15 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Tony Atlas
7. Tony Fired Guns In The WWF Locker Room?!
Tony's behaviour started getting more and more erratic before he was eventually released by the WWF. He outright said at one point during 'Dark Side' that he made it his mission to intimidate other wrestlers in the locker room. "The success, the money and the fame went to [his] head" big time, and that was never going to end well if he kept picking fights or being difficult to deal with.
One day, Atlas pulled a Colt 357 Magnum out of his bag and fired the gun at the ceiling in the dressing room. He kinda suggested that this wasn't an isolated incident on the documentary, which is wild. In a warped, twisted sort of way, Tony viewed this as revenge, because he wanted to "hurt others as much as [he] was hurt as a kid".
Something had to give, but it says everything for pro wrestling back then that Atlas was apparently fired for missing shows rather than for pulling guns out of his bag and firing them in the locker room. Again though, how much of this is fact or fiction is up for debate, and the timeline seemed deliberately vague so people would link this story with WWE.
Did this actually happen in the WWF? Or, was it something Tony pulled in one of the other territories and VICE just lumped it in with other crazy stories hoping they'd all blend together? 'Dark Side' seemed to hint that this was a federation problem, not an NWA one.
Either way, it landed Atlas in a lot of trouble.