Marcus Buff Bagwell attended his first Cauliflower Alley Club reunion, and was presented with the CAC’s Men’s Wrestling Award on Wednesday, August 21, at the Plaza Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas.
He was surprised by all the generosity of the CAC.
“My first experience has been fantastic … I really didn’t know what this thing did. I didn’t know it was really helpful to all the talent and the heart stories you hear about chemotherapy, people that need money and mortgage payments for wrestlers when they get in a bind. Man, this thing is unbelievable,” Bagwell told SlamWrestling.net prior to the evening’s banquet. “The Cauliflower Alley Club is something very special. Rich ingling and Brian Blair do a great job with this thing. I’m just just very, glad to be a part of this, and very excited.”
Bagwell admitted that he popped to see a few old friends. “Sting and Lex [Luger] are my two favorites. …. Thunderbolt Patterson’s a real big deal to me because he’s just been here for so long, and I love the Dudley Boys. Just this whole thing, it’s such a good cause that I’m just excited to be here.”
On the previous night, when Sting (Steve Borden) received the CAC’s top award, the Iron Mike Mazurki Award, he told a tale about Marcus Bagwell being scared of the Steiners in WCW.
Bagwell confirmed the tale.
“True story. It was just ugly. They didn’t like the young, good-looking punk, so to speak. And I was a little bit of a threat, I guess,” he chuckled, launching into a bigger story.
“I fit in my entire life, everywhere I went, and all of a sudden I didn’t fit. It was very weird. I was a very mature 21-year-old because I had two older brothers, so I was it wasn’t like I wasn’t ready for it. It’s that they didn’t think I was ready for it. And for some reason, Sting did. Sting saw the Mark Bagwell that the rest of the world had seen. But then when I got to wrestling the Steiners and them, it was like being a freshman, and they just didn’t like the new freshmen. But Sting was really adamant about being a friend of mine, and once he took me in, the Steiners and Luger came with him.”
In March 2024, VICE aired a Dark Side of the Ring episode on Buff Bagwell and his wild life, including shooting his father, plenty of self-abuse and a whole lot of flexing. [Our review: Buff is the right stuff for ‘Dark Side of the Ring’]
All and all, Bagwell is pretty pleased with it.
” think Dark Side did a fantastic job. … Anytime you can get two ex-wives to say anything positive about a husband, I’m telling you, that’s a reflection on me. It means that I’m a pretty good guy. There’s no way you can come out of a father you shot and two ex-wives you divorced talking positive about you. That’s a plus to Mark Bagwell, I believe,” he assessed.
“They told a great story, they told it well. And I don’t think I lost any fans at all. At least all the crazy story was explained. I thought they did a heck of a job on it. I really liked it. And from it, TV’s magic, bro; people think when you’re on TV, you’re kind of on another planet. So it gives you a new little push, a new little special thing. So I was very happy with it. The phone calls have come in about it, so just a little more attention.”
TOP PHOTO: Men’s Wrestling Award winner Marcus “Buff” Bagwell at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion at the Plaza Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, August 21, 2024. Photo by Brad McFarlin
RELATED LINK
