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> When Vince was shown a tape of Chatterton's damning attack on his character, he couldn't believe the words that had come out of her mouth. Like most others, he too suspected that she had been put up to the appearance, probably, he guessed, in return for being well compensated. After he first placated his wife Linda and swore blind to her that no such incident had ever occurred, Vince picked up the phone and called his already overworked lawyers. Like him, they assumed Chatterton was involved in a conspiracy.
>The timing of Chatterton's accusations were no coincidence to Vince or his legal team. It was a shakedown. Numerous obscure ex-employees with an axe to grind joined forces and jumped on the anti-WWF bandwagon, all of them willing to sell their souls for a quick buck. Ex-employees like former presenter Murray Hodgson, an immaculately coiffured but inherently insincere character who was also involved in the Rivera piece. After he heard Tom Cole and Barry Orton had gone public with stories of sexual harassment in the WWF, he suddenly came out with his own claims, declaring that he had been fired for refusing Pat Patterson's sexual advances.
>While Hodgson was barely enough of an annoyance to register on McMahon's radar, he knew that the Chatterton claims were serious and needed to be squashed. A year later in March, 1993 on the grounds of having been caused, 'severe emotional distress,' Vince and Linda sued Chatterton, Rivera and also former performer David Schultz, who was named as a conspirator.
>chultz had been fired by McMahon back in 1985 for trying to fight Mr. T in Los Angeles and nearly killing WrestleMania, but had also garnered significant notoriety for slapping reporter John Stossel when he provocatively asked if the business was 'fake.' Schultz still harboured a grudge against McMahon for firing him, and claimed he was put up to both incidents by his superiors under orders from Vince himself.
