Insight with Chris Van Vliet
Buff Bagwell On His Leg Amputation, Sobriety, DDP, One More Match, WCW
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What led to Buff Bagwell's leg amputation?
Chris VanVleet!
Well, Marcus, great to see you. Good to see you, brother. How are you feeling? I feel great. I mean, man, I... I'm blessed. Uh, I'm not sure who has their leg amputated and five months later says they're blessed, but I am blessed. It has been, it's been crazy what this journey I've been on with this thing, but it's, it's, it's all came at me at once. Like,
From the leg getting amputated to my sobriety to my relationship with Jesus Christ to my relationship with Stacey. I have 12 grandchildren. Wham! And I love it all. I love that.
Chapter 2: How did Buff Bagwell achieve sobriety after addiction?
What went into the decision to allow Maven to film your leg getting amputated? Great question. You know, just to be honest with you, ratings. I felt like it would be the best way to let people know, and we could get a rub off of the YouTube channel. I like Maven a lot, a lot. Funny story about Maven, and this probably is actually the true answer behind what you just said.
Chase Brogan, my YouTube producer, said, called me up and give me this bill that a thousand other people have gave me. And I said, brother, there's no money in that. There's no money in it. It's very hard to make money, if any, and it just don't work. And he goes, but you're sober now. And it hit me. I went, okay. So I'm listening.
Chapter 3: What role did DDP play in Buff's recovery journey?
So he flies into town and puts a Maven video on, a Maven video on. I'm looking and I'm watching and I was not impressed at all. And he goes, Hey, that guy makes $200,000 a year on YouTube. And, um, And I said, well, two things. Number one, I don't believe he makes $200,000 a year. That's number one. And number two, if he does make $200,000 a year, we'll make four. We'll make four.
Because what I'm looking at, if that's 200 grand I'm looking at, then we'll do four.
i was wrong on both he did make that money and we're not going to double him yeah it's some kind of crazy magic in the bottle thing that guy has got it's it is he puts a video out about waffle house it gets a million views i put one out that i think personally is a little better and it gets 30 000 views it's crazy I will say this. I've been doing YouTube for a long time.
Nobody does it better than Maven. What is the magic?
Chapter 4: What challenges did Buff face after his leg amputation?
The magic is his producer, Zach, and his YouTube. Have you ever met Zach? Many times. Zach is wonderful. Zach is the magic behind Maven's YouTube channel. You know what it starts with? It starts with title and thumbnail. So if you can hook them with the title, if you can sell them on that, it's like a headline. Right.
Thousands of videos you're going to see on your YouTube feed, if not more, every single day. What grabs you? What's going to grab you? I lost my leg. Pretty good one. Pretty good, right?
Chapter 5: How has Buff's mindset changed since his surgery?
Right. So like, how can you sell people on that title and that thumbnail to get them to watch your video? Right. Because you could have the greatest video of all time. You could be solving all of the world's problems. And they could miss it. If your title and thumbnail aren't good. I get it. But then once you're clicked into the video, Maven's just so engaging. He tells stories in a great way.
He's going to hit a million subscribers this year. I know. It's unbelievable. And he's a great guy. He's a great guy.
Chapter 6: What does Buff Bagwell envision for his wrestling career now?
And I think that comes through in shows as well. But to answer the question of, you know, why did we go to Maven? Yeah. I think mainly because that's who we modeled. Maybe that's who everybody models their YouTube channel after or should. It is now. Or should. And that's who we modeled ours after. And there's room for that. there's room for that.
He gave us all, he first thing he told me was thumbnail and, and a title. And, but, but it's something about the way they do it. It's a little different in it. And it's maybe they've already hooked that audience or something, but it's very impressive. I'm very impressed by Maven and Zach.
Chapter 7: How did Buff create the Blockbuster move in wrestling?
And, but the truth, my answer to that would be, I just really feel like we could have got the word out. Good. with Maven being a bigger, more viewers or subscribers, and we would get a little rub from that. So did you reach out to Maven and you said, here's where I'm at with my leg, and I want you to document this? I reached out to Maven and said exactly what I just told you.
I said, hey, brother, what do you think about you ā being the person that breaks the news on me losing my leg and me getting a little rub from you and you help us along the way, build my channel. And he goes, absolutely, let's do it. And that's what we did. That video on Maven's channel has well over a million views now. Yes, yes. And your story has touched so many people. Yeah.
Because as you know, you rubbed people the wrong way for a long time. Long time.
Chapter 8: What are Buff Bagwell's reflections on his wrestling legacy?
You're a completely different person now as you sit here in front of me. You know, I'm a completely different person. And I'm not sure exactly. Yeah, I am sure. Why? God, I believe I was always a pretty good guy. Matter of fact, Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 1991 was a great guy. Everybody in the locker room loved Marcus Alexander Bagwell.
And I think through drinking and pills, drinking and drugging, I just think I lost that Marcus. I really believe that's what happened. And I believe when the drinking and drugging stopped, Marcus instantly started slowly coming back. And now Marcus is fully back to where when I walk in a room, it lights up again. But not just from eyes I see, it lights up inside of me again.
When did addiction start for you? Man, start. I would say the time I feel in my head that it really started was when I got my own prescription bottles. And that would have been 1998 when I broke my neck. So it started with pain. It started legitimately with, hey, man, I'm hurt. My neck is hurting, and I would take a pain pill. And it just climbed crazily from there.
And then what did it turn into from pain pills? It stayed pain pills. And our concoction is what I call it. And it was 99% of every wrestler's concoction. And it was a pain pill mixed with a muscle relaxer. It was the two together that was magic to us. And it was really magic to us. But I really feel like...
Lex and I, and he'll probably hate me for bringing his name up, but we were elbow to elbow in all of this. We really did it right, though. We wasn't drug addicts. We did it right for a long time. And we looked different because we worked harder and we felt like we deserved what we were doing. But then that went away where we couldn't control that anymore.
And then alcohol gets mixed into this too? I remember going down the road with Lex, and I think Lex had already known about this feeling of a withdrawal feeling, but I did not. We were in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I remember going down the road in the car, and Lex and me always had the air blasting. But Lex is the only guy that frees me out of a car or a room. The only guy.
I have froze every person out besides that, but Lex is Mr. Freeze. And I was just pouring sweat in the car. And Lex had a funny look on his face. And he said, it's 12 o'clock in the afternoon. And he said, if you take a pill and drink a beer, that'll go away. And I went, it's 12 o'clock, bro. Because that's not what we did. You know, we waited till the day was done. Our day was complete.
Our day was a thousand percent successful in the one percentile is what we were and what we told ourselves. And then we had a little party and we deserved it. But I took that beer and I took those pills at 12 o'clock and it went away. And brother, it was a five-year journey, but that's where it started. How were you able to look the way you looked while still battling all that?
If I, I'm going to say something that nobody's going to believe, but In the height of the best I ever looked, it was a case of beer a day, 20 Lortabs, without exaggeration, 15 to 20 Lortabs and 30 to 35 Somas every day of my life. We just, a bodybuilder makes a really good drug addict or a really bad one, however you want to look at that. But it's very organized.
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