Original subtitles

Don't let people see you out there signing autographs.

They say, "You're not a bad guy."

You want them to think you're the baddest, meanest bastard.

That's how you make money.

Dr. D David Schultz!

In the early 80s, few better played the villain

than "Dr. D" David Schultz.

Now what's wrong? Are you crazy?

Try to make a fool out of me! Get the camera out!

He was big enough and mean enough to get his own way.

Get down and fight, baby! Get down!

At the same time, he was a tremendous performer.

He was destined to become one of WWF's most notorious stars.

I come to the WWF, baby.

They loved to hate me.

I'm the guy that went to school with you people,

when you was growing up, and took your money.

That was my job, to be bad, I could back it up.

But one fateful encounter in New York

would destroy his career in an instant.

To make sure that nobody knew the secrets inside the locker room.

-Standard questions. -I think it's fake.

What's your response to the people who point out that this is fake?

You think it's fake?

Holy shit! What the hell just happened?

In an era when wrestlers lived by an honor code

of protecting the business,

no one took it more to heart than David Schultz,

and one single action cost him everything.

They said, "Nobody wants to sign a contract!

You're too mean, too bad!"

I'm anything but fake. I'm an entertainer.

Con man. Whatever.

I am not a fake.

For most of the 20th century, pro wrestling was a closed society,

where the rules of the game were never revealed to the public.

Wrestlers lived by a secret code that maintained the illusion of good

and evil in the squared circle.

Make fights look real, even if the matches are predetermined.

But at the dawn of a pro-wrestling revolution,

old traditions were changing faster

than some performers could keep up with.

Okay, this is one of my storage units here.

Oh, yeah! Here we go, baby.

Come on in. Bring yourself on in. Watch your step.

Watch the spiders and the snakes.

Here's a card that I used to use.

It said, "You've just been patronized by the world's greatest wrestler."

-Where's this from? -Don't know how they get it lively,

you know, just like me.

This bag here, has got some very special items.

One of 'em is a stun gun,

you take this and you pull it back here...

and when you hold it on the guy, you tell him, "You're under arrest.

Get your hands up. If you don't obey, I'm gonna shoot you."

And they say, "Hey, man..." Boom.

I'm "Dr. D" David Schultz,

the greatest pro wrestler of all time, in my opinion.

You know, about '72, '73, I was watching wrestling on TV

and I said, "Well, this is not hard."

So, I went by to see Herb Welch.

This one right here is Herb Welch, the one that trained me.

"Herb Welch, How to Become a Champion".

Herb Welch had been one of the biggest stars,

from the Depression through the 1950s.

He had learned from the pioneers,

the original wrestlers came from carnivals.

It was the last place in the country you could go to learn from a guy

who was at the formation of organized wrestling.

I'm Jim Cornette, for 40 years, I've been a promoter,

a match maker, announcer, manager, and historian in pro wrestling.

He lived in Dyersburg. I went and pulled the truck over.

He come on the porch, and we talked a while.

He said, "I'll train you. When you want to start?"

His method of training was to take guys into his barn on his farm

and beat them.

Herb Welch was a salty, old bastard he would go in a locker room

and he would take a dump, and he'd take a handful of it

and he would rub it in his armpit, and then when he got out there,

he'd lock up with a guy and grab a headlock

and grind as hard as he could until the guy was screaming, "Let me go!

I'll do anything you want! Please, let me go!"

They was trying to hurt me, see: "Can you be one of us?

Are you capable of doing this?"

I'd gotten in good shape after about a month, two months.

He was getting wrestlers to work out with me,

and they told Herb, "You gotta do something with him.

We do something to him, he fights back."

Herb Welch sat David down

and said, "You've got what it takes to make it in this business.

Now we have to smarten you up."

He said, "You're hurting everybody. You're too damn stiff."

He never told me any different.

I thought it was 100 percent real.

The training David Schultz got from Herb centered on one thing:

it's the world of kayfabe.

Kayfabe means you don't be seen together,

right after you had a bad match out here,

blood and guts, then 10 miles down the road

they catch you eating.

No. That's supposed to be your enemy.

Continuing the aura that wrestling and the people in it are real.

Those are the secrets of wrestling. Don't spill the secrets.

You're in a secret society.

This is our world. It was like being in the mafia.

-What does it take to be a wrestler? -Well, you need to learn how to work.

The holds, and the moves, and the timing.

Know what's gonna make people mad.

I almost killed that Andre the Giant with my bare hands.

Know what makes 'em feel good.

The Doctor got funky, dang it. I got funky.

David Schultz found success in wrestling

just being David Schultz turned up to 20,

here's this crazy, redneck hillbilly from Tennessee.

You ain't nothing, boy!

Through it all, Schultz did what he was trained to do:

never break kayfabe.

A lot of the boys thought I was the meanest ever

because I made 'em work hard in the ring.

Hogan was one of 'em.

This man is not a television illusion.

He is not an artist conception.

He is not a figment of the imagination.

He is The Hulk!

In the late 1970s,

Hulk Hogan is a wrestler from Augusta, Georgia.

He first crossed paths with Schultz working the Florida circuit.

I thought he was just a big 'ol body builder

that wanted to get in the business, and he was.

He had no money, he had nothing.

He was living in a van and, I let him come into my apartment

and share my apartment in Pensacola.

We become real good friends.

The two are natural adversaries,

and it's not long before their confrontations

attract the attention of Vince McMahon,

whose World Wrestling Federation is expanding nationwide.

In 1983, McMahon handpicks Hogan to be his centerpiece attraction.

Making his first appearance, ladies and gentlemen, Hulk Hogan!

In 1983, Vince McMahon was systematically going around,

filling spots for his plan to take over wrestling.

Why did Hulk go with Vince to the WWF?

Money. Vince told him, "We gonna put the belt on you.

You're gonna be our #1 guy."

Hogan wanted me to come up and work with him

'cause he told Vince, "I can make money with this guy."

Schultz is brought into the WWF to be Hogan's top rival,

as their in-ring chemistry was already a proven draw.

Vince called me and said, "I need you to come on up

and you ain't gotta worry about money anymore.

We're gonna be sure you make the money you need

for the rest of your life."

Vince McMahon, he said,

"I want you to the be the baddest heel around.

Baddest bad guy, you're gonna be it."

They told me the competition was here,

the greatest wrestlers was here.

If that's an example of great wrestlers, baby

I'm gonna walk on 'em like a steam roller!

He wasn't a cookie cutter heel. He was wilder, crazier.

That thing was starting to get over.

They had footage on Tuesday Night Titans,

where they go to Schultz's house and he's firing rifles in the room.

Whoa! You stupid idiot!

-Telling his wife to scrub the floor. -Get up and get us something eat.

"Woman, get that done. Kids, get and do this."

I'll slap the smile off your face. Don't smile at me.

Vince said the Sheriff Department and the State Police

came to his office that morning, and wanted to know my address.

They had warrants for my arrest for child abuse and spousal abuse.

And Vince said, "Oh, my god! That was a show!"

And the guys couldn't believe it. That was all Vince.

Those wasn't my guns.

Vince had somebody bring those guns.

This one here is worth a lot of money.

Wasn't my house. Wasn't my wife. Wasn't my kids.

Get up! Get up! Go, get, get upstairs!

All that was Vince McMahon, to make people hate me.

And the more they hated me, the more money we made.

McMahon has hit on a formula that works,

and his empire is growing rapidly.

However, as a result, it attracts unwanted attention.

I liked it as a kid

and now I thought it was silly and hypocritical.

I'm John Stossel. I was a consumer reporter

who became a general reporter at 20/20.

I wonder about the credentials of doctors who promote vitamins.

In the early 80s, John Stossel is a rising journalist for ABC News,

who's made a name taking down shady companies and businessmen.

How can you say it might not be harmful,

most people who die of lung cancer smoke?

Now, Stossel has chosen to turn his investigative lens towards

another highly lucrative industry,

one he believes is deceiving its audience.

I was a wrestler in high school, and I was always annoyed people

believed that pro wrestling was real rather than a scripted event

where the winner is preordained and people dress up in funny clothes

and pretend anger, and bullshit.

It had leaked that 20/20 was gonna do a piece

and if it's ABC Network News, it's gonna be an exposé.

I just thought it was interesting that this big,

growing, successful business was based on bullshit.

I mean, cleverly done, athletic bullshit, but lies.

The worst thing that could happen,

everybody's gonna want to know, is wrestling fake or not?

The cardinal rule of pro wrestling was,

don't expose the secrets.

One of the biggest, most famous exposés...

happened in New York in the 1930s.

"A Thrilling and Dramatic Exposé of Wrestling Fakes Coming Soon!"

In New York, newspaper exposés killed wrestling for almost 15 years.

Everybody realized, this is our society, this is kayfabe.

We can't reveal what's going on. It'll cost us our livelihoods.

50 years later,

the stakes are just as high for Vince McMahon's WWF.

And for his newest superstar David Schultz,

kayfabe is a religion.

I don't care what you think, what the people think.

I don't care what nobody thinks about me.

It was my business. If I didn't observe kayfabe,

they'd look and say, "Ah, he's a phony."

No. I was a pro wrestler.

I come to the WWF, baby,

where the toughest in the world is wrestling right now.

Being a pro wrestler means I had standards I had to stand up to.

That's the only way I could make money.

As the WWF's popularity is reaching new heights,

ABC News reporter John Stossel

must somehow infiltrate wrestling's secret society

if he's to expose what happens behind the scenes.

We either did a survey or found a survey

that about a third of the people who attended thought it was real.

-This is real? -Yeah, I think so, yes.

And, I don't like people being bullshitted

and couldn't do a story unless we could find some insider

who would say, "Yeah, here's how we fake this and that," and...

was willing to go into a ring and demonstrate.

And eventually, we found Eddy Mansfield.

I'm the Continental Lover, Eddy Mansfield.

Rich woman's lover, poor girl's dream.

The Continental Lover, Eddy Mansfield.

I left Georgia when I was 17 to go play baseball.

When I hurt my arm and couldn't play baseball, I had to find something.

-You couldn't just drink every day. -And you cowboy!

I always liked wrestling.

When I was breaking in, I was kinda self-taught a little bit.

Bottom line is, I could draw money and talk on that mike.

I'm gonna chase you around the place then erase your face.

I was very fortunate. The only thing that shocked me was the payoffs.

You're drawing sellout crowds

and you're getting not even pennies on the dollar.

With no healthcare, no nothing. That's where I'm having the problem.

How come you don't treat us like

like professional athletes are supposed to be treated?

Not like the scum of the earth.

Why don't you give these guys health insurance and a 401K?

Set an example! You wanna be a big promoter, set an example.

I didn't quit the wrestling business. The wrestling business quit me.

-How'd you get in that position? -I kicked back 20 percent my money.

The booker at the time wanted to control people.

They did it to the other guys. But I didn't agree to it.

And then, my booking stopped. I mean, boom.

As quick as I went up, I was out. I said, "You do this to me...

I will promise you, I'll go on national television

and I will tell the world what scam you're running on the guys."

I said, "Try me." Well, he did.

I made one phone call to ABC.

Stossel and his producers at 20/20 arrange an interview with Mansfield

who agrees to reveal the tricks of the trade.

You couldn't say, "Fake."

You had to both reveal and entertain people

so, I needed a genuine professional wrestler to demonstrate.

And so, when was the first time you met John Stossel?

When we shot.

I talked to them and we were laying out the show

and how it would run and all that.

John Stossel went in the ring with him.

Pro wrestler show him how stuff's done.

He lands on his forearms and elbows, not on me.

He showed me how to jump and be thrown,

some of the tricks.

And you take off on your own?

Why didn't they get me? Let me take him into the ring.

I could show him.

No, you had to have two wimps out there, Stossel and Mansfield.

Mansfield tried to give the standard exposé

that, we're told to win and lose.

-Is this real wrestling? -No.

Not real... no. Not at all.

If somebody believed, they'd be stupid.

But also, he went so far as to show the blade.

Nobody wanted fake blood where people could find it.

That'd be proof what we were doing was bullshit.

So, everybody bled for real.

Two ways to do that, the easy way and the hard way.

The easy way, is with a blade.

They were just on me, "Show the blade, show the blade."

I'm going, "What about this other stuff?"

They had to push it, you know what I mean?

And so...

And I did it.

You go just like that.

And during the match it would drip over your face?

That's it. See, if I was sweating, it'd pour.

I was pretty shocked and

something about hiding a razor blade in their mouths?

Some keep the blade right here, in their mouth.

Some, in their tights.

These are tough dudes who risk a lot for this sport.

Sport. I shouldn't call it a sport. For this... entertainment.

John Stossel is only focused on anything to expose the business.

I wasn't there to expose the business.

I was there to help the business.

And the promoters are very ruthless people.

They don't care of the people that make them the money.

I wanted to get the healthcare and the benefits for the boys.

He come and says, "I wanted to do it for insurance."

He just couldn't get no work. Nobody wanted to use him.

He wasn't worth a shit.

Eddy Mansfield's a has-been, couldn't get where he wanted to be.

Still tries to claim he did it for the boys.

Bottom line is, it's time for them to step up and protect the guys,

when they're old.

You know, I made a statement one time,

I said, "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves,

but Abraham Lincoln forget to free the pro wrestlers."

Armed with insider knowledge, Stossel confronts the industry

over Mansfield's allegations.

I thought, well, we need to have the usual person

from the professional organization say,

"Oh, this isn't fake. This is all real!"

We went to Madison Square Garden.

I guess Vince McMahon okayed it or we wouldn't have been there.

I arrived at the arena,

downstairs we walked through where the wrestlers come in

and the fans, some people hollering, some people cussing.

Go in the dressing room, talk.

Sit down, put my boots on like I do.

Get ready. That's when Vince come walking in

and he said, "We got a guy out here making a joke out of the business.

I want you to interview with him.

Blast him. Tear his ass up. Stay in character, Dr. D."

We were backstage and I talked to the Iron Sheik

and then McMahon said, "Here's another guy."

And then, Schultz came out. He was a little frightening.

-So, why are you called Dr. D? -Why not?

This was a recipe for disaster.

I'm thinking, why would anybody have gone up to Schultz?

-Is this a good business? -Yeah.

I wouldn't be in it if it wasn't.

That's the reason you ain't in it,

or this punk holding the camera.

Reason these rednecks ain't in it, because it's tough.

I was feeling uncomfortable all the way...

And almost didn't ask him the question.

I'll ask you the standard question...

And I said, "A standard question, huh? Okay."

-Standard question? -I think this is fake.

"I think it's fake." I'm thinking, Vince wanted me to stay in character.

Dr. D would slap somebody that said that.

-I think this is fake. -You think it's fake?

-How's that? Is that fake? -What the hell just happened here?

Ah, boom. There goes Stossel down. Go back before the first slap.

Right there, look, look!

Now I watch that back, he didn't hit as hard as he could.

He didn't draw back. He just, boom.

Still, it's David Schultz, but he could have, he could have...

paralyzed him if he'd drawn back.

-I think it's fake. -Think it's fake?

Whack. Whacked me in the ear.

Knocked me down, and I stupidly got up again.

What wrong with ya? That's an open hand slap, huh?

I was taught, get up,

you gotta knock him down. If he gets up, he might hurt you.

-You think it's fake, you... -He whacked me in the other ear.

-My ears were ringing. -It's fake?

I was stunned and a little scared, and that's why I crawled off.

I didn't want to get hit again.

That's why I told him, specifically, not to interview David Schultz.

'Cause I told him, I said, "If you ask stupid questions,

you're gonna get slapped."

I was angry and stunned.

I also thought that's a clip we'll use at the end of our 20/20 story.

I didn't think it'd be anything. You slapped him for rude manners...

like my mama would slap me if I did something wrong.

In a minute, and not think about it. Boom!

Moments after flooring 20/20 reporter John Stossel,

David Schultz heads to the ring

for his match with Japanese wrestling icon Antonio Inoki.

He's unaware of the gravity of the situation.

-Doctor's in trouble! -Oh, what a move!

-Karate kick to the side of the head. -It's all over! It is all over.

After the match, Vince said, "Stossel's saying he's hurt.

He's on about pressing charges."

"For what?" Vince said, "Don't even take a shower.

Go on to the hotel." I put sweatpants on,

sweatshirt, grabbed my bag and I was gone.

Vince had to be thinking, "I'm gonna have to do something with Schultz

or I'm gonna have to eliminate Schultz."

Next day, I went up to Stanford and seen him.

He was saying about the New York Athletic Commission suspending me

and said he'll pay the fine,

he's gonna get everything straightened out.

He's gonna send me to Japan and let this thing cool over.

Eight weeks after the incident, John Stossel's 20/20 report airs,

and the wrestling community is universally outraged.

You're trying to kill our business, take money away from us,

you little pissant, John Stossel.

That's what wrestlers thought.

Eddy to body slam me. But Eddy says anybody can do it.

-Eddy Mansfield, they hated him. -It's an optical illusion.

I had death threats, people planting cocaine.

I had to get out of the south,

before I either went to jail for killing somebody...

or somebody killing me.

I moved into New York.

I had four FBI guys on the plane to make sure I got to New York safe.

You're not messing with promoters

you're messing with the boys.

They fear more what their friends and cohorts will do to them

than the penalty they can get from the law.

When you look back, I should have just got my butt up and just left.

If the deal feels bad, the deal is bad.

It cost me my career. That's okay. They did me a favor.

Because I'm better off today than I would have been in wrestling.

Pro wrestling doesn't take care of the people that make it the money.

Just preaching, "You gotta protect the business."

Well, why do I want to protect something that doesn't protect me?

Vince McMahon sends Schultz to wrestle in Japan,

hoping the fallout will die down.

Instead, the controversy follows Schultz east.

First thing they wanted me to do in Japan was hit a reporter.

And I told them, I'm not hitting nobody

unless you write it down as part of the script.

-And they did write it down. -How was that set up?

They came into the dressing room.

I told 'em I'll slap you, you fall.

Then the camera guy'll take a picture of you.

And the news, Tokyo news saying, you know,

"Dr. D comes now to Japan and slaps reporters

like he did in New York."

Back at ABC News, more than 1,000 people inquire

about John Stossel's well being after seeing his report.

My ears were ringing and I had pain when there was a loud noise.

My daughter was a baby at the time, and when she cried, it hurt my ears.

It made it tough for me to change her diapers or parent well.

I thought that McMahon and his group should be taught a lesson

that they can't beat up reporters.

And, I sued for damages.

I wanted some compensation for my pain.

What Stossel don't understand is, I went and talked to his lawyer

before Vince ever got sued or anything else.

My lawyer told me, "You need to tell him the whole story

'cause Vince is not gonna take care of you."

At the WWF, it's clear to McMahon the incident is not going away,

and he needs Schultz to help him solve it.

He didn't know he was gonna get sued by John Stossel,

and when he got sued, my name wasn't in it. He was mad.

I went by the office and he wanted me to sign a paper

saying that it was all my fault, I did it on my own influence.

No, that ain't gonna happen.

I'm not gonna take blame for you, what you had me to do.

I'll sign a paper saying I did what you told me to do.

John Stossel said I hit him in both cheeks,

in the right cheek and then the left on the deposition.

Anybody watches the tapes that got sense can see I never hit his ears.

While Schultz is falling out of favor at the WWF,

Stossel's lawsuit is intensifying.

As part of the pretrial prep,

you go to their doctor so they can examine you.

They sent me to a guy who, without examining me,

said, "I think you're suffering for a duro somatic illness."

"A duro somatic illness.

You're holding onto pain 'cause you're in a lawsuit."

And I said, "Screw you!

You're the paid lawyer for the defendants,

you haven't examined me and you're saying this?"

-What was the outcome of that? -Years later, they settled.

I got $280,000.

Do some people psychologically feel pain longer because of that,

as this doctor claimed?

Maybe. Maybe he was right,

'cause, I held onto my pain, but it did go away when I got paid.

As the blow back from the 20/20 piece dissipates,

McMahon focuses on the launch of his biggest event yet.

The concept for WrestleMania

was the biggest wrestling event ever held, times ten,

an over-the-top, closed-circuit...

globally broadcast extravaganza

that would combine celebrities and wrestling.

Looking to appeal to the widest possible audience,

McMahon adds a Hollywood actor to the roster,

and puts him at the top of the card.

Mr. T was one of the biggest television stars.

In 1985, he'd been a star of the A Team with George Peppard.

-You want him? -No, you take him.

-Working with Sylvester Stallone. -Dead meat.

He had a great body, and a mohawk, and he wore the chains.

But he looked the part, and made people believe he was.

Teaching me how to pump iron, and I'm glad you brought me.

The WWF positions Hulk Hogan and Mr. T

front and center in their nationwide promotion.

But Schultz's name is missing entirely.

I didn't think Mr. T should be in a wrestling match

when he's never wrestled.

And pay him more than he pays any of his wrestlers.

I said, "That's a joke. You're putting T into WrestleMania I?

What about me? Where you putting me?"

Schultz watches on

as buzz around WrestleMania grows bigger.

At a WWF event in Los Angeles, tensions backstage escalate further.

Mr. T and his Hollywood friends were there to see the matches

and he was being treated as a guest, and allowed the run of the place.

I believe Schultz genuinely resented T's presence there

and didn't want him in the locker room.

That was a sanctuary.

Did you have a physical altercation with Mr. T?

No. Mr. T was in the hallway talking to me that night.

Jay Strongbow was the agent. He seen him in the hallway with me.

He said, "David, Vince had told me, if you was gonna go out there

and bother Mr. T to fire you." "Well, you better fire me then."

He said, "Okay, you're fired."

I get dressed and go down to the ring to watch the match.

I was seeing Toru Tanaka.

Friend of mine. He's sitting with Mr. T.

I went to the ringside and the cops come up,

and Jay Strongbow called the cops

and told 'em that I was a fairly dangerous guy

and I was about to hurt somebody and they need to get me out of there.

They hog-tied me.

Hands handcuffed behind my back,

flat on my stomach, feet shackled and tied to my hands.

And then two cops takes guns

and put 'em to my head on each side and threw me out the back door.

Vince had to be thinking, "I gotta calm these guys down."

That was the atmosphere. They didn't relate well with outsiders.

Vince had to get rid of Schultz because it was only gonna get worse.

When I got back to Connecticut, I checked with Vince,

he said, "I'll check with Jay, find out what happened."

He knew what happened.

My lawyer wrote I was ready to go to work,

and they said, "No, Mr. Schultz will not work for us no more, ever."

In 2019, Hulk Hogan came forward

with a different recollection of the incident with Mr. T.

Out of nowhere, I had T sitting ringside

and I didn't know what was going on.

David rolled out of the ring and slapped the hell out of him.

A huge slap. After that, he was pretty much done.

Vince was so pissed at him, that was the bullet that did him in.

Most people know who that is, Dr. D.

And I guess you know Hogan. Oh, big head Hogan.

He used to hate me telling him he had a big head.

And now he don't have no hair at all.

-What is that on the back? -Okay, "old friend forgot his name".

I don't know if Stossel had anything to do with my getting fired.

They said it was because of Mr. T. That's a bunch of crap.

And then, you know, to beat all of that is,

Hogan went a few weeks after that and dropped Belzer...

Mr. Hulk Hogan.

One of the publicity appearances arranged for Hulk Hogan and Mr. T

to build WrestleMania was on The Richard Belzer Show.

There's a thing the boys did with a reporter,

or a photographer, or somebody from the public.

The first thing you need to know about wrestling.

You tell me when you want him to quit squealing.

Let me just put one hold on you and just show you what it feels like.

-How about it, T? -Keep him like that for a while.

Put him in a sleeper. I mean, choked him.

And he dropped him on the floor, and he busted his head.

He's alright. He just sleeping. He's sleeping.

Huh? Hogan didn't get nothing out of it.

We feel bad about the incident.

When somebody asks me to show a hold,

especially when they sit and laugh in my face,

I showed him the simplest hold I knew--

There was a settlement. I'm sure Vince paid it at that point.

Vince wasn't gonna fire Hulk Hogan

even if he'd shot Richard Belzer.

Hogan was the golden child.

It seemed like you and Terry were close.

Did this come between your friendship?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We was close. We was very close.

One of the best friends I had until he turned his back on me.

Hulk Hogan!

Then all of a sudden, he's with Vince and it's like, "I can't talk to you.

Can't deal with you. You're on your own."

You know, and I ain't talked to him since.

As Hogan becomes a household name,

Schultz's star fades away.

He tries to find steady work in the smaller territories,

but believes he's being blackballed by the industry.

They said, "Nobody wants to sign a contract!

You're too mean! You're too bad!"

Everybody I called, they didn't want to talk because of Vince.

You know, he told him, "Use him, I'm through with you.

Don't call me for nothing, ever."

Yeah, it was a hardship, but I worked through it.

I kept working independent for a year or two,

and then I became the world's greatest bounty hunter.

Open the door, right now.

What happens when wrestling's most notorious bad guy

becomes a real-life gun for hire?

"Dr. D" David Schultz, world's greatest bounty hunter,

coming to your screen.

Exiled from wrestling and desperate for cash,

David Schultz is introduced to the world of bounty hunting

by a friend in law enforcement.

He said, "I'll introduce you to the bondsman, and you go pick 'em up,

you bring 'em in, you get paid. Ten percent of the bond."

That sounds good, yeah. 250,000. Yeah, that's a nice one.

And they had nobody doing it at that time.

They told me they had this one guy, motorcycle guy,

nobody wanted to go get him, and they needed to get him in.

Next morning I got him in.

I put a 9 mm in his mouth, and he wasn't bad at all.

He went to the ground, handcuffed him, took him to jail.

And I said, "Wow, this is pretty easy right here now."

When you're a pro wrestler as long as I was,

every day you got your hands on a man.

Every day you've got a man's arm, a man's wrist.

You know what hurts, what not.

How to take him down because you do it every day.

Get your hands on the car.

It's not strange to you and it don't bother you to grab a guy

and he don't know what's happening.

Have my brother call Tony.

Schultz takes to the job like he was born to do it.

He develops a reputation

as a reliable bounty hunter in America.

The only way you'll get away is when you come out of that house

and you see me standing there, you better take off running.

My job takes me where the criminal goes.

Maybe to Saudi Arabia.

Wherever he goes, I'm gonna follow.

All the bondsmen started calling. I had more work than I could do.

Found him, you got paid. If you didn't, you didn't.

Fucking people, man. They hide everywhere.

But you got all kind of 'em, man.

You got all kind of 'em. You got hookers, drug dealers.

But everybody out on the streets knew me as Dr. D.

When people know you,

it's a lot easier to get in, or they'll open the door for you.

Dr. D, David Schultz, buddy.

That's the one that beat the shit outta Rivero.

Yeah, I feel good going in with you.

We're coming to your home, your living room,

and it's gonna be true, live, actual footage.

No more make believe. It's all over.

I'll be there soon.

What is the most memorable experience as a bounty hunter?

The best one was when I picked up two kidnapped girls.

And, three years, they couldn't find him, the FBI.

The two girls got kidnapped, 14, 15 years old when he took them.

They said when he left the house, he would chain to the commode.

The only way they could drink water was out of the commode.

I mean, this guy was a sicko.

I found him in Puerto Rico,

and I walked in the bar and he was sitting at the bar.

The two girls was stripping onstage,

and they had a baby in the back, two Dobermans with her.

And I said, "Hey, Larry. "Dr. D" David Schultz,

bail enforcement agent, you're under arrest."

He jumped off the bar, run around the side.

I slid over top, and he was out the back door.

Two Puerto Rican policemen pulled down on him with shot guns.

I jumped on him, handcuffed him, and threw him in the car.

We ended up with two girls, two dogs, a baby.

We had a whole group, man. But, I got 'em back home

and, I guess they're doing great today.

-It's like living in an action movie. -Oh, yeah. All the time.

You just gotta be careful because one mistake is your last one.

While the former wrestler is risking his life in the streets,

his old boss Vince McMahon drops a major bombshell.

State legislatures are urged by the biggest wrestling promoter

to think the unthinkable, to declare pro wrestling

is not a sport, but an entertainment whose outcome

is actually known before the battle begins.

In an ironic twist, McMahon is attempting to lift the veil

on the thing Schultz became infamous for protecting.

Vince McMahon went to the athletic department, Baltimore,

and told 'em, "Hey, it's entertainment.

It's not sport. It's entertainment." He exposed the whole business.

Four years after the inaugural WrestleMania,

Vince McMahon's gamble has more than paid off,

but to increase profits, he aims to change how wrestling is regulated.

Those commissions would license promoters and wrestlers,

and take tax cut for the right to hold that event in their state.

It might be five, six percent of the gates. Some states, ten percent.

It is now official: wrestling is not really wrestling.

Wrestling promoters told their secrets to free themselves

from the hold of government regulation.

We shouldn't be governed by a state body unless you do it to Broadway.

That was the comparison.

When Vince McMahon came out and said it was entertainment,

he justified what I said... you understand?

Kayfabe! That's a bunch of crap.

I mean, what idiot came up with that?

After McMahon makes his appeal to the state senate,

New Jersey finally frees the WWF from regulation.

For Vince McMahon, it's part of the show.

I watched it with my son who is a big fan, and we bought the figures,

and I understand what a difference it makes to people.

Many other states, eager for the WWF's business,

follow New Jersey's lead

and deregulate what McMahon now calls "sports entertainment".

Stossel was set up. Eddy Mansfield had everybody set up.

He went and sold his soul out.

I gave my whole career up because of these people.

Do you or will you ever... Would you forgive John Stossel?

Is really not for me to forgive it's God's job to forgiven.

And I'm not God.

What are you're doing now?

What am I doing? Starting next week, I'll be driving a tractor trailer,

18-wheel, hauling cotton from the den to warehouses.

I'll do that about three months, four months.

I work from sun up to sun down, and then during the night.

There's two ways David Schultz's career in wrestling could have gone.

One, he would've made money in the WWF

'cause he would've been a star for some time.

Or, David being David,

as Vince McMahon got more cartoony, more showbiz,

David would have found something else to blow up about,

which is probably more likely.

I want you, Hogan. Where you at, boy?

Vince McMahon also wanted to be the Walt Disney of wrestling.

No way are we gonna compete with those clowns.

He wanted to be more clean, more family oriented.

A show that he could take on the road.

Some went with him and trusted that, got pictures on ice cream.

It sure is good, ought 'a try one. I have about two every day.

Problem with Schultz, he had a guy tougher than a waffle house steak

and didn't like to be pushed around.

Is David Schultz the type of person you could control?

If you treated David as a human

and respected him as a professional athlete...

you could control anybody.

I don't think that's the problem. It's being disrespected.

And I think that was all of our problems.

You think it's fake?

It's still annoying that people still come up and say,

"Didn't you get whacked by the wrestler?"

On YouTube it's probably my second most watched video.

I've become immortal.

They'll talk about me when I'm dead.

"Oh, we remember that guy.

He slapped that reporter, Dr. D David Schultz."

And I've offered to go face to face with him,

let's straighten this out, John Stossel and me.

And don't worry, John Stossel, I'm not gonna hurt you, boy.

If there's something you could say to David Schultz, what would it be?

Fuck you, David!

Understand, I stood up for wrestling.

It don't really bother me what people think about me.

I really don't care, you know.

They can think anything they want. I don't care.

And I'll tell 'em I don't care. I don't care.

Subtitles by: Chris Ransley Iyuno-SDI Group