The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries

[Curt McGirt]

Oh come on now. I know that you don't like certain wrestlers for workrate, and they all have their value otherwise. I'm not stupid! It's just funny having New Jack talk shit about someone for being a bad wrestler when he's the last guy you wanna see take it to the mat instead of just stab someone. (At least depending on how and where he's stabbing them, I guess )

[Elsalvajeloco]

14 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh come on now. I know that you don't like certain wrestlers for workrate, and they all have their value otherwise. I'm not stupid! It's just funny having New Jack talk shit about someone for being a bad wrestler when he's the last guy you wanna see take it to the mat instead of just stab someone. (At least depending on how and where he's stabbing them, I guess )

Jack didn't initiate it though, at least according to him. I believe this was in TNA. Knobbs showed up backstage one day, gathered up the boys like he's the locker room leader, and tried to give a speech saying everyone needs to be working harder. First off, that last part coming from Brian Knobbs is hilarious. Second, when New Jack who was (probably rightfully) not paying attention looking at his phone and laughing at a text he got from his significant other, Knobbs said, "...the hell you laughing at New Jack?! You can't wrestle anyway". Apparently, Knobbs thought Jack was intentionally being an asshole. Then, the rest is history and Knobbs ended up getting KO'd. So yeah, that tis but one part of the story. He didn't call himself Jack Brisco, but he knows for sure Knobbs cannot fucking wrestle at least enough to be trying give a speech like he is wrestling's Patton. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

Harris could bump athletically. I've seen him bump a handful of times in Mid-South and Dallas where I was surprised at how cool it looked.

I forget that by the time he was reasonably high-profile, he was already in his mid-30s. He aged like milk, but he was also well past his athletic peak by the time he was a notable worker. 

I think the first time I saw him, I was very, very young and he was wrestling Hogan in 1987 or whenever it was, and he was already physically shot. 

To be fair, the match I saw was from February 1980 so he would have been 29. Granted, I am judging off based on wrestling standards from the mid to late 80s and on where workrate only went up while smoke and mirrors and good ole Southern rasslin went down.

That said, he's not worse than Sid as Lord Humongous just starting in the business. 

[odessasteps]

For those who haven’t seen this before

 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I just watched the John Tenta episode and Haku laughing over The Shockmaster debut put the biggest smile on my face. 

[Cobra Commander]

Things I Remember From the Buff Bagwell episode of Dark Side of the Ring:

Judy Bagwell ran a business! Boy, that kinda puts a different light on the wrestling dudes crapping on Buff for letting Judy handle his business (well.. just wait)

Buff's dad really really looks like a retired stockcar driver. The whole situation around them is "rednecks who happened to find money" (remember that Marietta was a pretty rich Atlanta suburb).

Buff shot his dad and his dad said "it was my fault"

Buff was working as a stripper before wrestling, and then Missy Hyatt found him, because of course she did.

Buff had tag team partners, one after the other. Scorp is a hilarious interview.

Also, he got calf implants and that went badly. And he did Cinemax-quality movies. And Buff's mom was shaving his balls.

So anyways, he turns heel and breaks out after years as a candyass babyface.

Then he breaks his neck, and WCW burns money by not keeping him as a face for longer. But this was WCW in 1998 and they were burning money on a variety of bad ideas.

Then his mom keeps making appearances on WCW TV.

The Buff/Booker match being in Tacoma really was somebody trying to fuck them over from the start.

Also, Buff was outrednecked by trying to fight Shane Helms and Helms unleashing a frozen water bottle on Buff's head.

After 2001, things go array in a variety of ways.

Then Buff goes on a Gigolos show and doesn't realize that he's not supposed to fuck a woman on the show. Although to be fair, he didn't get it up so it was achhhh-tingggg.

Then he becomes a real gigolo.

I should note that Buff's 2nd or 3rd wife, I think his 3rd, has the same name as his mom.

Anyways, one of his gigolo clients falls in love with him and that destroys his marriage

Buff really is like Tiger King without the acumen to keep zoo animals alive.

Also his mom died of dementia.

So anyways, they found Scotty Riggs and things might be sorta moving in the right direction. But it's Buff, so who really knows.

I get the sense that you could simultaneously hate and love Buff Bagwell. If he had been born a county or two to the west, south, or north of Cobb County, he would have been sort of a local legend, the town's dumb redneck who didn't realize that Mt. Dew doesn't cause infertility as he knocked up a random girl.

There's probably a certain amount of what Buff says that is actually total bullshit but he tells it well enough that you can believe it.

Edited March 13 by Cobra Commander

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I'm glad there is a sort of happy ending to the Bagwell story. He's found love again and he's clean. Considering it's wrestling, he could have spiraled downward even worse than he did and had some really grim results. 

[Cobra Commander]

oh yeah, there's also a Bagwell family method to slapping people, which sounds like somebody describing their madeup martial art before they get wiped out in under 2 minutes at UFC4

[Curt McGirt]

BAFTA (Bagwellian Aggressive Fighting Techniques of Atlanta) for the... loss

Really didn't expect to kinda like Bagwell coming out of this. He's a total goof, but seems like the kind of person who only hurts himself, and anyone who he sleeps with. Of course as Buff he is more irritating than a drill bit to the temporal lobe but I'm talking about the real guy. Probably the funniest bit (besides having a second thought as to whether he wants his legs cut off or not, or mistakenly dry humping a nude woman on TV) was his dad handing out grams of coke to him and his teenage friends on Friday nights after school. 

EDIT: Oh god I think I blocked out the part about the ball-shaving. THAT has to be the funniest part. And I marked out for Missy, FINALLY! She should be in all the episodes. She's got to have enough stories to fill her own series. 

Edited March 13 by Curt McGirt

[Nice Guy Eddie]

The part about Bagwell's dad handing out coke to Marc and his friends made me jealous for a second. I understand his line of thinking, they're going to do it anyway, might as well get from dad than some shady dealer on the streets. 

Edited March 13 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Cobra Commander]

I was about to write about the idea of Bagwell working Memphis and what he could have done with Brian Christopher, and then I went to CageMatch and found that there was 3 matches involving Bagwell and Brian Christopher

Brian Christopher/Ernest Miller vs Bagwell/Stevie Ray in Australia for WWA.

Brian Christopher vs Buff Bagwell at the Nashville Fairgrounds in 2002.

Brian Christopher vs Buff Bagwell at the Fed-Ex Forum in Memphis in 2007 (same show as Hogan vs Paul Wight)

Now, I don't know if any of those matches were any good, but it feels like it would be an amazing BS fest to have those two doing their posing and other shtick against each other.

[No Point Stance]

7 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Buff really is like Tiger King without the acumen to keep zoo animals alive.

A+

[zendragon]

Buff’s mom really loved him. Putting up with the indignity of the Judy Bagwell forklift match (worth noting that this is Bishoff more or less repeating an angle with Jericho’s dad minus the “on a pole”) 

I saw one episode of that Gigilos shows and it looked like real sex shot from a wide angle 

[hammerva]

When I saw that Slick Johnson and Buff Bagwell were good friends I immediately thought "Yeah that makes perfect sense"

And yes Judy Bagwell was definitely made for the wrestling business.  Guarantee you she could have run some territories in the South with an iron fist

So far this year they have been 2 for 2 on shows that you looked at when announced and wondered where they were going with this.   Hell maybe the Beefcake one won't be that bad now

Edited March 13 by hammerva

[Curt McGirt]

9 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

might as well get from dad than some shady dealer on the streets

But the best part is him doing that and then saying "stay out of trouble". Like dude yeah they aren't buying it off the street but YOU STILL GAVE THEM -- TEENAGERS! WHO AREN'T KNOWN FOR SMART MOVES! -- FREE COCAINE

Edited March 13 by Curt McGirt

[Mister TV]

16 hours ago, odessasteps said:

For those who haven’t seen this before

 

I always love seeing the few Americans who went over and worked World of Sport.

[Control]

The Buff episode was surprisingly good. Helped that all I knew about Buff was that he was Scott Steiner’s annoying valet.

[odessasteps]

Is there footage of Sprayberry High School? 

[Control]

Another thing about the Bagwell episode: it was nice to see someone whose life was completely fucked up *before* wrestling, for a change.

[zendragon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkzOIDJ8YtQ&ab_channel=DDPYOGA

 

The incredible comeback story of the American Males, Buff Bagwell and Scotty Riggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14:

[The Natural]

Enjoy this throwback:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B_m5nm0vdbQ

[Elsalvajeloco]

"...He was also tight with his mama." was the line of the episode. Maybe the series.

Buff's dad, given his local celebrity status, probably had a family across town that nobody knew about. He talks about his wife and kids in such a casual way that it's almost complete detachment. Even the way a near death experience is mentioned is all detachment. Then again, based on the person he married, maybe they as a family had just learned how to compartmentalize EVERYTHING.

[Ziggy]

On 3/12/2024 at 7:17 PM, SirSmUgly said:

Harris could bump athletically. I've seen him bump a handful of times in Mid-South and Dallas where I was surprised at how cool it looked.

I forget that by the time he was reasonably high-profile, he was already in his mid-30s. He aged like milk, but he was also well past his athletic peak by the time he was a notable worker. 

I think the first time I saw him, I was very, very young and he was wrestling Hogan in 1987 or whenever it was, and he was already physically shot. 

Even during the run with Hogan he was moving around alot. Executing leapfrogs and splashes. I remember being surprised at how mobile he was in those job matches during that run. I've always liked guys like that moving around and doing moves you wouldn't expect and he didn't look like he was dangerous like Mabel was and I enjoyed him too at times.

Today you see I higher amount of terrible workers being featured prominently on TV like as Beautiful as she is Because of her cousin, I don't think you have anyone the equivalent of Diesel or Taker in '95 complaining to the office about not working with her because she's hurting people and even more it's probably more of it being not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings but refusing to work with someone.

[Cobra Commander]

In which RF keeps asking a guy who was in a coma about his pre-coma memories.

But yeah, someone who was wrestling at like 14 isn't gonna have something else to do after that overdose.

edit: also, Kevin's voice is very Fritz-esque in this episode

Edited March 20 by Cobra Commander

[Curt McGirt]

I forgot all about that Misawa match which I LOVED when I first saw it, long long ago. This is it right, the '91 match? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9clhS4ucy0