Buff Bagwell On The WCW Babyface Run That Could Have Been

One of the great unknowns regarding the career of Buff Bagwell was his return from a broken neck in 1998, which many felt set him up for an enormous babyface run, only for Bagwell to go heel instead. The topic was broached during an "On-Demand: Buff Bagwell Live" Q&A with Eric Bischoff, and Bagwell, though curious at how a babyface run would've turned out, indicated he was at peace with how things went. Although the same couldn't be said for those closest to him.

"My parents were flipped over it because I was going to be a bad guy," Bagwell said. "My friends and family cried about it ... It could've been a great babyface run coming out of the gate with that. But the nWo thing, it was meant to do exactly what everybody thought was going to happen, and do the opposite. And that's where Eric succeeded with WCW and that's why we did so great at it. It was just the way to do it, going the other way." In hindsight, however, there are some things Bagwell thinks could've made the angle better, including defeating Rick Steiner in his first match back and doing more video packages.

"The only thing that I wish we would've done, that I felt that WCW was short on, was we didn't do any kind of video angle of it," Bagwell said. "I remember having the talk with Eric about it at the hospital, and during that time, that wasn't cool. Eric was right. He was like 'Mark, that's bad karma man. I don't think we should do that.' So we backed off. And then not long after that, Triple H tore his quad, and you would've thought that Jesus Christ came back. I broke my neck and made it back in ten months."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "On Demand: Buff Bagwell Live" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription