Didn't this happen during Eddie's title reign? It happen after a match at the gorilla press when Angle got pissed at Eddie for screwing up a few spots in the ring during their match at a house show or TV taping.
That's what I'm thinking as well.
I'm sure he did do a lot of stuff that we could consider "asshole" behavior before he cleaned himself up. Of course, we also have heard about the incident with Angle and stuff with fans that happened in the last 2 years. It is possible Eddie was a really nice guy 99% of the time, but had a really bad temper the other 1%.