestling is not the match in the ring. It is what happens when real life follows someone through the curtain.

These stories may also interest you:

• Scott Steiner: The Secret History of Big Poppa Pump
• Inside WCW: 27 Wild Tales From a Turner Executive
• The Messy Fight Between Paul Orndorff and Vader in WCW
• Sting Recalls the Scary Moment He Almost Died in WCW

Can’t get enough pro wrestling history in your life? Sign up to unlock ten pro wrestling stories curated uniquely for YOU, plus subscriber-exclusive content. A special gift from us awaits after signing up!

Want More? Choose another story!

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, and Flipboard!

Pro Wrestling Stories is committed to accurate, unbiased wrestling content rigorously fact-checked and verified by our team of researchers and editors. Any inaccuracies are quickly corrected, with updates timestamped in the article's byline header.

Got a correction, tip, or story idea for Pro Wrestling Stories? Contact us! Learn about our editorial standards here. Ever wanted to learn more about the people behind Pro Wrestling Stories? Meet our authors! Want to write for us? Learn how to join the team.

ProWrestlingStories.com participates in affiliate marketing programs. This post may contain affiliate links, meaning we may earn commissions at no extra cost to our readers. This supports our mission to deliver free content for you to enjoy!

If you love movies and pro wrestling, don’t sleep on this one.

Grindhouse, Arthouse, and Wrestling Flicks by Pro Wrestling Stories Senior Editor Evan Ginzburg dives into the fascinating world where cinema and wrestling collide. Packed with hundreds of reviews, hidden gems, and fascinating turns from wrestlers on the big screen, it covers everyone from André the Giant and Roddy Piper to CM Punk, DDP, Chris Jericho, Pat Roach, and The Rock. Smart, passionate, and endlessly browsable, it’s the kind of book fans will keep returning to. Grab your copy today!