During the latest episode of Insights with Chris Van Vliet, former WCW star Marcus “Buff” Bagwell talks about his leg amputation, his sobriety and WCW.
On how he is feeling right now:
“I’m blessed. I’m not sure who has their leg amputated, and five months later says they’re blessed, but I am blessed. It’s been crazy, this journey I’ve been on with this thing. But it all came at me at once, like from the leg getting amputated, to my sobriety, to my relationship with Jesus Christ, to my relationship with Stacy. I have 12 grandchildren, and I love it all.”
On being a completely different person now:
“I’m a completely different person. I am sure why, God. I believe I was always a pretty good guy. Matter of fact, Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 1991 was a great guy. Everybody in the locker room loved Marcus Alexander Bagwell, and I think through drinking and pills, drinking and drugging, I lost that Marcus. I really believe that’s what happened. I believe when the drinking and drugging stopped, Marcus instantly started, slowly coming back, and now Marcus is fully back to where. When I walk in a room, it lights up again, but not just from eyes I see. It lights up inside of me.”
On when his addiction started:
“I would say the time I feel in my head that it really started was when I got my own prescription bottles. That would have been 1998 when I broke my neck. It started legitimately with, Hey, man, I’m hurt. My neck is hurting, and I would take a pain pill, and it just climbed crazily from there.”
On when he realized he had an addition problem:
“I realized I had a problem through all that. I went to rehab several times. My first rehab was early 2000 right after the WWE thing and all that. I went to rehab. I went for five days. They told me it was a medical detox. That was the word, but it’s not true, it doesn’t happen that way, but that’s what they said. Day eight, I was right back, taking pills again and drinking again. So I tried, I did five, five or six rehabs throughout that journey, but the last rehab before I got sober was 2012 and I did an interview with you right after that. I’d got it under wraps. I got a little bit of grip with it. But I wasn’t sober. It was the closest I got to being sober in 2012, but when I had that car wreck in 2020 and I really had hurt myself that I couldn’t fix it, I was angry. I was so mad at myself that I couldn’t fix this problem. I’d had other wrecks and knocked my teeth out, but fixed it. I would have a bad injury, but I fixed it. I couldn’t fix this one, so I fixed it by fixing me. I got sober.”
On how long he has been sober:
“Three years and five months. August 27 of 2022 is my sobriety birthday.”
On what happened with his leg:
“…So in 2020, I had a car wreck where I was under the influence of pills and alcohol, and I drove through a bus station, it’s a bus station bathroom, men’s and women’s and nobody was in it, thank God. In that car wreck, my right knee cap exploded. So with it exploding, 40 surgeries over the next 3 or 4 years trying to fix it. Infections in and out. Knee replacement, I think it was 41 surgeries total. Then I was just going to deal with this leg that didn’t bend anymore, and it got infected again. And the doctor goes, ‘Let’s cut it off.’ And I went, Whoa, wait a minute, brother, we did 40 something surgeries. Let’s try to fix it one more time. I can’t just cut my leg off. So I went to that appointment to see what it was like to save my leg. In that appointment is where I stopped the doctor, as he was explaining, he was talking about pulling a skin graft off of this shoulder to close it up. I said, Whoa, what? So it was so devastating what I was hearing. I said, What’s the percentages of all that working? And he said, about 20%. I said, let’s cut it off.”
On if he thinks he would have been WCW World Champion had the company not be sold to WWE:
“100%. There’s not a doubt in my mind. Very early in WCW, I knew that I would be hated because Missy taught me this. Missy showed me and taught me that you’re going to have to work 10 times harder. And I’m like, why? She goes, ‘Because you’re good-looking and because you’re young. If you don’t walk in every single time and shake hands and thank everybody and work hard, you’re going to get buried.’ She goes, ‘You will get buried anyway.’ And she was right. I walked in and I was hated. I was hated by all of them. I made friends, not trying to, but I made friends with Sting. Then one day they met me, and they were like, ‘Wow, he’s really a good guy.’ I remember Sting coming to my house to play basketball one day, and when he got to my house, remember the old school answering machines? Both Steiners were on my answering machine and Sting was amazed. He said, ‘Did I just hear Robbie?’ Because he called Rick Robbie. ‘Did I just hear Robbie and Scottie on your answer machine?’ I go, Yeah. He goes, what happened? I go, we ride motorcycles and stuff together. He goes, what? Because those guys hated my guts and we were best friends for a while. They hate my guts now too. I think they do. I did a video on Robbie, a bad video that I thought was funny, that he took personal. Looking back on it, I think it may have been a bad idea, but I really thought it was just funny. I thought everybody knew it anyway, but he got mad about that, I heard. Scottie, I think he’s mad at everybody.”
All quotes are courtesy of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
Buff also talks about his leg amputation being filmed by Maven, DDP, the possibility of wrestling again, speaking with Zach Gowen and more!
The full interview with Buff Bagwell can be viewed below: