While he may be an unknown to today's younger fans, "Dirty" Dick Slater was a very big star for the Mid-Atlantic NWA territory in the 1970s and 1980s. He held various regional titles to go along with the NWA Unites States title and the NWA Television championship. He also earned a reputation as being one of the toughest men to ever step in a wrestling ring. Most famously, Dick Slater got into a confrontation in a bar with former NFL player John Matuszak. A member of the Houston Oilers and also famous for playing Sloth in the movie Goonies, Matuszak said the wrong thing to Dick Slater and ended up beaten down on the barroom floor. In another famous incident, Dick Slater was standing around watching Wahoo McDaniel pistol whip some poor loser who had made a comment about Tommy Rich's wife. As luck would have it, the pistol went off and and Slater was struck in the leg by the bullet. After telling police that a sniper had shot him,Slater went to the hospital but was back in the ring within weeks. However, the incident that got him on this list didn't involve a wrestling mark but his girlfriend. Due to years of abuse on his body from the wrestling business, Slater (like many other workers) had become addicted to pain medication. Slater had broken two vertebrae in his back during a televised match with WCW in 1996 and his addiction stemmed from that injury. In December 2003, Slater injected himself with morphine and Oxycontin for a nagging back injury before brutally attacking his girlfriend with a butcher knife. Slater was convicted in June 2004 and sentence to a year of house arrest with two years of probation.
