A bizarre, last-minute situation unfolded as Montenegro claimed he didn’t know the match was supposed to be scripted and refused to be on the losing end if it was, Schultz said. Schultz offered to get disqualified, but Montenegro wasn’t happy about the situation, and apparently wasn’t in the loop. It was a fuzzy situation on both ends, according to Schultz, and Sherdog.com could not reach Montenegro for comment.

“I thought, ‘Well, maybe it’ll be better if I took him down.’ A lot of times you don’t know how things are gonna go,” Schultz said. “I told Simon Inoki to make sure that message got to Montenegro. Well, Montenegro didn’t get any message. Simon didn’t tell him anything. So when I didn’t do exactly what we agreed on, (Montenegro) thought I was breaking the deal. I gave him a triangle. He wouldn’t let me go. Afterwards I was pissed. Just the way the whole thing went down, it was really important for me to go out a winner in my career. I thought, ‘Well, only thing I have now is the start of my pro wrestling career.’

“I never thought anybody would think that was a real fight. I’m a trained mixed martial artist. I can tell what’s real and fake, but I thought that was the way they did their pro wrestling over there. But I never in my wildest dreams thought Inoki would mix fake and pro fights. I feel bad I was a participant in that. I really regret it.”

Schultz maintains that the bout should not be on his record as an MMA contest. Compounding the matter -- and the $5,000 purse instead of the $25,000 he said he was initially promised -- he never got the chance to compete in Japan’s pro wrestling circuit either.

Since the Montenegro match, Schultz has stepped away from the wrestling scene and taken things one day, and one ache, at a time.

“I’ve been fighting in court to get my kids back. It’s the most drawn-out, contentious legal battle in history. I’m trying to figure out how to financially survive, get insurance, get my back fixed,” he said. I’m working for a masonry contracting company, and my boss is giving me health insurance.”

But the Montenegro ordeal still bothers him because he believes it suggests he went out a loser. That’s something he was never comfortable with, especially since he maintains the match wasn’t a real fight.

“Why is it that Kurt Angle’s matches are not recorded on Sherdog.com? What’s the difference between me and him? I want to go on the record saying that,” he said. “I want (people) to understand that this is a really significant thing that happened in my life. I got screwed.

“And to me, identifying that as a real loss makes it about a thousand times worse. One thing I’d like to do is let Montenegro know I’m really sorry about the way things happened. He seems like a really good, tough guy. I don’t know if he wouldn’t have beaten me that day anyways. I just would like him to know that under different circumstances, we probably would’ve been friends.”