By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Buff Bagwell
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On the car accident that started the issues with his leg that was eventually amputated: “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 three or four 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 percent. I said, ‘Let’s cut it off.'”
Whether he was able to come to peace with that decision: “No, not at all. I was devastated. I did not, and you cannot see this. I tried to see it, but I just don’t think you have the eyes to see this part of it. The truth is, I should have done this two years earlier. I really believe if it would have been proposed to me two years ago, I would have thought they were crazy. I’d have said no, no, no, like I did this time. But if I would have done it, I’d have been two years ahead. So this has been with my situation of the leg I had, this is unbelievably good what happened to me, but you just don’t see that when you’re going through it.”
On wanting to wrestle again: “I know I could wrestle again, another match or two, but if I can’t do it, I’m not going to do it. And I’m not sure that’s possible. I don’t want to be ugly. If it’s ugly at all, I’m not going to do it. So, for example, this $135,000 leg. Because of this, there’s no way to make [using the ring] steps look good. So that will be the first thing you got to conquer, is getting in [the ring] or sliding in and getting up fast. But again, if I can’t do those things without them being I’m not going to do it, but I think I can. I think I can do it where it’s not ugly. I just don’t know yet, so we’re definitely going to, in the next couple of months, I’m going to get in the ring and just see what I can do. But I really do think no matter what, I will do one match just because that’s one of my goals.”
On it seeming like he is now able to make the distinction between Marcus and Buff, and how for a long time it was just Buff: “That’s a perfect, perfect analogy. It’s funny you say that. I remember the boys, Disco Inferno in particular, we would be talking, and he’d be like, ‘Is that Buff or is that Marcus?’ We would laugh and joke about it because it was funny. After all, back then, there was a Buff and a Marcus, and then somewhere in there, those lines get cloudy, they get not so clear. That happens, you live the gimmick. I didn’t think I was doing that, but obviously I was, but I do believe that comes with also the alcohol and the pills just really clouded it up. It’s not just, you know, Macho Man lived his character. I could care less about living my character. I just believe that your character ain’t far from who you are anyway. Buff, when you saw Marcus Alexander Bagwell in the wrestling ring, Buff’s there too. I’m just a babyface. I’m a good guy. But when you’re Buff, you’ve got to turn it up. It’s just turned up a little. But I think that gets confused even more with alcohol and pills.”
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