Buff Bagwell reveals what motivated him to document his leg amputation.
Former WCW star Buff Bagwell went under the knife to have his right leg amputated in July 2025. The cause of the surgery was later disclosed to be an accident Bagwell suffered in the summer of 2020, which severely damaged his kneecap. He also sustained other injuries, including a black eye and a shoulder injury.
“When you hear ‘knee replacement,’ you think [I’ll] get a new knee. But you’ve got to have your kneecap. And I didn’t have my kneecap. My kneecap, the doctors said, on impact, it exploded. It wasn’t there,” Bagwell previously said.
Former WWE Superstar Maven was the one who informed fans about Bagwell’s operation through his vlog. During a recent appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Bagwell was asked what led to his decision to allow Maven to document the process.
“To be honest with you, ratings,” Bagwell admitted. “I felt like it would be the best way to let people know, and we could get a rub off of the YouTube channel. I like Maven a lot. Funny story about Maven, and this probably is actually the true answer behind what you just said. Chase Brogan, my YouTube producer, called me up and gave me this bill that 1,000 other people have gave me, I said, ‘Brother, there’s no money in that. There’s no money. It’s very hard to make money, if any, it just don’t work.’ He goes, ‘but you’re sober now,’ and it hit me. I went, ‘Okay. So I’m listening.’
“So he flies into town and puts a Maven video on. I’m looking, and I’m watching, and I was not impressed at all. He goes, ‘Hey, that guy makes $200,000 a year on YouTube.’ I said, ‘Two things. Number one, I don’t believe he makes $200,000 a year. Number two, if he does make $200,000 a year, we’ll make four. We’ll do it. Because what I’m looking at, if that’s 200 grand, then we’ll do four.’ I was wrong on both. He did make that money, and we’re not going to double him. It’s some kind of crazy magic in the bottle thing that guy has got. He puts a video out about Waffle House, it gets a million views. I put one out that I think, personally, is a little better, and it gets 30,000 views.”
Buff Bagwell then said he personally reached out to Maven with the pitch to break the news of his leg amputation to the world, adding that the former WWE Hardcore Champion agreed and the rest was history.
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