As the Netflix “Mr. McMahon” docuseries continues to make headlines across the wrestling landscape, fans and pundits have plenty of segments and stories on which to focus. On “The Hall of Fame,” Booker T honed in on the incidents between former “20/20” reporter John Stossel and David Schultz, as well as Hulk Hogan and Richard Belzer, which were highlighted in the series on McMahon in its first episode.
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Schultz twice slapped Stossel, as captured in a 1984 expose on the wrestling business, after the journalist referred to wrestling as “fake,” while Belzer invited Hogan to place him in a wrestling hold on his “Hot Properties” talk show about a year later, only to be placed in a Front Chinlock and lose consciousness, fall to the floor, and require nine stitches to the back of his head. “I think Hulk did the right thing,” Booker said, before rhetorically wondering if he did so to a little bit of an excessive extent. “I think you could put a guy in an Armbar and get your point across, I really do,” he added, before noting that there were other ways to address the situation than putting him “to sleep.”
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Regarding Stossel, who was provocative in his approach to the piece in question, Booker genuinely empathized with Schultz’s response. “It was very disrespectful the way John Stossel came up on David Schultz,” he said. “When you put yourself in a confrontational situation, something might happen. I don’t blame David Schultz at all for what he did, because if a man came up to me and disrespected me, I don’t know what I might do in that situation. I might do the same thing that David Schultz did to John Stossel.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “The Hall of Fame” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.