Look at me. You can't win, because
I'm the one that's Buff! You are number two.
I'm the man, look at it. Take your time.
[narrator] Marcus Bagwell began his wrestling career
as a handsome hero...
Alright!
A fan favourite for audiences to root for,
but given the chance to become a villain. ..
Buff Bagwell of the NWO!
The vain and arrogant Buff Bagwell was born.
The bigger I made it, the more exaggerated
I made it, the better it got.
He just turns up the volume on his own personality.
Marcus, he's really a person to sit down and talk to.
'Buff the Stuff' is an arrogant asshole.
Wow, I look good.
Working out, tanning, cars.
Is this it?
Girls.
He's entertainingly obnoxious.
[Chuckling]
I love myself more than anybody I can think of.
After his wealthy parents lost their fortune,
Marcus turned to wrestling to recapture the lavish
lifestyle of his childhood, and brought his whole family
along for the ride.
My mom and dad worked for me.
-[Horn blaring] -Mama's back.
-What's her first name? -Judy.
She was like my mom, slash, secretary.
There's probably so many stories out there,
it's just... blow your mind. Blow your mind.
It was dysfunctional, yes.
Jerry Springer would just love to go to their house
and hang out.
[Gunshot]
I come into the picture, WCW shuts down,
and he goes off the deep end.
The combination of injuries. ..
-Oh my goodness. -Oh!
...and substance abuse,
sent Marcus' career into a nosedive.
Desperate to maintain his lifestyle,
he boldly ventured into a
controversial new profession.
I have heard the rumour that Marc was a male whore.
When Gigolos happened,
that hurt me to my soul.
I was the best functioning addict in the world,
until I wasn't.
I thought to myself, I'm not going to be shocked when
somebody calls me and tells me Marc has passed.
He achieved so much so fast,
and he fell just as fast.
♪
So this is my mother's office and
it's full of Bagwell memories.
My wrestling career, my dad's racing.
Right here is Rookie of the Year,
and up there is my Tag Team of the Year.
This is just memories that were spread out throughout
decades, and she got 'em all into one room.
You know, she did all of this, this is all
because of the way Judy Bagwell was.
The organization, the, the drive.
Wow.
Where'd it go, man?
♪
Our family, we were told from a very young age
that we were special.
It was just known that we were
going to be somebody.
♪
Hey, I'm Marcus Alexander Bagwell,
a.k.a. "Buff" Bagwell. I'm Buff and I'm the stuff.
It's a freak thing that he got into wrestling.
Marcus was a all-county football and baseball player.
He wrestled a little bit, he wasn't on the wrestling team.
I'm Steve Bagwell and
I'm Marcus Bagwell's father.
We had three sons.
Marcus was the youngest.
Marcus developed slower than they did,
where he was so scared he wasn't gonna get big.
But I kept telling him,
"Work at it and you'll get there." You know?
We tried to be like our father.
You know, he was a very successful drag racer.
Self-made millionaire.
He just had a aura about himself of, of power.
We were always watching sports.
We watched wrestling.
It was definitely on our TV, but it wasn't even, like,
an inkling of doing that for a business or a career.
Back in the day, they were very known.
They owned Southeastern Lumber.
Everyone wanted to get their lumber there.
This is Mark 'Slick' Johnson
from WCW and TNA Wrestling.
I've been friends with Marcus Bagwell for a long time.
Probably known him since I was...
18, 19.
I don't think there was many people you met in Marietta
that did not know who the Bangles were.
My name is Tonya Bagwell,
and I was Marc Bagwell's first wife.
I was 18, he was 18...
and we just hit it off, you know,
it just fit like a glove.
He's just a loving person.
We all wanted to go over to Marc Bagwell's house.
The guy had a pool room, a theatre room,
a batting cage, a tennis court.
His dad buys him a brand new Corvette at 15...
and is able to drive it back and forth to school.
I wanted him to have the things I didn't have,
and I had the money to do it, so I did.
We were spoiled rotten,
but we were not spoiled brats.
He didn't get away with nothing.
He still got in trouble.
His dad wasn't gonna raise a pussy.
If we did anything wrong, you got your ass whipped.
My father whipped me once,
my mother whipped me a thousand times.
And we were scared of her.
She was fearsome, for sure, and fearless.
If she likes you, she likes you.
If she don't, she don't.
There was no in between with her.
This is a woman that ran a 215 employee lumber yard.
I've seen a hundred truck drivers walk in and think,
"This lady's the boss?"
And within about 2 minutes, you know,
they knew who the boss was, and they were shutting up.
Well, let me say this...
you don't ---- with Judy Bagwell.
She'll give you the shirt off her back,
but she'll knock you down with the other hand.
Steve's the same way. Steve's more calm,
except when he loses a poker bet.
Yeah, he had poker over there all the time.
One time we're all up in Marc's room,
and we just hear, "Goddamnit"!
He lost, like, the main card bet.
Goes and grabs the machine gun,
and the front of his house, they have two doors.
He kicks those two doors open,
and there's geese out in the lake and finally
he just unloads on 'em.
[Gunshots]
I hear- [Fluttering]- a machine gun going off.
And so I'm thinking, "Oh my God,
somebody's robbing us." Got my 45, I bridge it,
put one in it, and by the time I get to the front door
with my gun, it's my father is like Scarface.
[Gunshots]
Feathers are going everywhere.
[Rolling tongue]
♪
So he emptied the clip, and I'm going, "Dad?"
That's a true story.
[Laughing]
I just remember being in Marc's room and
his dad would come up and he's like,
"Alright, where are y'all going"?
I said, "We're going to club, and we want to go,
we're going here and we're going there."
And he'd reach in his pocket,
break out about five or six bags of cocaine.
He said, "Here you go, boys.
Y'all have fun tonight. Stay out of trouble."
[Laughing]
He just was scared we were gonna get hurt,
and he knew where he was getting his from and
felt better about helping us.
That was crazy.
Good times though, good times.
♪
As the Bagwell's business struggles,
Judy reveals to her husband that the family's finances
are in serious trouble.
She'd gone out and got three or four loans,
250 grand a piece.
She convinced the bankers that she could pay this back
and it'll all be okay. Well, it all went kaboom.
I had enough money, I thought,
to live the rest of my life, you know, and comfortably.
I never would have dreamed it.
You know, that it could happen.
My father made it very clear that we were going broke,
and the brothers were at their houses at this stage.
So it was just me, my mom, and my dad at the house.
But it was hard, hard times.
I mean, they were fighting all the time, and...
it was just, things were, things were,
things were getting ready to explode.
You could just feel it.
Basically, the arguments just got worse and worse.
My wife, Judy, went out the door,
got in one of our vehicles and fixin' to leave, and
I followed her out and I said, "Where are you going"?
She said, "I'm leaving." I said,
"Not in my car you're not." And I said,
"If you try to, I'll shoot the tire."
I'm upstairs and I hear my mom.
"Marc! Marc! Help me! Help me"!
You know? And I go running downstairs, you know.
We've been going through shit, now he's beating up mom,
and I'm trying to solve that problem,
and I'm just flipped as well, you know?
And Marc said, "Dad, back off of Mom."
And I saw a gun in his hand.
I said, "What are you doing with a gun"?
He said, "I just want you to back off Mom." You know?
And I said, "You'd shoot me"?
He said, "No, sir, unless I have to."
And I always kept a handgun
on top of the refrigerator.
He- [exhaling]- he bolted.
Right for the refrigerator.
So, as soon as he got there,
we followed him into the kitchen.
Now he's got a gun on me.
He's like, "Come on, big man. Come on."
I go, "Put the gun down, man." I said,
"You're just gonna end up killing one of us and
going to prison, bro.
This ain't gonna do nothing." You know?
Of course I was mad at that time and...
I just kept on and on.
First thing I knew, he was popping caps at me.
[Gunshots]
My plan was to kill my father.
The first shot probably would have killed me,
because it would have hit right there.
But as I could see him fixin' to shoot,
I put my hand right there.
♪
And it took an inch and a half of this little bone
right here, seeing two scars there?
And then he shot four more times.
I could hear the bullets zinging by my head.
it was something that I just couldn't believe
was happening, you know?
[Gunshots]
'Cause Marc and I had been so close all our lives
since he was born.
[Gunshot]
But he was tight with his mom, too. You know?
Oh yeah, yeah.
They had to take a, a bone graft off my hip and
put it in my, in here to fill this hand.
And, and they got, I got a silver plate there
that holds it all together.
My mom's like, "Please call your dad.
Please call your dad." And I'm like,
"Mom, I'm not calling him. You know, I don't feel bad.
I'm not wrong. I don't, I got no re- no remorse at all."
It was a little while before we did.
Probably three or four months.
He called me up. Dad calls me,
and he goes, "Just want you to know,
you're 100% right on what you did.
You did nothing wrong.
You're protecting your mom and your, and yourself."
I told him it was all my fault, 100%.
If I'd have backed off the whole thing
wouldn't have happened, you know?
We had a rough couple years,
but we've been best friends ever since.
♪
With his parents no longer able to support him,
Marcus moves out of the family home,
marries his high school sweetheart, Tonya,
and finds a whole new way to make a living.
Marc was a male stripper right after high school.
I wasn't ashamed of it all.
I was, I was very happy to show my body off and
make money with showing my body.
We had just moved into Poplar Place Apartments
and that's how he met Missy.
I was looking for an apartment north of Atlanta,
and we pull up and there's this hot guy in these, like,
short shorts and a little tank top.
And I was like, "Wherever he lives,
I want to live by him."
I'm Missy Hyatt, the First Lady of wrestling,
and I discovered Buff Bagwell.
I was in WCW.
I was a manager for the Steiner brothers,
'Hot Stuff' Eddie Gilbert, and then the Nasty Boys.
But my main part was I was the first female
to be an announcer.
This is Missy Hyatt's second attempt to
get a locker room interview.
Marcus came up to me one day and he's like,
"Hey Missy, my brother wants to be a wrestler."
And I'm like, "Your brother"?
I've never seen his brother.
And I'm like, "Why don't you become a wrestler"?
And I go, "Those guys don't make no money."
And she goes, "Our lowest paid guy makes
$100,000 a year." And I was like, "What"?
So she found a guy named Steve 'The Brawler' Lawler,
and he trained me.
I was working at a club as a dancer, which I hated,
but he couldn't work and still train and
do all that in wrestling.
So the deal was, if you work this short period of time,
get me through, you know, this wrestling school
when I get my first contract,
you'll never have to work again.
She supported me to get me into the business,
and the catch was then I would take care of her
from that point on.
Cried every night coming home from work.
I hated it, I hated it.
I was going to do anything it took.
And I dove into that and dedicated my life toward it,
and it paid off.
Training to become a professional wrestler,
Marcus Bagwell dedicates himself
to becoming a superstar.
[Cheering]
He started working on the indie circuit.
I'm joined by The Handsome Stranger.
And one day he was like, "Missy,
you gotta see one of my matches."
And, I watched his match, and I'm sitting there thinking,
I'm like, "Oh my God, he is really good."
This has only been like three months.
And I'm like, "He's got timing, he looks great,
he's got charisma." I mean, I was really impressed.
Well, the women indeed love him.
So I go to Mr. Jimsy Barnett, and I said,
"Here's a tape." And I sat there, made him watch it.
And he's like, "Oh, Missy, you should be a scout.
This boy is fabboo."
And I want to introduce to everyone out there
the newest rookie sensation in WCW.
Alright!
With a successful two year run as a singles competitor,
Marcus proves his talent to WCW and is put into
a tag team with 2 Cold Scorpio.
And me being more of a highflier with pretty boy...
didn't really know how that was gonna work,
you know, how it was gonna turn out.
This is Charles Scaggs.
Y'all all know me as 2 Cold Scorpio.
I was very surprised how he was able to step up his game
and keep up with me, so, you know.
They put us together and we were Tag Team of the Year
and World Champs that same year.
For the Tag Team Champions of the World!
And the fans loved him.
You know, the women loved him.
I was madly in love with Tonya.
She was a great woman, and we had a great plan.
The only thing we weren't quite ready for was for
a 21 year old man to be, you know,
women throwing theirself at him, I wasn't really ready...
I thought I was ready for that, but I was not.
And so, I cheated on Tonya.
♪
Doing all of that I did to just help him get in the
business, and then things were supposed to be
better after this, and now this happens.
You know, I was hurt, extremely hurt.
And, you know, it just...
I just couldn't forgive him.
♪
As his marriage to Tonya ends,
Marcus is slotted into a new tag team,
Stars and Stripes.
First, the challengers from Marietta, Georgia.
Determined to reach the top at WCW,
he's convinced that the key is to create the perfect body.
We were living together at the time.
And he said, "Man, I, I work my calves,
I work my calves and they just will not grow."
I said, "Well what are you gonna do about it"?
He said, "I'm getting calf implants."
I says, "I'm sorry, what"?
He got 'em put in and they look fantastic.
I mean, awesome.
And then his leg started hurting.
Every time he wanted to poop or piss,
I had to take him to the bathroom on my back.
'Cause he couldn't move his legs.
And I'd have to put him on my back,
I had to go down and sit him on the toilet and let him do
his business, and then he'd wipe his ass,
and then I'd go back, pick him back up,
take him into the living room,
back in his favourite chair.
[Clapping]
This went on for weeks 'cause he couldn't walk.
Sure enough, his body's not accepting them.
He had a fever, I knew we had a problem.
I load him in the car and rushed him
straight to the hospital.
The doctor that came in to see him, said,
"We've got less than 45 minutes to
get those calves out."
I asked him, "Is there any way I can keep 'em"?
And, and he went, "Yeah, we can keep 'em if you want to
cut your legs off."
And I remember thinking, "Hm...
cut my legs off or keep 'em."
I swear I remember thinking,
"How can I fix it where I can keep 'em"?
So he has to have them taken out.
So he still has them at home in the box.
Without exaggerating or sound corny,
it almost cost me my life.
[Cheering]
Even without his dream calf implants,
Marcus' popularity with the female audience lands him in
a new tag team that fully utilizes his good looks and
muscular physique.
It was not easy being that cheesy.
I'm Scotty Riggs, WCW,
ECW, professional wrestler.
One half of the American Males.
And we've got American Males taking it to.
It doesn't get any better than the American Males.
♪
American Males, American Males.
♪ AMERICAN MALES, AMERICAN MALES, ♪
♪ AMERICAN MALES, AMERICAN MALES. ♪
[Singing] American Males!
♪ AMERICAN MALES. ♪
♪
I'm pissed off that you even brought up American Males
'cause now that song is gonna be in my head
'til tomorrow morning.
I'm Eric Bischoff, former president of
World Championship Wrestling.
No I'm the highest ranking executive in WCW.
The look is very, very important and probably
even more so back in the, in the 90s
when Marcus broke in.
You know, Scotty Riggs, another young,
very athletic, attractive, much like Marcus...
we were appealing to a female demo.
We were looking to shore up what was otherwise an
almost completely male dominated audience.
Girls loved it.
[Cheering & screaming]
The guys hated it, which made it even better for us.
That was Erica. It didn't last very long.
Then he had a third wife, that was Judy,
another Judy Bagwell.
I call them Judy Bagwell, the wife,
and Judy Bagwell, the mother.
And at the beginning, it was,
it was, it was awesome.
I'm Judy Bagwell, and I'm Marcus Bagwell's third wife.
I was the top, I mean, he put me on top, right?
Of course, Marc always comes first.
[Laughing]
Tag Team Champions!
Having won multiple Tag Team Championships,
Marcus takes the leap to join one of WCW's
most legendary factions.
Here's the NWO.
Ready or not, here we come!
NWO was already pretty hot.
You know, we created this heel group,
but the heel group was so freaking cool that
people were actually cheering them.
Nash came to me and said, "Look, do you,
do you want to be in the NWO"?
And it wasn't like I had to have a meeting with
Scotty Riggs over this.
I mean, of course I want to be in the NWO.
What is this all about?
I don't know what Bagwell and Riggs is thinking about.
I didn't want to be a dick and go, "Man, this sucks.
I want to go the NWO." You know, that type thing,
and so I just kinda went, "Alright, it's cool.
Let's make it work for you, brother." And we did.
-Hey! -Attacked by Bagwell!
I'm in the ring with all of the superstars.
I mean, it does not get any better than this.
I mean, it's just...
I have made it, man. This is it, man, this is it.
Changed my whole career, money, life, everything.
When he became Buff the Stuff, it's like,
"Who the ---- this mother----er think he is now"?
Buff was Marcus times a million.
He the type of mother----er that I want to fight.
That's the type of mother----er I want to fight,
I want to whoop his ass.
So I think that kind of gave him more heat,
but he pulled it off.
I had always thought that Marc and I would
eventually get back together.
And when I saw the NWO I remember
saying to myself, "Now we're over."
That's what that, that is what that says to me.
Now we're over, because I could see him living out
that character and it engulfed him.
It wasn't an every now and then thing.
He was living it out.
My mom came up with the idea, just open up an
incorporation, so we called it 'The Real Buff Inc.'
I hired the whole family and I paid them a salary.
And so out of that, it was, you know,
from taking me to the airport,
to making sure my house was clean,
to paying my bills.
One time I come home, and I see Marc's mom's car
is there, and I walk in his room,
and he's got a big old bathroom and
he's in a big garden tub butt naked,
and his mom is behind him with the skin of his dick
pulled up behind his balls and she's shaving
his balls for him. He's on all fours and goes,
"Oh, hey, bud, what's up"?
Even Judy, as she's shaving his balls she goes,
"Hey, Marc, how you been doing?
Is everything okay"?
I'm like, "No." And I'm going,
Now I've seen it all. You people are sick."
Then I walked right, right out of the room.
[Laughing] They don't care.
She's gonna help Marc out in any way she can.
If she needs to shave his balls,
then she's shaving his balls.
Using his newfound stardom to pursue other avenues
in entertainment, Marcus takes leading roles in a
number of straight to video action movies.
[Gunshots]
[Grunting]
I was familiar with at least one of Marcus' movies.
Marcus needed some time off to, to, to, to do that movie,
and I had to approve that.
[Indistinct shouting]
Ragh!
No, I just, I never did see that movie.
I don't know why I missed it.
[Laughing]
He said you had a certain flair for the absurd.
Bless his heart.
He tried.
NWO, here they come.
Still riding high as a member of the NWO,
in April of 1998, a routine match
on WCW Thunder goes dangerously wrong.
The finish of the match was, you know,
Rick was gonna hit me with a Bulldog, go for the cover,
but when he does, he misses me.
And when he misses me with the Bulldog,
I hit him in his back and my neck goes that way.
And when your neck goes that way, it can't go very far.
So wham, it hit.
-Oh my goodness. -Oh!
And when it did, it bruised my spinal cord and
caused me to be paralyzed.
Buff Bagwell apparently is severely hurt here.
Everything I'd worked for, it's over.
♪
At the peak of his wrestling career,
Buff Bagwell suffers an in-ring accident
that leaves him with a broken neck and
an uncertain future.
That, that, that's, that's, that's a horrible scene.
I was at a friend's house, and we were watching
the show, and I saw that happen,
and we all were like,
"Wait, was that part of that act"?
I thought, "Oh my God, something's not right."
I mean, it was yeah, it was brutal.
So the next three and a half hours is CAT scans,
MRI's and all that.
Three hours later, the doctor comes in and goes,
"Sit up." I'm like, "What"?
And so I start trying to move a little bit and sitting up,
and I feel totally normal.
I go, "What happened"?
He goes, "When you bruised your spinal cord and the
swelling happens, your body thinks
it's paralyzed, so it don't move.
And then when the swelling goes down,
you can move again." So I got two plates and
eight screws in my neck through here.
Broke my neck.
His mother, I swear, she cried until I didn't think
she could cry anymore, you know?
I went to see him in the hospital.
He looked terrible.
I didn't think that he'd come back from that, honestly.
But he did.
-Oh look at this! -[Shouting]
-Yeah! -It's Buff Bagwell!
It was crazy. And actually,
I was back on TV from breaking my neck
in three months.
To know that these people love me
just as much as I love them.
And God knows I love each and every fan out there.
-[Cheering] -Listen to that.
So for that three month mark to the ten month mark,
I got back into great shape and was
Scott Steiner's manager.
Returning to the spotlight,
Buff turns to drugs to endure the pain
that comes with the wrestling lifestyle.
You take, you know, two Vicodins, two Somas,
and then you come down and drink some beer and then
you take two more kinds of pills that get you up,
to go wrestle.
And then you, you'll take another little combo
to come back down.
Muscle relaxers is what it is.
It relaxes your muscles.
You take too many and you cannot control
walking, talking, nothing.
I didn't like to be around Marc, because
he kinda was not the Marc I grew up with, you know?
I was out partying with all the other wrestlers.
He was in the room with his pills having a good time.
I remember being on a plane, me and Marc flying to Europe
or whatever, and him being, laying beside me and
sleeping, but then he'd start doing
his twitches and all that.
And I remember one time this stewardess says,
"Is he okay? Is he okay"?
I said, "Yes. It's just his medicine.
It's just his medicine."
Ugh... and I almost tried to make it sound like,
"Oh, he was really injured."
And you try to make up excuses,
that's all I ever did, I tried to
make up excuses for him to cover.
It was, it was just...
I didn't like seeing him like that,
'cause that's not Marc, right?
Yeah...
It was tough.
With the success of Buff's return to WCW...
We understand that is his mother
pushing Buff Bagwell in.
...a new angle is born, as Marcus' mother Judy
becomes a part of the storyline.
Judy Bagwell. We made her a star.
A lot of the stuff that we did with Judy and Marc,
I thought it was pretty good creative, actually.
She loved to perform, too.
I could see where Marcus got it.
Rick Steiner and my mom loved each other.
They were great friends.
And he called me up one day and he goes,
"Look, man, I got this idea.
You being a bad guy and we're gonna bring your mom in
and do the, "What are you doing, Son?
Why are you being a bad guy to all these fans?"
Your typical mother.
And I said, "I love it. Let's do it."
You come to me, and you said,
"Mother, don't you ever slap me again"!
And I believed what you said.
[Cheering]
I enjoyed working with my mom tremendously.
But you know, you're...
your mom is your mom still, so,
working with your family is kind of,
it's kind of hard sometimes.
She's trying to...
she's throwing everything she can to get away from
Positively Kanyon.
No, I don't regret Judy getting involved.
Unfortunately, we leaned on it a little bit too much and
it went a little farther and a little longer than
it should've, but I think initially the things that
we did with Judy were really good.
I couldn't find the pole that would
hold that big fat battle axe.
After Judy's run comes to an end,
WCW is bought by their competition,
the World Wrestling Federation.
As Vince McMahon only brings some
WCW wrestlers on to his roster...
-Buff Bagwell up? -[Cheering]
Buff Bagwell makes the cut.
Before making his debut,
Marcus attends a training session
with fellow wrestler, Shane Helms,
which erupts into a heated confrontation.
Shane says something to me like,
"Yeah, Bagwell happened to be on time today."
Or something, and I go, "Wow."
I go, "You had a great day today, brother."
He goes, "Well, I'm hurt." I go, "Oh, I know, yeah."
I said, "You're always hurt." Or something.
He goes, "Well at least I'm not a drug addict."
And I said, "Look, bro,
we got two ways to go here.
We can just drop this and let it go." I said, "Or,
I can just slap your teeth down your ----ing throat."
♪
Following an exchange of insults,
Marcus Bagwell threatens fellow wrestler
Shane Helms with physical violence.
He goes, "Take your best shot."
And he didn't get it shot out of his mouth,
and here come the Bagwell Slap.
Whap!
The Bagwell slap is something my father taught us.
It's just a way to show instant dominance.
You're able to, you know, slap somebody and
just get a hold of the situation and let everybody
know what's going on and who's in control.
And it rolled him into the corner.
So I go to walk off...
well, I didn't know it, but he had an ice bottle
under his shirt. A brick- a frozen brick-
and goes, wham!
[Bang!]
On the back of my head,
me walking away from behind.
I mean, it was like a sledgehammer.
And, all of a sudden I look and
there's just blood all around me.
I don't tell nobody about it, I go to my own doctor,
I get my own doctor to fix it.
No time off.
I wrestled that night with Booker with
25 staples in my head that night.
Had to get a black Sharpie and cover the
staples in that match.
And that night I was main event with Booker T and
had a decent match, I thought.
[Indistinct commentary]
We're instantly starting to get hit with
how bad our match was.
And I go, "What? What? What happened?
What do you mean, bad match?"
It wasn't a barn burner, but there was no mistakes.
But they really just kept hammering
how bad the match was.
So they called me that week and they're like, "Hey, man.
We got big plans for you on, on Monday.
Rest up." You know, "You're good to go."
And I was fired the next week.
I went from main event one week and
was fired in seven days.
Well, the match wasn't great.
The fact is the crowd can't help you.
What if I had a horrible match?
So what?
I'm Buff Bagwell, man.
I gave 11 years to WCW.
Five-time World Tag Team Champion,
Rookie of the Year.
I'm 31 with that, with 20 years
coming at me of wonderful wrestling.
Why would you get fired over a bad match?
I think it was just,
they were just trying to get rid of me.
But see, Marc, Marc slapped him first.
So, if Shane would have hit him,
Shane would've probably been gone.
The famous Bagwell Slap, cost him a...
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I was gonna be one of the biggest names
in pro wrestling, man, ever.
And instead I was just, I had a good run,
you know? That's all.
And that's, that's hard to deal with, man.
When, when you're 31 years old.
So I dealt with it with, with pills and alcohol.
So, what was already getting really bad,
it just-[Whistling] It got real bad.
I had no, like I said, I had no,
nobody to answer to no more.
And I, and I was depressed now.
Buff Bagwell!
Fired from the WWF in 2001,
Marcus spends the next 11 years
wrestling in independent promotions.
And there it is! The Block Buster.
Battling his addictions, Marcus makes
multiple attempts to get clean.
But in 2012, while driving home from rehab,
he passes out at the wheel.
And next thing I know,
I wake up and I'm driving my car.
I crank my Jeep.
[Screeching tires]
And roll it four times.
So, I almost killed myself with that,
knocked my teeth out, and...
but they call that a withdrawal seizure.
From being clean, I had a seizure.
They had to put him in a medically induced coma
because his neck was swelling.
And they said had he not had that plate that he had,
from his original broken neck, he would've,
he would've been dead.
When I saw him in the hospital,
I couldn't believe how he looked.
His entire face was swollen.
And of course, when his brothers went there
to see him, they were devastated because,
I mean, you would not have recognized him.
His face was so bad.
He should not be alive.
I'm telling you, he should not be alive right now.
He crawled back up pretty quickly.
My teeth are knocked out of my head,
I have lost 50 pounds,
and there's bills that still are coming in
and I don't know what to do.
We needed money, and so...
we made it make sense that I was going to be on
this show called 'Gigolos' and I was getting paid
$25,000 to do it.
Being a gigolo isn't always easy.
I do. I was like, "What the ----?
Get the ---- out of here.
How to ---- he gon' get onto 'Gigolos' and
he got a dick about this big"?
-Hey, guys. -Sup, man.
I don't even have to say his name?
-Buff Bagwell. -Buff, man!
They told him he was gonna make an appearance,
and sort of be a "mentor" to the guys.
So, we didn't know what I was doing quite yet.
But I get all the way out there and all of a sudden
I see what I gotta do, and I'm like,
"Wait a second, what? Are you shittin' me"?
Desperate for money, Marcus Bagwell agrees to
appear on the reality TV show 'Gigolos.'
Come on In.
But once on set, it becomes clear that the show
expects more from Marcus than he anticipated.
-Hi, I'm Bradly. -Hi Bradly.
He calls me the next day, and he said,
"I kinda got some... bad news?"
I go, "What do you mean"?
He goes, "Well, it wasn't what I,
what they told me it was gonna be.
I did more than an appearance."
And I said, "What are you talking about"?
I couldn't choose just one. [Laughing]
-Or two or three. -Exactly. [Laughing]
He said, "Well..." [Sighing]
"It's almost like soft porn."
And I was about to die when he told me that.
And when he told me what he had to do,
it broke my heart, it really did.
'Cause I was like, "This is, this is bad."
In my scene, I do remember,
I had zero blood in my, in my penis.
Zero blood. So I'm like, "What do I do"?
So I got real close up to her and
act like we were having sex.
Well, when the whole thing got done shooting,
I'm down at the bar in Vegas with the guy that's paying us
and I said, "Bro." I go, "I'm so sorry.
I couldn't, I couldn't have sex with the lady." He goes,
"You're not supposed to." And I go, "What"?
I go, "Well nobody told me, bro."
It's sad what a human will do when
you're in such a situation of losing your house,
not having food to go in your mouth.
And we were, we were broke, man.
But this was a show.
I didn't know it was gonna be real later.
Cowboys For Angels. It was a website, um...
that you could hire a gigolo for a date,
for a weekend, for a week.
And it was like 10, 15, $20,000 to,
to do this.
We're trying to pay the bills and the same time,
keep a marriage.
And it sounds ludicrous saying it now,
but when you're in it, it all happens so fast.
[Sighing] I hate talking about this 'cause
it's just weird, but...
whenever he did get called to go on a "date",
it turned out that this woman actually
fell in love with Marc.
Very first one out of the gate fell in love, and...
it was crazy, and I would live there for a week,
paying our bills,
and I'd come home for a week.
He ended up seeing her
without my knowledge.
Judy had a job.
She's got a great job she really likes.
And at this time it was, I mean,
she was always gone.
And then I was gone on the weekend,
so we never saw each other.
So the transition from Judy to
this person that had money,
it was, it seemed more logical.
And...
they, he called me at work one day.
This is a really bad time, and said,
"I think I have fallen in love and I'm going to leave."
♪
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely I would've stayed with Judy
if I had to do it over, but I don't.
And, and things happened, and it went on.
Dealing with relationship and financial problems,
Marcus' drug use spirals out of control,
resulting in multiple DUIs and
eventually another car wreck.
And this last one was devastating.
This last one was, you know, August of 2020.
I, you know, I went through the back of a building
behind Cumberland Mall.
♪
And just, you know, I wasn't there.
I just completely blacked out.
Went through a bus station bathroom.
And how I got out and not killing somebody on
this one, man, is just...
I got no idea.
I mean, but I'm very lucky that I'm not dead.
And, and really honest to God I mean this,
more that somebody else ain't dead.
After these wrecks you're just like,
when's it gonna stop? You know, when's it...
it's, it's, it's just never ending.
Already at rock bottom with his addiction,
Marcus receives life shattering news
about his mother, Judy.
She was suffering for a while, man.
She, um...
she had got dementia and just, was just horribly bad.
I saw the most powerful woman in the world
really going down in flames, bro.
I mean, like, like bad.
♪
Marcus Bagwell and his family now face their
biggest challenge yet, as his mother, Judy,
is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
She was at a rehabilitation place.
She had kind of slipped into a situation
where she couldn't wake up.
And I had hurt myself, and I was in the hospital,
and they called me to see if could get her woke up.
And for over an hour, I, you know, I kept digging,
trying to get her woke up, begging her to
open her eyes and, and talk to us.
Didn't work out at all.
And at some point I got a call and said,
"Hate to tell you, Mr. Bagwell,
but your wife died."
One of the greatest women I ever knew
or anybody else ever knew.
I mean, everybody says their mom's the best,
but my mom was the best.
It was a lot of dysfunction.
But they loved their kids, they really did.
I think it woke him up more than anything.
His niece came into the picture because
Marc needed a place to live.
And so she said, "You can stay here,
but you're gonna have to get clean."
Then they said, "Look, if you don't get sober today,
you don't go today, we're, we're out of your life."
And I said, "Let's do it."
And then we brought Dallas Page in,
and that's how it all started.
Yeah, absolutely.
I do believe it.
I've talked to him several times.
It's just like the old Marc.
I can barely see hardly any, you know, Buff in there.
It was a lot of Marc, now.
So, I do believe him. I do.
Yeah, I can.
'Dark Side of the Ring' called me, and they said,
"Hey man, we're gonna, we're gonna do your story."
And they told me some people they were gonna reach out to.
And one of them was, was Scotty Riggs.
And I said, "Cool, great." I thought,
"You know, I owe him a call anyway.
I'm gonna call and just touch base with him."
And he texted me back and said,
"I'm living in my car the last six or eight weeks."
My mom got ill and passed away in 2020,
and went through a
couple years there paying the bills,
everything else, trying to keep the house,
the whole nine yards...
ended up losing the house that I was living in,
and was sleeping in my car.
And I was in a really depressed place,
dark state, and was pretty much...
maybe a half a day away of putting a gun to my chest
and taking my life.
And Marcus called me up and just basically
browbeat me to come to Atlanta.
And he's like, "Dude, I'm at Diamond Dallas' house.
Get up here." I said, "Man I, I'm...
content with not being here anymore."
And he did not give up.
"I love you man, get up here, get up here."
And that next morning I drove up here.
And if it wasn't for him,
I probably wouldn't be here today.
I do. I'll always love, I'll always love Marc.
I think he's just really, genuinely this good guy.
And for so long, people have,
you know, misjudged him.
I think that he has some good people supporting him,
and he has a wonderful girl in his life now.
I hope that works out for him.
I want him to be happy.
I truly want him to be happy.
Marcus Bagwell is a lovable guy.
It's why his ex-wives still love him.
It's why friends still love him.
It's why I still love him.
Despite his faults and his flaws.
But at Marc's core, he's a very giving,
generous, loving person.
I think the same drive that made him a superstar in
a year, the fortitude, the gumption,
the want, you know, the smartness.
He's done a lot of things in his life that
I was very, very proud of.
But I think getting sober and staying sober
is above all of 'em.
The future for me is sobriety and my recovery.
And no doubt about it,
I wanna be back in the business.
I wanna be back in the ring.
Look, if anybody can pull it off, Marcus Bagwell can.
I'm rootin' for you, baby.
I'm rootin' for ya. [Laughing]