Buff Bagwell On Who He Blames For His WWE Release

WCW wrestling legend Buff Bagwell joined the Who The Fook Are These Guys?! podcast recently to talk about Jim Ross, current AEW announcer and former head of talent relations for WWE. Bagwell put the blame for the heat he received in WWE, which led to his firing, on Ross giving him the weekend off and then lying about it to WWE higher-ups.

"If he did not like me and he did his job and fired me, why the heat that I have with Jim Ross?" Bagwell asked. "But if you had a guy that called you up and said, 'don't come to these shows' and act like my mother called to get me out of them, now you've cost me millions of dollars and you're a fu**ing liar. The facts are he called me up, told me to stay home.

"God, me and him are the only three witnesses I have, and who are they going to believe? They're going to believe Jim Ross. It put me in a bad situation of people truly believing that my fu**ing mom was calling up. I said 'why would I wrestle Booker T with 25 fu**ing staples in my head and then take off three house shows when you're trying to make it to WWF?"

Bagwell relayed the story of when he first got the phone call from Ross about staying home for the weekend prior to WWE's show in Atlanta, where he was fired. He then began criticizing the booking of the Buff Bagwell vs. Booker T match on RAW the week before, questioning why WWE chose to do the match in Tacoma, Washington, when the two former WCW stars would've gotten a much bigger reaction a week later in WCW stronghold, Atlanta.

"This was the Wednesday after Monday Night Nitro," Bagwell said. "I've got to house sit in my house with not a soul in it, in my big ass, beautiful ass, $2 million mansion. I get a call and it's Jim Ross. He goes 'hey, Buff. I want you to know we have big plans for you on Monday.' His exact verbiage. 'We have big plans for you on Monday in Atlanta. We want you to take this weekend off, heal up good, get your head healed up, and then we'll see you on Monday, and we're really excited.'

"The big news was I got fired in Atlanta. But the point is, the week before, why did you do the Invasion in Tacoma guys? The Invasion is Ted Turner? Why did we not wait one week and do Buff Bagwell vs. Booker T? Instead they were able to say 'see? It didn't work. We tried but it didn't work.' Me and Booker knew that, but we didn't know — we couldn't go to him and go, 'Vince, you can't do that.' So we had to play along, do the thing. So long story short, don't put on the Invasion match, the major Invasion match of me and Booker, the week before Atlanta. You do it in Tacoma where we (WCW) had been there once in 11 years. It was extremely unfair."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Who The Fook Are These Guys? and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription