WCW Nitro Debut Wrestlers: Where Are They Now?
Where in the world is Scotty Riggs?
Monday Nitro was WCW's attempted at taking over the wrestling world. Debuting on September 4, 1995, the show effectively kicked off the Monday Night Wars - a six-year ratings battle that would define pro-wrestling as we know it today.
Starting life as an hour-long weekly show, Nitro was Eric Bischoff's brainchild, and it went head-to-head with WWE Raw from day one. Owner Ted Turner granted Nitro a primetime TNT timeslot that deliberately overlapped with Raw, and the battle lines were drawn.
Nitro's fortunes yo-yo'd throughout the show's existence, but WCW beat Raw for ratings on the show's first week. The battle for supremacy bounced back and forth thereafter, with Nitro really taking control when the New World Order storyline hit full flow in 1996. Nitro crushed Raw in the ratings war for 84 consecutive weeks, forcing Vince McMahon into making widescale changes into the way he did business.
The debut show was held at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, and it set Nitro off to a great start. Kicking-off with an exciting match between Jushin Liger and Brian Pillman, the show played host to Lex Luger's grand WCW arrival, and closed with him issuing a challenge for Hulk Hogan's WCW Championship. A successful warning shot for the war to come, and one that left the airwaves with plenty of talking points.
13 men played major roles that night, and their lives have taken a variety and twists of turns since then. Where are they now? Let's find out.
13. Marcus Alexander Bagwell
Best known for having one of the most obnoxious entrance themes in wrestling history, the American Males comprised of Marcus Alexander Bagwell and Scotty Riggs. They’re one of the most maligned tag teams in WCW history, and their whole act was based around their muscular physiques and oiled-up torsos. Their dark match against Bunkhouse Buck & Dick Slater on Nitro’s first show was only their fifth as a team, but they were able to pull-off the win.
The American Males became WCW Tag Team Champions by defeating Harlem Heat two weeks later, but their reign lasted just nine days. They split when Bagwell turned on Riggs in 1996, then before the man himself adopted the “Buff” moniker that’d make him semi-famous. Bagwell continued with WCW until the day it died, and famously fought Booker T in the disastrously bad WCW Championship match that closed an early-Invasion Raw in July 2001.
Bagwell was released from WWE one week later, but continued floating around the independent circuit. It was announced in August 2016 that he was suing WWE for “contractually owed royalty payments,” and his career has definitely taken an “interesting” turn in recent years. Bagwell’s main source of income comes through working as a gigolo these days, and he reportedly charges $400 for an hour of his company.