Buff Bagwell says WCW was in rough shape before the nWo changed everything, and he isn’t talking about empty seats here and there. The former WCW star says the company was literally begging people to come inside Center Stage for free, giving away bicycles during marathon tapings and even paying two specific fans to sit in camera-friendly spots.
During his appearance on Going Ringside, Bagwell looked back at the period before the nWo exploded and said WCW could barely fill its roughly 500-seat Center Stage venue in Atlanta.
“I was at Center Stage begging people to come inside a 500-seat arena to watch wrestling for free and we couldn’t fill that up.”
Bagwell said the situation got so desperate during long television tapings that WCW had to start dangling prizes just to keep people around.
“We had to give a bicycle away halfway through a 20-match show just to be able to complete the taping.”
Then came the wildest part. Bagwell claimed WCW actually hired the same man and woman for $75 because producers wanted people with presentable smiles available for commercial bumper shots.
“We hired two people, a man and woman, and we paid them $75 so they had somebody that had their teeth to go in and out of commercial break.”
According to Bagwell, those same two people were showing up on television over and over again.
“Y’all saw the same man and woman every week going in and out of commercial break.”
The crazy part is that WCW wasn’t exactly working with a roster full of nobodies. Bagwell pointed out that Sting, Lex Luger, the Nasty Boys and Randy Savage were already around, while Hulk Hogan had also entered the picture, but none of that immediately fixed the company’s attendance problems.
“This is Sting, Luger. This is the Nasty Boys. This is Macho. We had names there and nobody cared.”
Bagwell has plenty of history tied to the faction that eventually changed all of that. In a previous Ringside News interview about joining the nWo, he discussed how moving into the group completely changed the direction of his career after his run as part of the American Males. Bagwell said he personally watched WCW go from struggling to get people inside a tiny television studio to filling massive buildings like the Georgia Dome. For Bagwell, there’s no mystery about what caused the turnaround.
“I saw WCW go from that to selling out the Georgia Dome and people caring and loving wrestling. The ride was all because of the nWo.”
That transformation also turned Bagwell into one of WCW’s most recognizable personalities. His nWo years gave him the Buff Bagwell character that defined the biggest stretch of his career, while Ringside News has also covered Bagwell’s explanation of how he created the Blockbuster that became one of his signature moves during that era.
It’s easy to remember WCW for packed arenas, Goldberg streaks and the nWo taking over television, but Bagwell says things looked a whole lot uglier before that boom started. If his story is any indication, WCW went from paying people to help make the crowd look presentable to becoming one of the hottest wrestling companies on the planet.
What do you make of Buff Bagwell’s story about just how bad things were for WCW before the nWo took off? Do you think the nWo deserves most of the credit for turning the company around? Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
