Scotty Riggs Talks Working With Buff Bagwell, Getting Released From WCW

During an interview on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, Scotty Riggs spoke about his former tag-team partner in the American Males: Buff Bagwell.

“We clicked. When we got in the ring, it was good. Mark was making six figures at the time and I was making $600 a week. On the road, Marcus was helping with most of the expenses. All I did was drive. We were traveling everywhere together. Sting and Marcus were great friends from being there, working out together, and doing some traveling together. Lex (Luger) came in that first Nitro. Lex and Sting are great friends. They own a gym together in Atlanta. Here I am becoming Marcus’ partner. So by laws of physics or whatever you want to call it, I end up traveling with Lex, Sting, and Marcus, and I’m a four week newbie, greenhorn, whatever you want to call me, traveling with the two top guys in the company, and Marcus, who is a top guy, but not at their level yet. We became a foursome. We played golf together. We worked out together. We traveled together. We ate together. We had drinks together. Every now and then, Sting would have a barbeque. We would go over to their houses and have food with the families, so it was a very cool time for me. Again, I was nobody, and here I am traveling with these guys. We instantly became friends. I love Marcus. I still love him today. We still keep in touch. It was a cool time. I think that really helped the chemistry.”

Riggs was later asked if he was surprised he got released from WCW in 1999.

“It was a little bit of a surprise because I actually sat down with JJ (Dillon) who was doing the contracts then. I was just finishing up a three-year deal with a pay raise every year. I had a nice little thing going. We sat down, and they had just started firing all these guys. When I got my first contract in ‘96, there were 47 people under contract. When I finished up in ‘99, I think there were like 220. There were the Nitro girls, everybody. There were people who had a contract who never worked. Randy Savage’s brother, Lanny (Poffo), had a contract and never showed up for TV. He never did anything. There were a lot of guys that were like that because Bischoff signed everybody in the world that didn’t want to go to Vince, kind of like what Vince did for a while because of AEW. We worked on an outline for a new contract. It would have been a 1-year deal with another little pay raise to go for one more year. It was maybe three weeks after we had our first meeting and he called me over to CNN Center and said, ‘We’re going to have to pull the option on the contract.

We want to put you on a nightly deal where you will make a couple grand a match. Maybe you will work once or twice a week. Maybe you might not work.’ I said, ‘No, I’m out of here.’ I didn’t like the way Vince Russo was booking things. Everybody was walking on eggshells back then. All of a sudden, Standards and Practices became a reality where they didn’t want you to do this, and they didn’t want you to say that. Instead of it being fun to be at a TV taping at Nitro, it became a job. When you become a wrestler, you don’t do it because it’s a job. You do it because you don’t want to work a job. I wanted to have fun with what I was doing. When you get in the ring, it’s fun. When you’re on the road, you’re having fun. Everyday is different. You’re not going in the office. You’re not going to a restaurant to work or something like that. It’s fun. It’s not a job, and it just became tedious being there. It was no longer fun. It was a breath of fresh air to get out of there.”