Original subtitles

Don't let people see you out there signing autographs, all these little

stuff. They say, oh, you're not a bad guy.

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

street. And that's where you're going to make money.

Dr. D.

David Schultz. In the early 80s, there were few better at playing the villain

than Dr.

D. David Schultz.

What's wrong with you? You're crazy. Come out here and try to make a fool out

me. Get the camera out of here. He was big enough and mean enough to get his

way. Get down and fight, baby.

Get down.

At the same time, he was a tremendous performer.

He was destined to become one of World Wrestling Federation's most notorious

stars.

They hated me, but they loved me. They loved to hate me.

I'm the guy that went to school with you people out there when you was growing

up. They took your lunch money from you. That was my job, to be bad.

And I can back it up.

But one fateful encounter in New York would destroy his career in an instant.

make sure that nobody knew the secret.

Inside the locker room. You know? Standard question. I think this is fake.

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

Holy shit, what the hell just happened here?

In an era when wrestlers lived by an honor code of protecting the business,

one took it more to heart than David Schultz.

And one single action cost him everything.

They called me back and said, nobody wants to sign a contract with you.

too mean. You're too bad.

I'm anything but fake.

I'm an entertainer, a con man, whatever.

I am not a fake.

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

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

wrestlers lived by a secret code that maintained the illusion of good and evil

in the squared circle, make the fights look real even if the matches are

predetermined. But at the dawn of a pro wrestling revolution, the 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.

Just come on in. Bring yourself on in here. Watch your step.

Watch the spiders and the snakes and all that. Here's a card that I used to use.

It said, you've just been patronized by the world's greatest pro wrestler.

Where'd this thing come from?

I don't know how they get it to look so lively, you know, just like me.

This bag here has got some very special items.

One of them is a stun gun, and you take this.

And you pull it back here, and when you hold it on the guy, you just tell him,

you're under arrest, get your hands up.

If you don't obey, I'm going to shoot you.

And they say, hey, man.

Boom. I'm Dr. D. David Schultz, probably the greatest pro wrestler of all time,

in my opinion.

You know, about 72, 73, I was watching wrestling on TV one time, 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 wrestling stars in the South from the

time of the Depression through the 1950s. He had learned from the pioneers,

original pro wrestlers that came from the carnivals. It was the last place in

the country that you could go to literally learn from a guy who was there

formation of organized professional wrestling.

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

announcer, manager, and a historian in professional wrestling.

He lived in Dyesburg. I went out there and pulled the truck over, and he come

out on the porch.

We sat there and talked a while, and he said, yeah, I'll train you when you want

to start.

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

the piss out of them.

Herb Welch was such a salty, mean old bastard that he would go in the locker

room and he would take a dump, and he would take a handful of it and he would

rub it in his armpit.

And then when he got out there, the first thing he'd do is he'd lock up with

guy and grab a headlock and start grinding that head as hard as he could

the guy was screaming, please let me go. I'll do anything you want. Please let

me go.

They was trying to hurt me, say, can you be one of us? Are you capable of doing

this? I'd already gotten in pretty good shape after about a month and a half,

two months. He was getting wrestlers to stop by and work out with me. And these

boys told Herb, said, you got to do something with this kid, man. We can't

handle him. We do something to him, he fights back.

Herb Welch sat David Schultz down then and said, you've got what it takes to

make it in this business.

Now we're going to have to smarten you up, son.

He said, well, you're hurting everybody.

You're too damn stiff.

Well, he never told me any different.

I thought you was fighting for your life. I thought it was real.

I thought it was 100 % real.

The training that David Schultz got from Herb Welch centered on one thing.

It's the world of kayfabe.

Kayfabe means you don't be seen together. Right after you had a bad

here, blood and guts and everything, and then 10 mile down the road they catch

you at Shawnee's eating together.

No, that's supposed to be your enemy back then.

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

secrets of wrestling.

Protect the business.

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 pro wrestler?

Well, you need to learn how to work.

The holds and the moves and the timing.

No,

what's going to make the people mad?

No,

what's going to make them feel good?

David Schultz found success in wrestling. Just being David Schultz

20 is this crazy, you know, redneck hillbilly from Tennessee.

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

Never break KP.

A lot of boys thought I was, I mean, as bad as they ever seen because I made

them work hard in the ring. Hogan was one of them. This man is not a

illusion.

He is not an artist's conception.

He is not a figment of the imagination.

He is the Hulk.

In the late 1970s, Hulk Hogan is an up -and -coming wrestler from Augusta,

Georgia. He first crossed paths with Schultz working the Florida circuit.

I thought he was just a big old bodybuilder that wanted to get into

and he was.

He had no money. He had nothing. He was living in a van, and I let him come into

my apartment with me and share my apartment with me in Pensacola. We've

real good friends.

The two are natural adversaries, and it's not long before their epic

confrontations attract the attention of Vince McMahon, whose World Wrestling

Federation is expanding nationwide. And in 1983, McMahon handpicks Hogan to be

his centerpiece attraction.

In 1983, Vince McMahon was systematically going around filling

plan to take over the wrestling world.

Why did Hulk go with Vince to the WWF?

Money. Of course, Vince told him, we're going to put the belt on you. You're

going to be our number one guy.

Hogan wanted me to come up and work with him because he told Vince, hey, I can

make money with this guy.

Hulk was 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 got to worry

about making money anymore. We're going to be sure you make all the money you

need for the rest of your life. You ain't got to worry about it. Vince

he said, David, I want you to be the baddest heel around.

Baddest bad guy there is, you're going to be it.

They told me the competition was here. They told me the greatest wrestlers in

the world was here.

He wasn't a cookie -cutter heel. He was a little wilder and a little crazier.

And that type of thing was starting to get over. They had the footage on TNT,

Tuesday Night Titans, where they go to Schultz's house and he's firing rifles

off in their living room.

You know, telling his wife to go scrub the floors. Get up and get us something

to eat or something. Woman, get in there and get that done. Kids, get in there

and do this.

I'll slap that smile off your face. Don't smile at me, boy.

Ben said the sheriff's department and the state police came to his office that

Monday morning and wanted to know my address, where I live. They had wants

my arrest for child abuse and spousal abuse.

And Ben 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 at the TV station bring those guns.

This in here is worth a lot of money. Everything I got's worth a lot of money.

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

All that was Vince McMahon to make people hate me. And the more they hated

the more money we made.

McMahon has hit on a formula that works, and his empire is growing rapidly.

However, as a result, it starts to attract unwanted attention.

I liked it as a kid, and now I thought it was kind of silly and hypocritical.

I'm John Stossel. I was a consumer reporter who became a general reporter

2020.

And you know, sometimes I wonder about the credentials of these doctors who

promote vitamins.

In the early 1980s, John Stossel is a rising journalist for ABC News who's

a name for himself taking down shady companies and corrupt businessmen.

How can you say it might not be harmful, yet most of the people who die of lung

cancer smoke?

Now, Stossel has chosen to turn his investigative lens towards another

lucrative industry, one he believes is deceiving its audience.

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

some 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

anger and bullshit.

It had leaked out that 2020 was going to do a piece, and obviously if it's ABC

Network News, it's going to be an expose.

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 ever happen, everybody's going to want to know, is

wrestling fake or not?

The number one cardinal rule of professional wrestling for 100 years was

expose the secrets. One of the biggest, most famous exposés happened in New York

in the 1930s. A thrilling and dramatic exposé of modern 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 all our livelihoods.

50 years later, the stakes are just as high for Vince McMahon's World Wrestling

Federation. And for his newest superstar, David Schultz, kayfabe is a

I don't care what you think. I don't care what the people think about me. I

don't care what nobody thinks about me. I don't care what you think about me.

It was my business. If I didn't observe kayfabe, they'd look at me 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

Being a pro wrestler means that I had standards I had to stand up to. That's

only way I could make money, have high standards.

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 the event thought it was real. Is this real?

Yeah, I think so, yes.

And I don't like people being bullshitted and couldn't do a story

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 Eddie Mansfield.

I'm the continental lover, Eddie Mansfield.

A rich woman's lover and a poor girl's dream.

The continental lover, Eddie Van Steen.

I left the state of Georgia when I was 17 to go play baseball.

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

to do. You couldn't just drink every day.

And you wrecked Saul Cowboy.

And so I always liked wrestling. When I was breaking into business, I was kind

of self -taught a little bit. But the bottom line is, I could draw money.

And I can talk on that mic. First, I'm going to chase you around the place, and

then I'm going to erase your face.

And I was very fortunate.

The only thing that really shocked me was the payoffs. You know, you're

sellout crowds, and you're getting not even pennies on their dollar. But no

health care, no nothing.

That's where I'm having the problem.

Well, how come you don't treat us 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.

want to be a big -time promoter? Let's set an example.

You know, I didn't quit the rest of the business.

The rest of the business quit me.

How did you get in that position?

Well, I wouldn't kick back 20 % of my money.

The booker at the time wanted to control people.

They did it to the other guys who agreed to it.

But I didn't agree to it. And then my bookings 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

and I will tell the whole world what kind of scam you're running on the guys.

I said, try me.

Well, he did. I made one phone call to ABC.

Dosswell and his producers at 2020 arranged an interview with Eddie

who agrees to reveal the tricks of the trade.

You couldn't just say, hey, this is fake. You had to both reveal and

people, so I needed a genuine professional wrestler to demonstrate.

And so when was the first time you met John?

When we shot.

You know, I talked to them, and we were kind of laying out the show and how it

would run and all that.

John Stossel come down, went in the ring with him. Pro wrestlers show him how

that stuff's done.

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

He showed me how to jump and be thrown and some of the tricks.

You just take off on your own. Right.

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

I could show him how it's done.

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

Good. Mansfield tried to give the standard expose that, yes, we're told to

and lose.

Is this real wrestling?

No. Not real, no. Not at all.

I mean, if somebody believed that, 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 would be proof that

what we were doing was bullshit.

So everybody bled for real.

There's two ways to do that, the easy way and the hard way.

The easy way is with a blade.

You know, they were just on me, just show the blade, show the blade, show the

blade. I'm going, hey, what about all this other stuff I need to talk about?

They had to push it, push it, push it, you know what I mean? And so, and I did

it.

You go just like that.

And gradually during the match, it would drip down over your face.

See, if I was sweating, he'd pour.

I was pretty shocked, and also something about hiding a razor blade in their

mouth. 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.

And I wasn't there to expose the business. I was there to help the

And the promoters are very ruthless people. And they don't take care of the

people that make them the money. I wanted to get the health care and the

benefits for the boys.

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

This guy, he just couldn't get no work. Nobody wanted to use him. He wasn't

worth a shit.

Eddie Mansfield's a has -been, never was, couldn't get where he wanted to be,

didn't have the talent, and still tries to claim he did it for the boys.

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

they have a future when they get old.

You know, I made a statement one time. I said, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves,

but Abraham Lincoln forgot to free the pro wrestlers.

Armed with insider knowledge, Stossel sets out to confront 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.

So we went to Madison Square Garden. I guess Vince McMahon okayed it or we

wouldn't have been there.

I arrived at the arena, and of course, downstairs, we walked through where the

wrestlers come in, and the fans, some people hollering, some people cussing.

in the dressing room, talk to all the boys, hello, sit down, put boots on like

always do, get ready, and that's when Vince come walking in, and he said,

listen, we got a guy out here making a joke out of the business.

I want you to go out and interview with him, blast him, tear his ass up, stay in

character, Dr.

D.

We were backstage, and I talked to the guy they call the Iron Sheik, and then

McMahon said, here's another guy.

And then Schultz came out.

He was a little frightening.

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, it's a good business. I wouldn't be in it if it wasn't. Why is it a good

business? Because only the tough survive.

That's the reason you ain't in it. And this punk holding the camera, reading he

ain't in it. Reading these rednecks out here ain't in it because it's a tough

business. 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, standard question, huh?

Okay. Standard question. I think this is fake.

I think it's fake.

Now I'm thinking Vince wanted me to stay in character.

Dr. D, slap the hell out of somebody and say that.

I think this is fake.

You think it's fake?

What's that? Is that fake? Holy shit. What the hell just happened here?

Boom, there goes Stossel down.

Go back before the first slap.

Look, look, look.

Now that I watch that back, he didn't even hit him nearly as hard as he could

have. He didn't even draw back.

Boom. I mean, still, it's David Schultz, but he could have paralyzed him if he'd

drawn back and swung.

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

Whack whacked me in the ear and knocked me down, and then I stupidly got up

again.

What the hell's wrong with you? That's open -hand slap, huh? I was always

taught, man, get up. You got to knock him back down.

Because if he gets up, he might hurt you.

You think it's safe to talk?

He whacked me in the other ear. My ears were ringing.

What do you mean? I was stunned, a little scared, and that's why I crawled

I didn't want to get hit again.

That's why I told them specifically not to interview David Chills.

Because I told him, I said, if you ask him stupid questions, you're going to

slapped.

I was angry and stunned.

I also thought, well, that's a clip we'll use at the end of our 2020 story.

I didn't think it'd be anything.

I figured you slapped him for rude manners, like my mama would slap me if I

something wrong.

In a minute, and I think about it.

Moments after flooring 2020 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 developing backstage.

After the match, Vince said, just go to the hotel because Fossil Sandy's hurt

and all that. He's talking about pressing charges.

For what?

Vince said, don't even take a shower. Go to the hotel.

I just put my sweatpants on, sweatshirt, grabbed my bag, and was gone.

Vince had to be thinking, starting at that point, I'm going to have to do

something with Schultz, or I'm going to have to eliminate Schultz from the

equation.

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

He was telling me about the New York Athletic Commission suspending me and

me he's going to pay the fine.

He's going to get everything straightened out. Don't worry about it.

He's going to send me to Japan and we'll let this thing cool over.

Eight weeks after the incident, John Stossel's 2020 report airs and the

wrestling community is universally outraged. You are trying to kill our

business, take money away from us and our families, you little piss ant. John

Stossel, that's what all the wrestlers thought about him. Eddie, the body

slammed me, but Eddie says anybody can do it. Eddie Mansfield, they hated him.

Stop collusion.

I had death threats, people trying to plant cocaine on me, and I knew I just

to get out of the South, you know, before I either went to jail for killing

somebody or somebody killing me.

I moved into New York. I had four FBI guys with me on the plane to make sure I

got to New York safe.

You're not messing with the promoters when you expose the business. You were

messing with the boys.

They fear more about what their friends and what their 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, but that's okay. They did me a favor because I'm better

off today.

than I ever would have been in wrestling.

Pro wrestling doesn't take care of the people that make us the money, and it

never has.

And just preaching, oh, you got to protect the business, you got to do

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

Vince McMahon sends Schultz to wrestle in Japan, hoping the follow -up from the

incident 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? Well, he come into the dressing room, had a camera. I told

him, I just slap you upside the head, you fall down.

Then the camera guy take a picture of you laying on the floor.

And the news, Tokyo News, saying, you know, Dr. D comes now to Japan and slaps

reporter like he did in New York.

Back at ABC News, more than 1 ,000 people call in to inquire about John

Stossel's well -being after seeing his report on television.

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 go beating up reporters.

And I sued for damages. I wanted some compensation for my pain.

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

before Vince ever got sued or anything else.

My lawyer that I had at that time told me, you need to go tell him the whole

story and take care of yourself because Vince is not going to take care of you.

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

and he needs Schultz to help him solve it.

He didn't know he was going to get sued by John Stossel.

And when he got sued, my name wasn't in it, so he was mad.

I went by the office, and that's when he wanted me to sign a paper saying that

it was all my fault. I did it under my own influence.

I know, that ain't going to happen.

I'm not going to 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, the right cheek and then the

cheek on deposition.

And anybody watching the tapes that got any sense can see I never hit his ears.

While Schultz is falling out of favor at the WWF, Stossel's lawsuit is

intensifying.

It's part of the...

Pre -trial prep, you go to their doctor so their doctor can examine you.

They sent me to a highfalutin guy who, without examining me, said, I think

you're suffering from a jurosomatic illness.

What? I said, a jurosomatic illness.

You're holding on to your pain because you're involved in a lawsuit.

And I said, screw you. You're the paid lawyer for the defendant and you haven't

even examined me and you're saying this?

What was the outcome of that situation?

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.

Because I held on to my pain, but it gradually did go away when I got paid.

As the blowback from the 2020 piece dissipates, McMahon focuses on the

his biggest event yet.

Vince's concept for WrestleMania was the biggest wrestling event ever held times

10, an over -the -top, closed -circuit, globally broadcast extravaganza that

would combine celebrities and wrestling matches.

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 the country. In 1985, he had

been a star of The A -Team with George Pappard.

You want some?

No, you take it.

He's working with Sylvester Stallone. He had a great body and a mohawk and he

wore the chains, but he looked the part and he talked the part and could make

people believe he was the part.

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 coming in to go in a wrestling match when he's

never wrestled or anything and pay him more than he pays any of his wrestlers.

I said, that's a joke. You're putting T in WrestleMania 1?

What about me?

Where are you putting me?

Schultz watches on as buzz around WrestleMania grows bigger by the day. At

event in Los Angeles, tensions backstage escalate.

even further. Mr. T and some of his Hollywood friends were there to see the

matches and I'm sure he was being treated as a guest and just being

run of the place.

I believe that Schultz genuinely resented T's presence there and didn't

in the locker room because that was reserved for the boys. That was a

Did you have a physical altercation with Mr. T that night?

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

Was the agent on the job. He come out and seen him in the hallway with me.

He said, David, Vince had told me if you was going to 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'm just going out to see Tarzanaka.

Good friend of mine, he's sitting with Mr. T. So I went to the ring side, and

the cops come up. Jay Strongbow called the cops and told them that I was a

fairly dangerous guy, and I was about to hurt somebody out there, 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 hand.

And then two cops...

takes guns and put them to my head on each side and threw me out the back

Vince, he had to be thinking, I got to calm these guys down.

That was the atmosphere.

They didn't relate well with outsiders at that point. Vince had to get rid of

Schultz because it was only going to get worse.

When I got back to Connecticut, I checked with Vince, and he said, I'm

have to check with Jay Strombo, find out what happened. He knew what happened.

And my lawyer wrote him a letter, told him I was ready to go back to work. And

said, no, Mr. Schultz will not work for us no more, ever.

In 2019, Hulk Hogan came forward with a completely different recollection of the

incident with Mr. T.

Out of nowhere, I had T sitting in ringside because he's a friend of mine,

didn't know what was going on.

David rolled out of the ring and bitch slapped the hell out of him, just out of

nowhere, a shoot slap.

And after that, he was pretty much done.

Vince was so pissed at him, that pretty much 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. Boy, he used to hate for me to tell him he had a big head.

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

Wow. What is that on the back? Okay.

Old friend forgot his name.

So, I don't know if it also had anything to do with my getting fired.

They said it was because of Mr. T.

Well, that's a bunch of crap.

And then, you know, to beat all of that is Hogan went within a few weeks after

that and dropped Belzer.

Mr. Hulk Hogan.

One of the publicity appearances that they had arranged for Hulk Hogan and Mr.

to build up for WrestleMania was an appearance on the Richard Belzer show.

There's a thing that the boys used to do with a reporter or a photographer or

somebody from the public.

Now, the first thing you need to know about amateur wrestling. Yes. Or

professional wrestling. You just tell me, brother, when you want to quit

squealing. All right.

Let me just put one hold on you and just show you what it feels like, what we go

through. How about it, T?

Keep him like that for a little while.

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

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

He's all right. He's just sleeping. He's sleeping.

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

We feel real bad about the incident that just happened. When somebody asked me

to show a professional wrestling hold, especially when they sit here and laugh

in my face when I'm talking to them, I just showed him the simplest hold that I

knew, and I thought... There was a settlement. I'm sure Vince probably paid

at that point. Number one, Vince McMahon wouldn't have fired Hulk Hogan, even if

he'd have shot Richard Belzer in the head. Hogan was the golden child.

It seemed like you and Terry were, like, close at one point. Did this kind of

come in between your friendship with him at all? Oh, yeah, yeah. We was close.

We were very close.

Probably one of the best friends I ever had in the business until he turned his

back on me.

Then all of a sudden, you know, he's with Vince, and it's like, hey, I can't

talk to you, can't deal with you.

You know, 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

blackballed by the industry.

They called me back and said, nobody wants to sign a contract with you.

too mean. You're too bad.

Everybody I called, they didn't even want to talk to me. The promoters,

of Vince, you know. He told them, hey, you 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

for hire? Dr. D. David Jules, the world's greatest bounty hunter, is

screen near you.

Exiled from wrestling and desperate for cash, David Schultz is introduced to the

dangerous world of bounty hunting by a friend in law enforcement.

He told me, I'll introduce you to the bondsman, and what you do is you go pick

them up, you get the paperwork, and you bring them in, you get paid 10 % of the

bond. Oh, okay, that sounds good. Yeah, $250 ,000. Yeah, that's a nice one. And

they had nobody doing it at that time. I went in, they told me they had this one

guy, motorcycle guy, bad guy, nobody wanted to go get him.

And they needed to get him in. Well, the next morning, I brought him in. Come

around the corner, I put a 9mm in his mouth, and he wasn't bad at all. He went

right to the ground, handcuffed him, took him to jail.

And I said, wow, it's pretty easy right here now.

When you're a pro wrestler, as long as I was, every day you got your hand on a

man.

Every day you got a man's arm, you got a man's wrist. You know what hurts, what

not, how to hook him, how to take him down, because you do it every day.

All right, get your hands on the car, okay? Get them 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

happened to it.

Have my brother call Tony.

Schultz takes to the job like he was born to do it. He soon develops a

reputation as one of the most reliable bounty hunters in America.

And the only way you're going to get away from the doctor is when you come

that house and you see me standing out there.

You better take off running. My job takes me where the criminal goes.

Wherever he goes, I go. It may take me to Saudi Arabia. Wherever he goes, I'm

going to follow him. I'm going to be right on him.

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

If you found them, you got paid. If you didn't, you didn't.

People, man, they hide everywhere.

But you got all kind of them, man. You got all kind of them. You got hookers.

You got drug dealers.

But everybody out on the streets knew me as Dr. D. You know, when people know

you, it's a lot easier to get into their house or they'll open the door for you

or whatever.

Papa, that's Dr. D, David Schultz, buddy.

That's the one that beat the shit out of Donald Rivera.

I feel good going there with you.

We're coming to your home, your living room, and it's going to be true, live,

actual footage. No more make -believe. It's all over.

I'll be there soon.

What would you say is the most memorable experience you had as a bounty hunter?

Well, the best one was when I picked up the two girls that was kidnapped by this

piece of garbage, and three years they couldn't find him in the FBI. The two

girls got kidnapped, 14, 15 years old when he took off with them. They said

he left the house, he would chain them around the commode.

And the only way they could drink water was out of the commode while he was

gone. I mean, this guy was sicko, you know.

I found him in Puerto Rico.

And I walked in the bar, and he was sitting at the bar. The two girls were

stripping on stage, and they had a baby in the back room.

Two Dobermans living back there with her.

And I said, hey, Larry, Dr. D. David Schultz, bail enforcement agent, you're

under arrest.

And he jumped off the bar and ran around the side. I slid over the top of the

bar, and he was going out the back door.

And two Puerto Rican policemen pulled down on him with shotguns.

I jumped on him, handcuffed him, took him outside, threw him in the car.

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

We had an old group, man.

But I got them back home, and I guess they're doing great today.

It's like kind of living in an activism.

Oh, yeah, all the time, all the time. You just got to be careful because, let

tell you, 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 being urged by the biggest of all wrestling promoters

think the unthinkable, to declare that pro wrestling is not a sport at all, 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 very

Schultz became infamous for protecting.

Vince McMahon went to athletic department in Baltimore and told them,

It's entertainment.

It's not a sport. It's entertainment.

Yeah, you expose the whole business.

Four years after the inaugural WrestleMania, Vince McMahon's gamble has

than paid off. But to increase profits, he aims to change the rules around how

wrestling is regulated.

Those commissions would license promoters and wrestlers and take tax cut

right to hold that event in their state. It might be 5 or 6 percent of the gate.

Some states, maybe up to 10 percent.

It is now official.

Wrestling is not really wrestling.

Wrestling promoters have told their secrets in an attempt to free themselves

from the half Nelson of government regulation.

We shouldn't be governed by a state body unless you're going to license

Broadway.

That was the comparison. It's a show. 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

WWF from regulation.

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

I did watch it with my son, who was a very big fan, and we bought all 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, and Eddie Mansfield had everybody set up.

He went up there and sold his soul out.

I gave my whole career up because of these people.

Do you or will you ever or would you ever forgive John Soppa?

It's really not for me to forgive.

It's God's job to forgive him.

And I'm not God.

What are the things you're doing now? What am I doing now? Well, starting next

week, I'll be driving a tractor trailer, 18 wheel hauling cotton from the gym to

the warehouses.

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

I work from sunup to sundown and then during the night.

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

One, he would have made a ton of money in the WWF because he would have been a

big star there for quite some time.

Or, David being David, as Vince McMahon got more cartoony, more showbiz,

David would have found something else to blow up about and something would have

happened, which is...

Probably more likely.

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

He wanted to be more clean, more family -oriented, a show that he could take on

the road.

So some went with him and trusted that vision and got their pictures on ice

cream bars.

The problem was with Schultz, he had a guy that was tougher than a Waffle House

steak. And didn't like to be pushed around.

Is David Schultz the type of person that you could control?

I think if you treated David as a human being and respected him as a

professional athlete, you can control anybody.

I don't think that's the problem with David.

I think it's being disrespected.

And I think that was all of our problems.

It's annoying that I've done a million pieces that... People still come up and

say, aren't you the guy who got whacked by the wrestler?

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

I've become immortal?

People are going to talk about me when I'm dead and gone.

Oh, yeah, we remember that guy. He slapped the hell out of that reporter,

David Shultz. And I've offered to go face -to -face with him and let's

straighten this thing out, John Stossel and me. And don't worry, John Stossel,

I'm not going to hurt you, boy.

If there's something you could say to David Chilton now, what would you say to

him?

You, David.

I understand. I stood up for wrestling.

And 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 them I don't care. I don't care.

Hmm.