EXCLUSIVE: Buff Bagwell on Being Fired by WWE, Joining the nWo, Bischoff Not Being a Fan of Him, More

I recently sat down with former WCW/nWo star Buff Bagwell in an exclusive interview for Ringside News. During the interview, Buff Bagwell discuses numerous topics such as how he created the Blockbuster, who came up with him joining the New World Order, his hate for Jim Ross and more.  Below are the highlights from the interview.

Bagwell on creating the blockbuster: “When Scotty Riggs and I broke up and I went with nWo, our first match was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I actually hit Scotty Riggs with it to join the nWo. It was Rick Rudes old neck breaker. I wanted to do Rick Rudes old neck breaker because I was a big fan of that move but I needed to make it different so it wasn’t like, “Oh, that’s Rick Rudes old neck breaker.” So, I thought of something off the second rope. We literally practiced it in the hotel rooms, flying off the beds in hotel rooms trying to figure it out. The first time I ever tried it was on live television against Scotty Riggs in our very first match to break us up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at Souled Out Pay Per View.”

Bagwell on who came up with him joining the nWo: “I think Kevin Nash. Bishoff was not a big fan of mine from the get-go. I always loved Eric, but I was ten years younger than these guys, I wasn’t a big burly wrestler, I was a bodybuilder young kid. So I didn’t get a whole lot of respect because wrestlers were wrestlers with big barrel-chested guys. All of a sudden, here comes a guy with earrings, chokers, tattoos. That was a little bit taboo for that generation. 

Nash broke it to me while we were in Salsberry, Maryland. He came in the locker room and goes, “You want to be part of the nWo?” I said, “Are you kidding me? Absolutely!” So that night, Eric Bishoff went out and gave everyone thirty days, and that was the night I joined and turned on Scotty Riggs.”

What the last night of WCW was like: “It was devastating dude. I got out of a car with Goldberg, Luger, about ten million dollars worth of talent, and we all see at the same time WWF trucks and we go, “There’s no way any of this can be good.”  Keep in mind we were all friends, but we all had our nitches and close friends inside the office. So, we all got into the building, late as usual. We all split off to try and find our people and find out what was going on. People were crying, people were taking pictures of their belts, taking pictures with Flair. You could see everyone try and grab ahold of memories. That’s what I remember.

It wasn’t much of that viewing and someone said, “Um, Shane McMahon has a meeting in this room here in a few minutes. Within that couple of minutes, there was a meeting about two minutes long, and he said, ” We bought the company. We own WCW. We’re going to keep some wrestlers, we’re going to fire some wrestlers, we’re going to keep some refs, we’re going to fire some refs and good luck.” About half the guys clapped, the other half didn’t. It was really awkward and weird. 

All of the things here comes the first sheet of the show, Lex and I weren’t on the show. I went, “That can’t be good.” So I go to my car and Lex calls to say, “Hey, we have an interview we’re doing.” So I thought thank God we’re on the show. After the interview, I left and my Dad goes, “Where you at?” I told him I was driving home. He goes, “Vince just said five names at his event in Cleveland.” Vince was like, “Well who do you have down there Sting,” to see what kind of reaction it would get. I’m nowhere near the top five of Stings, Lugers, but in his voice I was. Vince called out Sting, Luger, Goldberg, somebody else and me. If you listen to it back out of those five guys, I was one of the two biggest pops.

A lot of higher guys like Luger told me, if he says your name, you have nothing to worry about… I was fired a week after my first match and still don’t know why. Please call and tell me why I got fired.”

Problems with firing and Jim Ross: “My problem with Jim is from the infamous fight with Shane Helms at the wrestling school. I slapped him (Helms) and he hit me in the back of the head with an ice bottle, it was a water bottle that was frozen like a brick. I had twenty stitches in my head the night I wrestled Booker T.  I had cortorized my head and had it stitched up. I did not tell WWF about it, did not use their doctors, did not use their money. I was trying to walk on eggshells so no one was in trouble and trying to keep it low key.

I get to Raw that night, I see Shane and I wave to him and The Hardy’s and they don’t wave back. I went straight to Johnny Ace, he was our boss then. I said, “Johnny, we have to talk.” I told Johnny the whole truth. The eleven other guys didn’t want to say anything as there was twelve of us that were hired (from WCW). 

They begged me to keep it quite, I did but after the no wave, I told Johnny. He had us all kiss and makeup. So Booker T. and I are the main event that night with the likes of Stone Cold, The Rock, and we knew we should not be the main event that night. We were the main event a week before Atlanta.

If you’re going to book Booker and Buff and it being the first match of the Invasion, are you going to do it in Tacoma, Washington or are you going to do it in Atlanta, Georgia? Stacy Keibler was the ring announcer, she got booed. Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson came out and got booed. Shane McMahon came out and he got booed. The Referee got booed. Booker T was the champion but for some reason, he came out first and he got booed. I went oh my God.

As my music was about to hit Shane McMahon comes up to me and goes, “Listen to me, don’t look into the camera.” I go, “What? Shane, that’s all I do. I pose and look into the camera.” This is while my music started playing. If you go back and watch that match it was the not a regular Buff Bagwell entrance. Booker and I had what I thought was an average match. We weren’t told by WWF what to do. Patterson didn’t come to us, Johnny Ace didn’t. Only Stone Cold came up to us to tell us about the ending of the match.

The heat with Ross is when he called me off after Tacoma. There are only three witnesses to this story, God, Jim and me. Nobodies going to believe me, it’s going to be really hard to get God to come down and talk about it, so everyone believed Jim. The true, true story was it was a Wednesday or Thursday and I was home alone. Jim called and said, “Look, we want you to rest your head, take it easy, we have really big plans for you on Monday.” That story got out that my Mother called, keep in mind, I already wrestled with twenty stitches in my head five days earlier.

Why would I call to get off to drive when Atlanta is days away. That’s home for me. “Hey Mommy, will you please call Jim Ross and get me out of this after working there two whole weeks?” That’s not even believable but people believed it. People swallowed it up, That’s why I hate Jim Ross. 

He’s acting like he just carried on his duty of what he’s supposed to do, but I’ve also seen him on that Round Table where he blisters me, dogs me out. It was him, Micheal Hayes, Eric Bischoff on a panel and Ross goes on and on about my Mom calling, dogging me out. His defense was always I liked Marc and that he was just doing his job. Well if that’s the case, why’d he dog me out on The Round Table if he likes me? I think he’s 1,000% behind it. I do hate his absolute every bit of his living guts. If he died today, I could care less. That’s how I feel about it because he cost me millions of dollars over a lie that the world took in that my Mother called to get me out of, and it’s not true.”

You can listen to the complete interview below.

(When using quotes or audio from this article make sure you credit Lee Walker III and Ringside News)