DEVASTATING Acts Of Self-Sabotage That RUINED Wrestling Careers
3. Dave Schultz Slaps Himself
Because it makes for a better story, the Dark Side of the Ring episode covering the downfall of Dave Schultz portrayed him as the great lost worker of the 1980s who was blackballed from the wrestling industry.
Neither of these things are true. They're somewhat close to being true, but embellishment is part of wrestling - even the part that promises to tell you about the real stories backstage.
Schultz was a fantastic promo, intersecting menace and black comedy to tremendous effect. He looked and carried himself like a man not to be f*cked with. He was mean - a quality so lacking in modern wrestling that it is romanticised through the lens of nostalgia.
Schultz hasn't worked a match that stood the test of time, where many people still talk fondly about the best output from the 1980s. And, if that was never the intention, Schultz never worked a match that was raved about by the standards of the time.
It's true that he was suspended by the New York State Athletic Commission for slapping John Stossel, but he was bounced out of the WWF for intimidating Mr. T backstage. T had done nothing wrong. Schultz simply could not abide an "outsider" in the inner sanctum and went about it in an aggressive, unjustifiable way.
Schultz self-destructed; the promoters who hated Vince at the time were hardly going to side with him.