Scotty Riggs on Teaming With Buff Bagwell, American Males’ Split

Scotty Riggs recently looked back on his team with Buff Bagwell as the American Males in WCW, as well as their split. Riggs was a guest on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling and discussed the team and eventual split when Bagwell joined the nWo. You can check out the highlights below:

On working with Bagwell: “Again, we clicked. It was — when we got in the ring, it was good. I mean, Marcus was making six figures at the time, I was making $600 a week, sleeping on Ray Lloyd’s couch. And long short of it was, on the road Marcus was helping with most of the expenses. All I did was drive. And so we were traveling everywhere together. And then after about the first few weeks … Sting and Marcus were great friends from being there, working out together and doing some traveling together. Lex came in that first Nitro. And so Lex and Sting are great friends, they own a gym together in Atlanta. And here I am becoming Marcus’ partner. So by laws of physics or whatever you want to call it, I end up traveling with Lex, Sting, Marcus, and I’m a four week newbie, greenhorn, whatever you want to call me, in the company traveling with the two top guys in the company, and Marcus who is a top guy, but not at their level yet.

“And so we just became a foursome. We played golf together, we worked out together, we traveled together, we ate together. We went out and had drinks together, whole nine yards. Every now and then, either Lex or Sting would have a barbeque or something, we would go over to their houses and have food with the families and stuff like that. So it was a very cool time for me. Again, I was nobody. And here I am traveling with these guys. And me and Marcus would go out if we had a weekend off, we’d be hitting Buckhead together. Or we’d hit the gym, and he’d call me up, ‘Hey, when you gonna be at the gym? Meet me there and we’ll work out together’ We were hanging out, we were doing all kinds of stuff. We just instantly became friends. I love Marcus to death, still love him today. So I mean, we still keep in touch. And so yeah, was a cool time.”

On the breakup of the American Males: “I thought — well, a lot of stuff happens in Florida. We were in Tampa for a Nitro and me and Marcus had been doing the fumbling, bumbling, stumbling stuff, causing each other to lose, win, or whatever. And Marcus was supposed to work with Regal that night, and put Regal over for me doing the stumble-fumble with him. And that’s when they were doing the nWo, you know, 30 days or whatever, ‘for anybody who wants to join us.’ And Nash and Bagwell had been friends for a long time. And when Nash was — I think he was either doing the Vinnie Vegas thing or doing the Oz thing — Marcus and him were traveling and Marcus was making more money than he was. And again, same thing with me, Marcus was helping foot the bill on the road. And so now Nash was going to help pay him back. And Nash pulled us aside and said, ‘Scotty, just be a team member here.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, whatever you need.’ He said, ‘We are going to turn Marcus tonight and have him join the nWo, so we’re not doing that match.’ So Nash came in, pulled a favor, and got Marcus to join in that night as the first guy.”

“So in my eyes, me and Marcus are friends. And me and Marcus kind of talked about it like, ‘Dude, this is good for you to finally break out of being a tag team guy. So yeah, I’m here to help you. I mean, it’d be a rub for me too, because it’ll keep me involved and give me a storyline for next few months or whatever it is they want to do with us.’ And it was good. And it was funny, right after that Souled Out we went to Japan for three weeks, for our first tour of Japan. And for the first part of it, they had a few matches with — I don’t think they ever put us together, but Marcus was in American Male stuff for like the first week. And after that, he had the nWo stuff because they were like a week behind. And for the last two weeks he was nWo Japan. So it was kind of goofy how things were a little bit behind there, so they had to kind of sell he as still an American Male. And then after they saw the turn on TV is when he could wear his other gear.”

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