Buff Bagwell Says Rumor Jim Ross Started Played A Part In His Depression

Much has been made about Buff Bagwell's very short and very infamous WWE run in 2001, where he worked one match against Booker T and then was quickly released. Bagwell has long felt he was done dirty by WWE in the situation, and in an appearance on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," he elaborated as to why, including a revelation regarding something Shane McMahon told him right before his match with Booker.

"Like a ghost, Shane McMahon appears," Bagwell said. "He goes, 'Mark. You can't look into the cameras.' My music's playing and I go, 'What?' 'You can look into the cameras.' I go, 'Shane, that's all I do! I look in the cameras, I pose and I wear a top hat. That's my whole gig bro!' He said, 'You can't do it or you're fired.'

"That takes me completely out of Buff Bagwell's world. So I come out, I do the pyro, I do the posing, but then it's like, 'Where's the camera?' I was out of my game. They took my leg off right there that nobody even knows. Play it back and watch it. It's really weird that I never look in the camera that night. I was told I'd be fired. But nobody knows that. That's the stuff we were going through."

Bagwell also delved into the rumors that he missed subsequent house shows due to his mother, Judy Bagwell, calling to get him unbooked. 

As he's done in the past, Bagwell blames Jim Ross for starting that rumor.

"Jim Ross called me on Wednesday that week before Atlanta," Bagwell said. "He said, 'Hey man. We've got big plans for you in Atlanta. We want you to take off the house shows.' That got to be that my mother got me out of them.

"It stuck bro. He started a rumor that stuck. It stuck to the point I was like, 'Let's say she did it. You don't fire Buff Bagwell over that. You say, 'Hey Buff, tell your mother to leave us alone.' You don't fire someone over what another human does."

While Bagwell thinks very highly of Ross, he does say that Ross starting the rumor is something that helped contribute to his depression afterward.

"Jim Ross, in my book, I hate to say it, played a part with that," Bagwell said. "I love Jim to death. He was one of my best friends in WCW. So I don't know what happened with that. I just did what everybody told me, and Jim told me not to go to the shows. And that became 'My mom did it.'"

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Insight with Chris Van Vliet" and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription