Original subtitles

Look at this, man.

I'm telling you, lady, send your kids out of the room because I want you to

a look at Bam Bam Bigelow. There's no one who doesn't know Bam Bam Bigelow.

if they don't know his name, if they see the face and the head, they know it.

His entire head was aflame. So he started doing the flames on his suits

boots, and you'd look out into the audience and there's flame everywhere.

He was just massive, but so athletic, so quick.

Bammer did it almost like a ballet dancer.

Bigelow can move for a big man. He knows what he's doing in there.

Look at this 400 -pound man doing flips and cartwheels and going through the

ring. This is crazy.

In his time in the 80s, nobody was like him. Like, this isn't right.

It wasn't just Rookie of the Year. It was Phenomenon of the Year.

Bam! Bam!

Bigelow!

Arriving on the scene like a force of nature, Bam Bam Bigelow catapulted to

top of the wrestling world and never looked back. You need a little

When you've been on top in WWE and then you're on tippity -top -top in ECW, you

know, they beat the f*** out of each other.

Wrestling rewarded Bam Bam's talents with money and fame, but those rewards

with a heavy price.

All the wear and tear, you're not going to feel it right away, but it's coming.

And that's when it changed and everything spiraled out of control.

You're selling your body, you're selling your health to have fame, fortune, and

everything that goes with it.

People had mouths to feed. So guys did what they had to do.

To earn their living.

He was in pain, and there was a doctor involved that was willing to take that

away, and things went downhill from there.

But Bam Bam's addictions eventually pushed him beyond the point of

destroying everything he loved.

A trusted professional gave him the thing that was his biggest demise.

This doctor could have had a loaded machine gun to our family, and it would

been no different.

No different.

So just digging through the vast archives, we have dad's calendar. And

you go to November 15, 1987, he got married.

And then, you know, not even taking a honeymoon, like he had a day off and

he was in Des Moines, Iowa. This is literally the first four days of his

with the WWF in 1987.

He definitely wanted kids right away. He was like, I just want to stay home and

raise the kids. You could go to work, go to school, do what you want to do. And

he was more excited about being a dad than he was when he got WrestleMania.

Hi, I'm Dana Breckinridge. I was married to Bam Bam Bigelow.

And when Richie came, I mean, that was the best thing ever.

Because all he ever really wanted was a daughter.

Oh, yeah. He was a giant teddy bear.

What fans saw in the ring was...

Not at all what we saw at home. It was love. It was playing around.

My name is Richie Bigelow, and my father is Bam Bam Bigelow.

He had this giant, giant bed that we would all cuddle up in and just jump

around. Yeah, it was a great time.

When you think of your dad, what's the first memory that comes to mind?

It was the last time I saw him.

We were just driving in the car, and I was two or three years old. But I

remember seeing his head slowly drop to his chest.

and then come back up.

And whenever I think back on how I went about the situation, I'm always so

baffled because I was so young.

But in some way, I understood that we were in some sort of danger.

And as a toddler, I went into panic mode.

I got to go to the bathroom. I got to get out. Daddy, Daddy, pull over. I

So we pulled over on the side of the road, and he looked at me and gave me

big, toothless smile.

He's like, come on, do you have to go?

We sit on the side of the road, and I was like, no, no, but kind of stalling.

And then we just got back on the road, and it started happening again.

This time we were by a diner, and we pulled into that diner, and the next

I know, my car door was opened, and a man just scooped me up and put me

in the back of this gray car.

And from the back seat, I watched them take my dad in handcuffs across.

That was it.

My mom came and picked me up, and she was real gentle about it. And she told

you're probably not going to be seeing Daddy anymore.

He needs help.

And that was the last time I saw him.

He wanted to be a wrestler, but he wanted to be a father more.

And everything was taken away.

So was wrestling what took it away, or was...

Scott and all the other outside influences, what took it away?

Like, how did this happen?

Here we go.

This is dad, his sophomore year in high school.

Oh, my God.

Right? They were Class A North champions, 20 and 6. That's probably the

time you'll see him with hair.

Everything around Asbury Park is Bruce Springsteen. The sound of Bruce

Springsteen is everywhere and in everything that we did when we grew up

shore.

Scott was a street kid from Neptune who hung out in the bars of Asbury, you

know, driving the circuit in muscle cars. For our age and our crowd, he was

definitely the man.

You know what, he was probably the kindest.

Most genuine person of the group. We were friends and it was just a

And then it was a whirlwind. We were street kids.

Nobody thought about where they were going.

I didn't go to college. My friends didn't go to college.

He didn't go to college.

God, the Jersey Shore was like the party place to be.

I was running a club called Club Xanadu in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

The club is actually one block from the Stone Pony.

And in the middle, was this place called Quack Quack.

It's DDP, Diamond Dallas Page, and I know Bam Bam because I'm from the Jersey

Shore.

I roll into the Quack Quack, and I see this mammoth kid.

At some point, you know, we're doing shots, and we just kind of clicked, you

know, but I think he was 17 at the time, but no one cared because he looked like

a full -grown man. He was, you know, 300 -plus pounds.

He could obviously be very menacing, but he also had that fun side to him, and

they were calling him the Beast from the East back then.

He was a football player, and he was ranked in the state for wrestling, and

was feared on the mat and on the football field. This was the time when

heavyweight in high school wrestling was unlimited. So you're talking about a

320 -pound teenager who can bench 500 pounds walking onto a mat.

I'm Shane Bigelow, and my father's Bam Bam Bigelow.

I heard a story from a high school wrestling coach that my father rolled

ankle real bad and he couldn't wrestle, but his coach was just like, Scotty, I

need you to just go up there and just look me.

So he gets up, he steps on the scale, he turns to the kid and he just gives him

this big flex and just like, I'm coming for you.

Lo and behold, this kid is shitting his pants. So he tells his coach, I'm not

wrestling this guy, he's going to rip my... Head off. All my father had to do,

he hopped out on one leg, got his hand raised, and took the win.

Yeah, there was a group of the boys, and they were rough -drinking, tattooed,

like old sailors, but not sailors. They were roofers.

And they were very infamous around town.

Him and his brothers used to jump off of billboards.

onto mattresses on the side of the road when my grandmother would drive past.

She'd be like, oh, look at those kids.

And then she'd realize that it was her three boys jumping onto like five

mattresses piled high.

Scott was very quiet. You know, he was the baby of the bunch. They usually only

called him in when they needed the extra muscle.

I heard he got in a fight and he bit some kid's ear off. I was like, what?

But it's part of the legend that went with the beast from the east.

Tough dude, ran with rugged people. He was all that and a bag of chips, man. He

was a bad apple when he wanted to be. I am Taz, former ECW World Heavyweight

Champion and former opponent of Bam Bam Bigelow.

Bam Bam Bigelow all over Taz! I've heard all the stories about Bigelow, and I

believe them all. There was a whole separate legend before the legend Bam

Bigelow ever became the legend.

My name is Scott Colton Bigelow, and Bam Bam Bigelow is my father.

I know that he was a bounty hunter for a short stint. I don't know much about

the backstory of it.

I guess I was about 18, 19 years old. You see an ad for bounty hunter, and

basically just picked up ale jumpers, beat up a lot of people, and then wind

going to Mexico to get a little girl that was kidnapped.

bring back a young girl who was taken out of the country. In the whole mayday

and craziness of the thing, his bounty hunting partner ends up getting shot in

the neck and killed. And that's when my dad spent six months in a Mexican

prison. I heard he ended up in jail, you know, Mexico.

So you just hear little bits and pieces. With Scotty, they could be exaggerated.

The story is he befriended the judge because he used to run through the walls

that were made out of, like, the terracotta clay.

He used to just break through the cells of the walls so they couldn't keep him

in.

So the judge one day apparently goes to him and asks him, he goes, I need

security from all these cartel, mob, whatever guys.

So you stand in front of me and you stop these maniacs from, like, lunging at me

and trying to kill me, and I'll knock your sentence down.

So the story is that a judge took pity on my father because my father saved him

from a bunch of guys trying to jump over and stab him, and he ended up letting

them lose early.

He's basically a New Jersey legend.

There's a story that one night, house is on fire, he's driving by, runs in and

saves some kids.

He pulled over, ran in the house and saved the kids. That sounds like a TV

movie. It doesn't sound like something that really happens, you know, and there

were a lot of stories like that just out there floating around.

I'm Shane Douglas, and I had the pleasure of being partners in the triple

with Bam Bam Bigelow.

Who's the world champion?

You know, I'd heard that he got arrested, I guess, in Mexico.

You know, that sounds implausible. Then, like, over years, you'd hear other

people repeating these stories, and it just elevated that legend that was Bam

Bam. You know, get out of the joint. There are no jobs, you know. So I was

bouncing, farting, hanging out with the boys.

Here comes Bam Bam in the club. This is like 81 -ish. And it's packed. And

my club was nice.

And I see Bam rolling with like three of his biker buddies.

And I come rolling up behind him with my arm around his back. I'm like, yo, Bam,

no trouble in here tonight, right, bro?

Oh, come on, Paige. I wouldn't do that to you.

And at some point we're at the bar and I got the guys a shot and wrestling comes

up. And, you know, I said, you know, I tried that in 79.

He goes, you tried wrestling?

I said, but I had three matches. My third match, I hurt my knee.

And I kind of got swept away by the boos, the broads, and the party.

But talking to him about it, I'm like, dude, you're a natural. He goes, that

would be a pie -in -the -sky dream for me.

I just got to the point where, well, where's my life going to go? You know, I

don't have a college education.

My gift was being athletically inclined.

And so I went to a wrestling school, which was Larry Sharp School in Munster

Factory at the time. The rest is history. Larry Sharp was a former

wrestler who opened up the Monster Factory. My name's Dave Meltzer. I'm the

editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and I've been covering pro

wrestling since 1971.

And one day, I guess Bam Bam walked in the door, and Larry saw, like everyone

did, money.

And he became Scott's manager.

Set him up on a couch, threw him in the ring, and trained him.

I wind up staying out there at the Monster Factory, living out there,

eating it, living it, sleeping it for a year. I saw footage of him coming out of

the Monster Factory. You could tell, like, his aptitude to learn how to do

and get better at this, his athleticism. It jumped out to me right away. I mean,

seeing a guy like that, you know, a guy that big, you know, do a cartwheel, I

was like, wow, he's super impressive.

Scott, professional wrestling, it's like a double -edged sword.

It gave him life and it...

Took his life.

That's the ultimate double -edged, isn't it?

In 1985, Scott Bigelow was on the brink of stardom, having made a clean break

from a troubled path.

When he went to the Monster Factory with Larry Sharp, Larry really developed the

name Bam Bam with Scott. Bam Bam, the strong baby face. You're like Bam Bam

the Flintstones.

He became Bam Bam Bigelow. Probably the most handsome wrestler on the face of

the earth. The massive head of Bam Bam and that big flame ball on that head,

that tattoo.

Who gets ink on their head? It's got to be crazy. Nevertheless, their whole

head, for those that never got a tattoo, they hurt as much as they think, okay?

This guy got his skull tattooed. Just imagine how much pain and how many hours

that took to do.

This was the branding of Bam Bam Bigelow.

See, people love to hate, and as long as they want to hate me, I know I'm doing

my job.

And it kind of just sent that message to the fans and to other wrestlers. That's

a bad dude right there.

Bam Bam, do you have anything to say about all this? I'm hungry.

Despite being a rookie to the wrestling scene, those with an eye for the

business see Bam Bam's incredible potential, especially soon -to -be

pioneer Paul Heyman.

Paul was doing wrestling magazines at the time. This was before he was

running around the business as a manager.

And in his magazines, he was always promoting Bam Bam Bigelow like this

phenomenon. And the guy never even had a match.

Paul worked at Studio 54. He was doing publicity at the time. And he got this,

you know, gig, Bam Bam Bigelow's first match.

And I looked at it, and I was just like, oh, my God.

This guy's like 380 pounds, and he's coming off the top rope. At that point,

know, I'm going like, this guy's going to be like it in wrestling. Like, he's

going to be the biggest thing.

I was like 19 when we started dating and I was with his brother and a couple

other friends and we went to a show and he got up there and he wrestled and they

were just in awe of what it all was.

I just was like, oh, you know, he's at work. I didn't really know too much

it until the WWF came knocking.

At some point I'm running another really big club in the 86 -ish and I'm just

looking at channels and all of a sudden I'm seeing wrestling and I'm like, oh my

God.

That's Bigelow. Take a good look because we're bringing him from one end of the

world to the other.

Next thing I know, he's with Hulk Hogan. He's in the WWF.

And I'm like, oh, my God.

From Asbury Park, New Jersey.

He made it.

Bam, bam, Bigelow.

Not only is Bam Bam headed to the WWF, but he's coming in with the full support

of company owner Vince McMahon.

WWF brought him in, and they tried to make him into the next big thing. They

the thing where all the managers were bidding on him to make him extra

I'm here to introduce Bam Bam Bigelow.

Vince loved big guys, and now you've got the most agile 380 -pound guy that

anyone has ever seen.

I mean, they brought him in to be Hulk Hogan's tag team partner, to be right

there with Hogan, and he was going to main event there, and he was going to

with the top guys.

In the beginning, Hulk Hogan was the one that really took me and said, okay,

this is the business. This is how we do it. This is serious.

He signed the WWE contract, and we got married November 15, 1987, and he went

the road November 16, 1987.

How did he propose to you?

We were watching TV, and he was like,

want to get married?

And I was like, okay.

And that was basically it. There was no fanfare.

I saw him ten times a year. I don't even know.

Maybe that's why the marriage lasted so long. Maybe that's why I don't have

anything bad to say.

He was on the road and hit the ground running, and it was on from there.

Back in the early days with WWF, you know, we were working 60 days in a row.

main event in front of a pulled -out crowd every night. And on the weekends,

would do two shows. So it's life in the fast lane.

When he was home, you know, he did regular things.

remained very humble scott was who he was around here but you know it was cool

to see him on tv he was in the first nintendo game like i said he was just

breaking into the business and he worked and he provided he knew to take

advantage of that situation and take advantage of everything that was given

him what a monster

Everybody that gets a pair of boots and tights wants to be the world champion,

right? And they think they're ready for it yesterday.

For me, it was 11 years before I saw a world title. So when I did get that

I understood the responsibility that went with it. So I would think that Bam

being thrown that quickly into main events with, you know, Hulk Hogan or one

these massive names, it would have been intimidating. He never had to crawl his

way up.

There's always going to be jealousy, especially when you've been in the

15 years and he's been in the business for two or one and he's on the top of

card. He was young and these guys were big and it was Georgie Animal Steel and

King Kong Bundy and it was just people that he always saw on TV and all of a

sudden he's standing in the middle of the ring in the Survivor Series and the

older guys were like, you know what, you need to step in line.

I remember there was an Andre match.

Of course, Andre the Giant was the biggest man you'll ever see.

Andre got him in the ring up against the ropes and wrapped the rope around his

neck. Scott was like, he's... I feel like he's going to kill me. Andre tried

kill me in Madison Square Garden. He picked me up and he tried choking me

And I was going, oh, God, don't go out, don't go out. Madison Square Garden made

a man sold out. He can't pass out.

Andre thought I was just a kid, thought I was getting too cocky or whatever.

You know, he was laying him in.

So, you know, Andre, he was on top of him and he was pounding on him.

I mean, hard.

It was a bad night at the office for Bam Bam Bigelow.

And Andre said something to him like, young boy, you know, you're a little

for us. Like, this is how it works. Like, you're going to learn.

And Andre really just stuck it to him. But, you know, they were just letting

know he had to pay his dues. He was green.

And you need to wait your turn, because it's not right now.

After only a year in the big leagues, Bam Bam Bigelow's match with Andre the

Giant marks his exit from the WWF.

He'd gotten such a big push, but at a certain point, they did sour on him.

Bam Bam Bigelow paid the price here.

And it may have been ego -wise, the other guys not liking him. And my father

just knowing when things getting a little too thick and it's not his time,

moved on.

Now on his own, Bam Bam travels the country working for various U .S.

before receiving a lucrative offer to wrestle in Japan.

I don't even know what year these are. I'm judging by the suit, probably early

90s. This is one of his original Japanese suits.

There was more money for him to be had overseas.

He offered me a lot of money to go work in Japan.

I was working with Antonio Inoki. There was a lot of talent there.

When he went to Japan, he was on for two weeks and then home for two weeks. So

he had longer stretches of time home.

What sparked his return to WWF?

The contract. And it was time for him to come back to the States. I guess in his

meeting with Vince, you know, they worked a deal that he felt comfortable

was a little bit more mature and he was ready to come back.

All right, man.

So what do you got here?

So this is his...

Coming out to the ring attire when he was in his second run in the WWF, he

have pyrotechnics underneath here, and they would shoot fireworks out.

I don't fill it out as much as he did.

He said he used to look like a tulip in it.

In 1992, as the WWF struggles with declining popularity,

Vince McMahon brings Bam Bam back to the roster.

Once again proving to be a top -level star, Bam Bam gets thrust into the main

event of WrestleMania 11.

WrestleMania 11.

When McMahon books him against one of the NFL's most celebrated players.

Lawrence Taylor.

Probably the most media frenzy time of my father's career.

That was Scott's idol, like...

LT and the Giants. Like, now I'm going to wrestle him. You know, I'm going to

wrestle with him.

That build -up and that whole pomp and circumstance of being the main

event in WrestleMania.

Lawrence Taylor, just me and you!

This was a match not for wrestling fans.

The media hype around this match has been absolutely huge.

This was a match for the general public. And the idea was, is by being in the

match, all the exposure...

from the football press and the mainstream press, would then make Bam

bigger, so then he could be the big star that they wanted him to be. That means

I'm here. I did it. I am the 1%. Every little boy wants to

be a WWE wrestler.

Almost every little boy. And he was main event. It was a paycheck bigger than a

lot of people make in one year.

I see a lot of videos online.

People, oh, it's the worst WrestleMania.

You know what?

There's not another person that could have carried Lawrence Taylor to do that

show. Business was down.

Vince needed to hit a home run. And they picked me because I'm the only guy that

could take chicken shit and turn it into chicken sour.

You know, Vince trusted my father enough to be the person to pull that off.

Bam Bam soon learns that being the company's go -to big man comes with

sacrifice.

The only problem working for Vince McMahon is that if you get hurt, there's

sympathy there. He wants you to work. It's really hard to do because your body

can't take that type of punishment.

I definitely took a toll on his body.

I mean, every time he sits in a chair and stands up, he just squatted 400

pounds. A lot of wear and tear on your knees, your back, your neck, your

shoulders. I mean, the thing that made him so great was.

An agile big guy, the problem with the agile big guys is that by doing that

stuff, a smaller guy can take that stuff longer, and a big guy starts wearing

down a lot.

He definitely had some knee surgeries and elbow surgery or shoulder surgery.

His body was starting to take a little bit of a licking.

That's one thing I didn't do. I didn't worry, and I didn't stress out. It was

his job, and he was an entertainer, and he was an athlete, and I was too young

to think about... the lifelong lasting effects of wrestling and what it would

have on his body and his mind.

But I do know that he knew if he was out and he was injured too long, somebody

was going to step up and replace him. So that was a no -no.

I'm not letting an opportunity walk by me. That heavyweight championship is

going to be mine.

He's got multiple injuries at this point. How is he dealing with that?

Probably pain pills like everybody else. But I do remember, you know, that was

so commonplace among wrestlers then.

It was such a part of the scene that it wasn't like a big deal. And it was like,

hey, do you got any Vikes?

So you just gave them to your boy, you know, because he needed them right

When you see this symbol, you can be assured of drug -free entertainment you

be proud of.

Been tested for marijuana and performance -enhancing drugs, but you've

prescription.

You're good.

Through that 80s and then into the 90s, there were two things that coincided.

This is the wrestling industry. Running right next to that is the pharmaceutical

industry. And the pharmaceutical industry is now coming up with better,

accessible opiates, OxyContin, which I did have a problem with.

I've seen it so much in my career. So many of my peers during that time just

left us way too early because of addiction, especially pain pills.

He was diabetic, and he had an endocrinologist.

Not a pain management doctor.

And he would call and, I need PERC, I need VITE, I need Oxy. They need

to keep me going.

If you were at the pool party and a doc came by, well, I happen to have a

refillable script of Oxycontin in return for autographs or, you know, tickets to

local shows here and there.

It's a pretty powerful thing to have over someone.

They might as well have just put heroin in a bottle and called it Oxycontin.

I can guarantee you before that prescription was done, he was probably

In 1995, after a three -year run with the WWF, Bam Bam Bigelow leaves the

company to sign with the notorious hardcore wrestling promotion ECW, run by

old friend, Paul Heyman.

I mean, the one reason he went to ECW was because he liked how it was local.

Obviously, if he was in Asbury, the whole family would get together and we'd

go. And he knew he had a commodity.

You know, he didn't take his character off. It was tattooed on his head. So

wherever he went, Bam Bam Bigelow was going.

There is only one Bam Bam Bigelow.

I think it was a little too hardcore for me being so young.

All fans were riding with us. That was the whole gimmick. We were renegades?

Well, damn it. We the fans, we're renegades too.

From fit to finish, those shows were chaos.

I remember this crowd just like a mosh pit.

And this dude who is drunk as a skunk comes barreling and just absolutely face

punches me, trucks me right into the ground. I'm like 10, 11 years old. I've

never been hit by a grown man.

And that type of like... where you're like, you can't catch your breath. So I

remember going backstage, and I don't even think I told my father anything. He

just like saw it, and he's like, what happened?

And I'm like, I don't know. This guy punched me, like went through the crowd.

He's like, fine.

The gentleman who did that was escorted to the back for a conversation.

I witnessed this quasi -conversation. I'll never forget it. And all you hear

so you want to hit kids?

And you know that like, This dude is getting the life smacked out of him.

I don't know how else to put it. It was very bad.

I'm sure everybody's okay now.

But the fans in turn are fueled by ECW's over -the -top, ultraviolet brand of

extreme wrestling.

In ECW, we were a bunch of wrestlers that most of the bigger promotions...

They didn't want us, kind of, and we were like the land of misfit toys and

incorporated a lot of new stuff into pro wrestling in a revolutionary way.

I mean, you had to be tough to be in our company, and Bigelow was a very tough

guy, a legitimate guy, and he really started to come into his own amongst

we were doing.

The stuff that these guys were doing, jumping off the rafters, through tables,

getting thrown into the sand, it's just as hardcore as hardcore can get.

We weren't just trying to hurt each other. We were professionals. What

in that ring is built on trust.

So the infamous Taz and Bigelow go through the ring in Asbury Park.

So I get this phone call from Paul Heyman, and he says, you and Bigelow,

going to beat you for the belt, and he's going to put you through the ring to do

it. He goes, what do you think?

And the first thing I thought is, I'm going to die.

So the way a ring is constructed, it's a steel frame.

And then there's these thick wood boards.

And then there's kind of like a cushion. It's not as big as a mat.

And then a canvas.

So these wood boards were cut first.

So then the boards would just be moved out of the way. Then open the trap door.

And Bam Bam was concerned.

What about Taz's head?

Like his head's going to hit the frame of this thing. How are we going to clear

this hole?

I almost feel dirty explaining this on air.

I'm so old school. Like it's like unbelievable.

Basically, we fought, fought, fought. We were outside the ring for quite some

time fighting until we get the signal that this door is open.

So if you watch closely, when I have the choke on, and I'm really

pulling back this curtain all the way here, right? So Bam Bam, he's tapping

first, and then he puts his hand on the top rope.

Under his hand is a little piece of white tape.

That white tape was the measurement to clear my head.

And we hit that crash mat hard as hell.

The ring engulfs us, and we heard the people.

My eyes lit up. I was so happy. And the first thing he says to me, are you okay?

That's Bam Bam Bigelow.

And he goes, we...

Did it.

And we were laughing because the place was rumbling.

He waited for the people to come down a teeny bit. And then once they saw him

come out first, we knew the pop would be loud. But I don't know if we knew it

was going to be that loud. I mean, it was just, I'll never forget it as long

I live.

I got goosebumps.

I mean, so many things that could have gone wrong. You could break your back.

You could break your neck.

But Scotty never, ever said no to anything.

It's a small miracle that Bigelow is moving.

ACW was definitely extreme.

I'm just surprised nobody died.

I am really surprised nobody died.

You would see him come out. He'd have, you know, giant gashes on his head, and

he would just put some superglue on it, close it up, and then we would go have a

cheesesteak. I can't tell you how many times he's been sewed up in our living

room. Doctors just would come over and just sew him up in the middle of the

night while he was half asleep.

So the injuries were the beginning of the end.

He had...

Stenosis in the entirety of his spine. He had crushed discs. He had sections

fused of his back at that time. You could run your finger down his spine and

could feel almost like braille. Pills just allowed him to move.

If you didn't go out and you didn't put on a show, you weren't getting paid.

So I understand the aspect of having to take something to basically push you

through that.

I did see Bigelow struggling a little bit physically, but he hit it well.

He wouldn't tell you if you had to go for a match, hey, dude, I'm hurting

my shoulder hurts, my neck hurts, my back hurts. He was just, let's go, let's

it, whatever it was.

The pain pills Bam Bam Bigelow consumes allow him to continue performing at the

highest level, but they also take a toll on his life away from the ring.

He was never, never, never aggressive. And he was always very respectful. And

became angry. He would at times be very coherent and at times be very

incoherent. And he would be like, you are just crazy and you're making things

up. I'm under a doctor's care and this is what I have to do to be in the

business. It was a doctor, an MD, who got paid a lot of money to treat him for

one disease and gave him a whole other one.

The pill bottles from that doctor, I've never seen a pill bottle that size in my

life before.

100 pills, 300 pills.

This doctor was a fan, and he would have done anything that Scott wanted,

regardless of his license, and he did.

Scott was in denial, and so was the doctor, because I would call him and

stop writing these prescriptions, you're destroying our lives, you're ruining

our family.

And that doctor's response, he would call my father and say that the warden's

calling me, telling me not to come over, undermining my mother to my father in

an already weakened state.

Nobody's paying attention to these doctors.

You're a drug dealer because he was not a pain doctor.

It's a tragedy.

Scott sold his soul for OxyContin.

And he would have stepped over us in the street to get them.

Bam Bam Bigelow's addiction continues to get worse, fueled by an endless supply

of OxyContin from his doctor.

OxyContin is one of America's new wonder drugs.

Since the drug came on the market, the number of annual prescriptions has risen

to nearly 6 million.

Contributing to the problem are pill mills, where doctors write prescriptions

for non -medical reasons.

He wasn't going to buy drugs off the street.

He was home taking OxyContin.

And then I got pregnant with Richie and then the promises, you know, this is

going to be different. We're going to get through this.

I think he tried to pull himself together because he said he always

daughter his whole life. It was like beyond anything to have this daughter.

And when she was little, he used to put her to bed every single night and he

would get a pillow and he would lay on the floor next to her and he would sing

her songs and hold her hands. And he was in her room on her floor every night.

Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, my dad would pick me up from, preschool, big

truck, eat all the Doritos you can imagine, paint pictures, just normal

-daughter relationship.

When he was around, he was focused on being with us and spending time with us.

What are you doing, boy?

His body was a little hindered and he was starting to feel the pain, but, you

know, that didn't stop us from...

going to every opening day for fishing, every opening day for hunting.

He got to be a dad without being on the road 300 -plus days a year. Those are

the fondest memories.

There's no pension in professional wrestling, so he needed to make as much

as he could with the body that he had because he knew it was deteriorating. He

even says that he's the highest -paid loser in the world because he'll take a

loss as long as that loss pays.

I'm the guy who helped bring Bam Bam in to WCW.

When he heard that I was wrestling, somehow he got my number. He's like,

you're doing it.

Like, we grew up maybe seven miles from each other. These two Jersey Shore boys.

But now we're tag team champions.

I never felt like he was under the influence in the ring. But eventually,

know, people start to go back to their old habits. And that's why so many guys

died.

Overconsumption of pills.

Because when you're taking five at a time, because three stopped working, you

can't remember if you took them or not. So you take five more, you know, and

before you know it, you're that guy.

He went on the road, and he would not show up to shows or tapings.

He was in Arizona, and friends of ours were there.

And he didn't make it to the show, and they called home, and I was like, what

you mean? He's there.

It got to the point where he was a liability, and that's what they said.

And they paid him the rest of his contract to stay home because he could

function.

I saw a man broken.

He's away from his family, and he's not in the best physical shape because he's

in constant pain, you know, having to take a pill just to get up, and not just

pill, multiple pills. But the tradeoff of that is it completely dulls your

senses. It completely...

Just destroys your sense of person.

How many pills do you think he was taking a day?

15, 20 Oxycons, easily.

A day?

Yeah. It was dangerous.

And a situation happened with the youngest where it became very dangerous.

I had wrote a paper about it when I was in 8th grade. And I went back and read

it last night, understanding that what was happening is I'm writing about my

father nodding out, driving.

And when I wrote that in 8th grade, I had no idea that's what was...

going on. And I remember the officers were asking me all these questions.

I mean, for a three -year -old, they're asking me my address, my phone number,

my mom's phone number, like all this information. And I'm just like, I don't

know. Where's my dad?

But when I went back last night and read it, really knowing what was going on,

what was in his system, it just hits 10 times harder.

As Bam Bam Bigelow's addiction sends him crashing to rock bottom, he's charged

with endangering the welfare of his daughter.

He was given an ultimatum. I'm like, you've either got to go get help or you

have to go.

He wouldn't get help.

And he went. He didn't see that he had a problem the way that he did, the way

that addicts do.

You know, dad's not going to be home anymore.

They're getting a divorce.

That's when he picked up and basically went to Florida.

He was married to a drug.

So to watch a man who would choose that over his children, when I knew that that

was the most important thing, was just the worst thing ever.

I got to talk to him on the phone, but it would be like spans of where it would

be really quiet because I could hear him crying.

He was struggling to form the words, hi.

I went down to Tampa, spring break, my senior year.

I wanted to go down there to see my friends, but I really just wanted to go

there to find my dad.

And his girlfriend answered the phone, said he wasn't

available at the point in time.

And then I got a phone call when I landed back in New Jersey from my father

apologizing. And, you know, I kind of aired him out a little bit. I told him

I felt.

And then he died three weeks later.

I was in school teaching, and a phone call got patched to my classroom, and it

was his brother, Todd, and Todd said, he's gone.

I was like, what do you mean? He's like, he's gone, and he was crying

hysterically, and I just hung up the phone and ran out of the building, and

Shane was in college.

Yeah, I got that call.

I'll never forget.

I'm walking back through the quad.

There's kids going to class, and I got a phone call from my father's childhood

friend. Your father died last night.

And it's just like everybody around you is moving fast and you're just still.

I just remember being numb.

It rocked me.

What I heard at that time, he was, you know, going through

a tough time.

I thought of his family instantly because I know how much he loved his

and his wife. You know, I just felt for him.

He died of an overdose.

Accidental overdose, but the word accidental and overdose should just not

the same sentence.

How do you accidentally, oops, took one too many?

Took one too many for a long time.

On January 19th, 2007.

At just 45 years of age, Bam Bam Bigelow dies by what authorities call an

accidental overdose from a cocktail of illicit and prescription drugs.

I didn't grieve. There was none for me.

Because I was scrambling. I had kids. They couldn't see me break down. They

couldn't see me weak. And that's all I became, was a provider.

I didn't have time to coddle and nurture.

That's the hardest part on me now.

Towards the end, it was very difficult with my mother. Just because that was my

dad, that was my hero.

My mom had to make a really tough decision.

You know, for a while I never understood why we couldn't just go see dad.

And when you don't understand, you just think it's selfish.

But then when you do, you become appreciative that you weren't exposed to

something that would have been just so heartbreaking.

As a father, I think it just digs into you that when you think if there was no

compunction for Bamber to reach out for some kind of help, that he must have

thought that he had it under control.

He must have figured this is not really a problem because of how much he talked

about his kids.

It's been just honoring the legacy of Bam Bam. I never really got to

stop and acknowledge my own pain.

You always think about if you had one last chance.

what you would say.

I think there's more ask, which is why.

His kids lost their dad at a young age. It's sad, you know, because Bigelow,

like so many of us wrestlers during that time, was on the road a lot. You know,

you're not around. You're making a living for your family.

If God was here, what would you say to him?

Your mother.

But through years of therapy, I know you had no control.

It's not your fault. I don't blame you.

You know, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to be a drug addict

today. You wake up every morning and you're like, today's going to be a

But I would call him a mother****** first.

Just because he would expect that.

I can't fault him for what happened.

You had to keep going. That's how you put the bread on the table.

I signed all the rights over to the kids, so they got all the royalty

So he and his death still supported them.

As far as being a big man, who's better than Bam Bam?

Nobody. There's nobody.

The best big man in the business. The guy that was doing cartwheels, moonsaws,

job kicks, and things that they never, ever seen another big man do before.

That's what I want to be remembered as. When I think of pro wrestling, I think

of power. I think of size. I think of my father.

He was

a great person in how he lived.

And all the wonderful things that he did for people and the great father that he

was should be what is remembered.

Not how he died, because that's a terrible story.

But he left such a legacy.

He was at 1%.