“Dr. D” David Shultz was one of professional wrestling’s crazy characters. The man worked various territories in the 70s and 80s, most notably Verne Gagne’s AWA and the World Wrestling Federation. Well on December 28th, 1984, right as the WWF was preparing to hit the mainstream, Dr. D sealed his fate in professional wrestling as a cult legend when he slapped ABC 20/20 news correspondent John Stossell in the face not once, but twice, after Stosell asked him if professional wrestling was “fake”, considering his old tag team partner revealed some of the secrets. This assault was later aired on ABC news and the network actually received thousands of calls of concern for Stosell’s health. Stossel went to court over it and sued the World Wrestling Federation and eventually settled. An apology was also given by Shultz. Many feel this was the incident that caused the WWF to release Shultz until he would rear his head during the early 1990s steroid distribution trial.
David Shultz career pretty much fell into dire straights from that point forward. The ironic thing about it is that had an incident like this happened anytime this year, it would probably have been turned into a storyline.
I actually have that on tape somewhere. I saw it because a friend , who was a big pro wrestling guy in the early 80s, showed it to me. I was amazed.
What’s actually funnier about that show is that they interview people asking them if they think wrestling is real or fake. And of course, they only showed the idiots who thought it was real.
Good stuff Big D.