The Wrestler Who Was Cancelled
Schultz resented the fact that T, a non-wrestler, was getting the WrestleMania main event. Hulk Hogan claimed in a 2019 interview with Steve Austin that Schultz "bitch-slapped the hell out" of Mr. T with a "shoot slap", but Hogan believes himself capable of time travel, so there's nothing in that. It would have made the national news, too, obviously.
Schultz didn't think the Mr. T incident had anything to do with his firing, and questioned the Stossel incident, too, citing Hulk Hogan choking out Richard Belzer on Hot Properties days removed from WrestleMania on the media rounds. What, Schultz reasoned, was the difference? Did Hogan grow jealous of Schultz? Was Schultz held back?
The difference, in addition to the fact that it was an accident and that Belzer was nice to Hogan before the prearranged skit went awry, is that Hogan was a megastar draw; if anything, the Belzer controversy helped drive the success of WrestleMania, the early projections for which threatened a disaster.
As a result of his sudden, controversial exit from the industry - his banishment, as the story goes - Schultz's aura has only intensified as the years have passed. He wasn't just a shoe-leather tough 1980s badass; he was too much even for that era, and only the vocation of bounty hunting, to which Schutlz was drawn after his star faded, could contain him and make use his frightening assets.
Towards the end of his Dark Side episode, Schultz intimated that old friend Hogan, who had suggested him as a heel opponent to Vince McMahon, turned his back on him. He also said that he was blackballed from the industry "because of Vince". This isn't just the defensive, deluded position taken by an embittered former star. Many within the industry have echoed this opinion so often that it has become the dominant narrative; after the Schultz dark side aired, CM Punk on April 29, 2020 tweeted "Wrestlers and fans who spend the energy to applaud Shultz slapping Stossel, stop and think, and spend half that wishing there was a way to stick together and stand up for Shultz being black balled."
There may be a degree of truth to this.
CONT'D...(3 of 5)