#darksideofthering #docuseries #truestories #documentary
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00:00Look at this man. I'm telling you ladies, send your kids out of the room, because I want you to take a look at Bam Bam Bigelow.
00:07There's no one who doesn't know Bam Bam Bigelow, and if they don't know his name, if they see the face and the head, they know it.
00:15His entire head was aflame, so he started doing the flames on his suits and his boots, and you'd look out into the audience and there's flame everywhere.
00:22Bam! Oh, wow!
00:24He was just massive, but so athletic.
00:31So quick. Bammer did it almost like a ballet dancer.
00:35Bigelow can move for a big man, and he knows what he's doing in there.
00:38Look at this 400-pound man doing flips, cartwheels, and going through the ring. This is crazy.
00:44In 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.
00:52Bam Bam Bigelow!
00:55Arriving out of nature, Bam Bam Bigelow catapulted to the top of the wrestling world and never looked back.
01:01You need a little excitement?
01:03When 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.
01:12Wrestling rewarded Bam Bam's talents with money and fame, but those rewards came with a heavy price.
01:19Hold the wear and tear, and you're not going to feel it right away.
01:23And that's when it changed, and everything spiraled out of control.
01:28You're selling your body, you're selling your health to have fame, fortune, and everything that goes with it.
01:34People had mouths to feed, so guys did what they had to do to earn their living.
01:40He was in pain, and there was a doctor involved that was willing to take that away, and things went downhill from there.
01:48But Bam Bam's addictions eventually pushed him beyond the point of redemption, everything he loved.
01:55A trusted professional gave him the thing that was his biggest demise.
02:01This doctor could have had a loaded machine gun to our family, and it would have been no different.
02:07No different.
02:19Just digging through the vast archives, you have Dad's calendar.
02:23And then if you go to November 15, 1987, he got married.
02:29And then, you know, not even taking a honeymoon, like he had a day off, and then he was in Des Moines, Iowa.
02:34This is literally the first four days of his career with the WWF in 1987.
02:39He definitely wanted kids right away.
02:41He was like, I just want to stay home and raise the kids.
02:43You could go to work, go to school, do what you want to do.
02:45And he was more excited about being a dad than he was when he got WrestleMania.
02:50Hi, I'm Dana Breckenridge.
02:52I was married to Bam Bam Bigelow.
02:54And when Richie came, I mean, that was the best thing ever.
02:59Because all he ever really wanted was a daughter.
03:01Oh yeah, he was a giant teddy bear.
03:03What fans saw in the ring was not at all what we saw at home.
03:08It was love, it was playing around.
03:10My name is Richie Bigelow, and my family...
03:16My father is Bam Bam Bigelow.
03:18He had this giant, giant bed that we would all cuddle up in and just jump around.
03:22Yeah, it was a great time.
03:24When you think of your dad, what's the first memory that comes to mind?
03:27It was the last time I saw him.
03:30We were just driving in the car, and I was two or three years old.
03:33But I remember seeing his head slowly drop to his chest and then come back up.
03:42And whenever I think back on how I went about the situation,
03:46I'm always so baffled because I was so young.
03:48But in some way, I understood that we were in some sort of danger.
03:53And as a toddler, I went into panic mode.
03:58I gotta go to the bathroom, I gotta get out, daddy, daddy, pull over, I can't.
04:01So we pulled over on the side of the road,
04:04and he looked at me and gave me this big, toothless smile.
04:08He's like, come on, do you have to go?
04:10It was just on the side of the road, and I was like, no, no, but kind of stalling.
04:14And then we just got back on the road, and it started happening again.
04:18This time we were by a diner, and we pulled into that diner.
04:22And the next thing I know, my car door was opened,
04:27and a man just scooped me up and put me in the back of this gray car.
04:33And from the back seat, I watched them take my dad in handcuffs across.
04:38That was it.
04:40My mom came and picked me up, and she was real gentle about it.
04:43And she told me, you're probably not going to be seeing daddy anymore.
04:48He needs help.
04:51And that was the last time I saw him.
04:53He wanted to be a wrestler, but he wanted to be a father more.
04:58And everything was taken away.
05:01So was wrestling what took it away?
05:04Or was Scott and all the other outside influences what took it away?
05:09Like, how did this happen?
05:13Here we go.
05:16This is dad, his sophomore year in high school.
05:20Oh, my god.
05:22Right, they were the Class A North champions, 20 and 6.
05:25That's probably the last time you'll see him with hair.
05:29Everything around Asbury Park is Bruce Springsteen.
05:31The sound of Bruce Springsteen is everywhere
05:34and in everything that we did when we grew up on the shore.
05:38Scott was a street kid from Neptune
05:40who hung out in the bars of Asbury, you know,
05:43driving the circuit in muscle cars.
05:45For our age and our crowd, he was definitely the man.
05:48You know what, he was probably the kindest, most genuine person of the group.
05:53We were friends, and it was just a progression.
05:56And then it was a whirlwind.
05:58We were street kids.
05:59Nobody thought about where they were going.
06:01I didn't go to college. My friends didn't go to college.
06:04He didn't go to college.
06:05God, the Jersey Shore was, like, the party place to be.
06:11I was running a club called Club Xanadu in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
06:16The club is actually one block from the Stone Pony.
06:19And in the middle was this place called Quack Quack.
06:22It's DDP, Diamond Dallas Page.
06:25And I know Bam Bam because I'm from the Jersey Shore.
06:31I roll into the Quack Quack, and I see this mammoth kid.
06:36And at some point, you know, we're doing shots,
06:38and we just kind of clicked, you know.
06:40But I think he was 17 at the time.
06:43But no one cared, because he looked like a full-grown man.
06:46He was, you know, 300-plus pounds.
06:48And he could obviously be very menacing,
06:51but he also had that fun side to him.
06:54And they were calling him the Beast from the East back then.
06:58He was a football player, and he was ranked in the state for wrestling.
07:02I mean, he was feared on the mat and on the football field.
07:05This was the time when the heavyweight in high school wrestling was unlimited.
07:10So you're talking about a 320-pound teenager
07:13who can bench 500 pounds walking onto a mat.
07:16I'm Shane Bigelow, and my father's Bam Bam Bigelow.
07:20I heard a story from a high school wrestling coach
07:22that my father rolled his ankle real bad, and he couldn't wrestle.
07:25But his coach was just like,
07:27Scotty, I need you to just go up there and just look me.
07:30So he gets up, he steps on the scale,
07:32he turns to the kid, and he just gives him this big flex.
07:34He's just like, I'm coming for you.
07:36Lo and behold, this kid is shitting his pants.
07:39So he tells his coach, I'm not wrestling this guy.
07:41He's going to rip my head off.
07:42All my father had to do, he hopped out on one leg,
07:45got his hand raised, and took the win.
07:48There was a group of the boys, and they were rough drinking,
07:51tattooed, like old sailors, but not sailors, they were roofers.
07:55And they were very infamous around town.
07:59Him and his brothers used to jump off of billboards
08:02onto mattresses on the side of the road
08:04when my grandmother would drive past.
08:06She'd be like, oh, look at those kids.
08:08And then she'd realize that it was her 3 boys
08:10jumping onto like 5 mattresses piled high.
08:12Scott was very quiet.
08:14You know, he was the baby of the bunch.
08:16They usually only called him in when they needed the extra muscle.
08:20It hurt. He got in on a fight, and he bit some kid's ear off.
08:23It's like, what?
08:25But it's part of the legend that went with the Beast from the East.
08:29Tough dude, ran with rugged people.
08:31He was all that and a bag of chips, man.
08:33He was a bad apple when he wanted to be.
08:36I am Taz, former ECW World Heavyweight Champion
08:39and former opponent of Bam Bam Big Low.
08:43Bam Bam Big Low all over Taz.
08:46I've heard all the stories about Big Low, and I believe them all.
08:49There's a whole separate legend
08:51before the legend Bam Bam Big Low ever became the legend.
08:56My name is Scott Colton Big Low, and Bam Bam Big Low is my father.
09:00I know that he was a bounty hunter for a short stint.
09:04I don't know much about the back story of it.
09:08I guess I was about 18, 19 years old.
09:11You see an ad for bounty hunter,
09:13and basically just picked up bail jumpers, beat up a lot of people,
09:17and then wind up going to Mexico to get a little girl that was kidnapped.
09:21He was supposedly commissioned to go and bring back
09:26a young girl who was taken out of the country.
09:29In the whole mayday and craziness of the thing,
09:32his bounty hunting partner ends up getting shot in the neck and killed,
09:36and that's when my dad spent 6 months in a Mexican prison.
09:40I heard he ended up in jail, you know, Mexico.
09:43So you just hear little bits and pieces, but Scotty, they could be exaggerated.
09:47The story is he befriended the judge
09:49because he used to run through the walls that were made out of the terracotta clay.
09:53He used to just break through the cells of the walls so they couldn't keep him in.
09:57So the judge one day apparently goes to him and asks him,
10:00he goes, I need security from all these cartel, mob, whatever guys.
10:05So you stand in front of me and you stop these maniacs
10:08lunging at me and trying to kill me, and I'll knock your sentence down.
10:11So the story is that a judge took pity on my father
10:14because my father saved him from a bunch of guys trying to jump over and stab him,
10:18and he ended up letting him loose early.
10:20He's basically a New Jersey legend.
10:22There's a story that one night, house is on fire,
10:27he's driving by, runs in and saves some kids.
10:29He pulled over, ran in the house and saved the kids.
10:32That sounds like a TV movie.
10:34It doesn't sound like stuff that really happens, you know,
10:37but there were a lot of stories like that just out there floating around.
10:41I'm Shane Douglas, and I had the pleasure of being partners
10:44in the triple threat with Bam Bam Bigelow.
10:46Who's the f***ing world champion?
10:50You know, I'd heard that he got arrested, I guess, in Mexico.
10:53You know, that sounds implausible.
10:55Then, like, over years, you'd hear other people repeating these stories
10:58and it just elevated that legend that was Bam Bam.
11:01You know, getting out of the joint, there's no jobs, you know.
11:05I was bouncing, partying, hanging out with the boys.
11:08Here comes Bam Bam in the club.
11:11This is, like, 81-ish.
11:14And it's packed, and my club was nice.
11:16And I see Bam rolling with, like, three of his biker buddies.
11:19And I come rolling up behind him, put my arm around his back.
11:22I'm like, yo, Bam, no trouble in here tonight, right, bro?
11:27Oh, come on, Paige, I wouldn't do that to you.
11:30And at some point, we're at the bar.
11:32Got the guys a shot, and wrestling comes up.
11:35And, you know, I said, you know, I tried that.
11:38In 79, he goes, you tried wrestling?
11:41I said, but I had three matches.
11:43My third match, I hurt my knee.
11:45And I kind of got swept away by the booze, the broads, and the party.
11:48But talking to him about it, I'm like, dude, you're a natural.
11:51He goes, that would be a pie-in-the-sky dream for me.
11:55I just got to the point where, well, where's my life going to go?
11:59You know, I don't have a college education.
12:01My gift was being athletically inclined.
12:04And so I went to a wrestling school,
12:06which was Larry Sharp's school in Monster Factory at the time.
12:09The rest is history.
12:11Larry Sharp was a former amateur wrestler
12:13who opened up the Monster Factory.
12:15My name's Dave Meltzer.
12:16I'm the editor of the Wrestling Observer newsletter.
12:18I've been covering pro wrestling since 1971.
12:20And one day, I guess Bam Bam walked in the door,
12:24and Larry saw, like everyone did, Bunny.
12:27And he became Scott's manager.
12:30I set him up on a couch, threw him in the ring, and trained him.
12:34I wound up staying out there at the Monster Factory, living out there,
12:37basically eating it, living it, sleeping it for a year.
12:41I saw footage of him coming out of the Monster Factory.
12:44You could tell, like, his aptitude to learn how to do this
12:47and get better at this, his athleticism.
12:50It jumped out to me right away.
12:52I mean, seeing a guy like that, you know, a guy that big,
12:55you know, do a cartwheel, I was like, wow, he's super impressive.
12:59Scott, professional wrestling, it's like a double-edged sword.
13:02It gave him life, and it took his life.
13:04That's the ultimate double-edge, isn't it?
13:11In 1985, Scott Bigelow was on the brink of stardom,
13:15having made a clean break from a troubled past.
13:18When he went to the Monster Factory with Larry Sharp,
13:21Larry really developed the name Bam Bam with Scott.
13:25Bam Bam, the strong baby face.
13:27You're like Bam Bam from The Flintstones.
13:29So he became Bam Bam Bigelow.
13:31Probably the most handsome wrestler on the face of the earth.
13:35The massive head of Bam Bam and that big flame ball on that head,
13:39that tattoo, who gets ink on their head? It's got to be crazy.
13:42Nevertheless, their whole head, for those that never got a tattoo,
13:45they hurt as much as they think, OK?
13:47This guy got his skull tattooed.
13:49Just imagine how much pain and how many hours that took to do.
13:53This was the branding of Bam Bam Bigelow.
13:56See, people love to hate, and as long as they want to hate me,
13:59I know I'm doing my job.
14:01And it kind of just sent that message to the fans and to other wrestlers.
14:06That's a bad dude right there.
14:07Bam Bam, do you have anything to say about all this?
14:09I'm hungry.
14:10Despite being a rookie to the wrestling scene,
14:13those with an eye for the business see Bam Bam's incredible potential,
14:17especially soon-to-be industry pioneer Paul Heyman.
14:21Paul was doing wrestling magazines at the time.
14:24This was before he was actually running around the business as a manager.
14:27And in his magazines, he was always promoting Bam Bam Bigelow
14:30like this phenomenon.
14:32And the guy never even had a match.
14:34Paul worked at Studio 54. He was doing publicity at the time.
14:37And he got this gig, Bam Bam Bigelow's first match.
14:42And I looked at it, and I was just like,
14:44Oh, my God, this guy's like 380 pounds,
14:47and he's coming off the top rope?
14:49At that point, I'm going like, this guy's going to be like it.
14:54In wrestling, like, he's going to be the biggest thing.
14:56I was like 19 when we started dating,
14:58and I was with his brother and a couple other friends,
15:01and we went to his show.
15:03And he got up there and he wrestled,
15:05and they were just in awe of what it all was.
15:07I just was like, Oh, you know, he's at work.
15:10I didn't really know too much about it until the WWF came knocking.
15:14At some point, I'm running another really big club in the 86-ish.
15:19And I'm just looking at channels, and all of a sudden,
15:21I'm seeing wrestling.
15:23And I'm like, Oh, my God, that's Bigelow.
15:26Take a good look, because we're bringing him
15:28from one end of the world to the other.
15:31Next thing I know, he's with Hulk Hogan, he's in the WWF.
15:34And I'm like, Oh, my God.
15:37From Asbury Park, New Jersey.
15:40He made it.
15:42Bam Bam Bigelow.
15:45Not only is Bam Bam headed to the WWF,
15:48but he's coming in with the full support of company owner Vince McMahon.
15:52WWF brought him in, and they tried to make him into the next big thing.
15:57They did the thing where all the managers were bidding on him
16:00to make him extra special.
16:02I'm here to introduce Bam Bam Bigelow.
16:06Vince loved big guys, and now you've got the most agile,
16:09380-pound guy that anyone has ever seen.
16:13I mean, they brought him in to be Hulk Hogan's tag team partner,
16:16to be right there with Hogan, and he was going to main event there,
16:19and he was going to work with the top guys.
16:21In the beginning, Hulk Hogan was the one that really took me and said,
16:25Okay, this is the business, this is how we do it, this is serious.
16:29He signed the WWE contract, and we got married November 15, 1987,
16:34and he went on the road November 16, 1987.
16:38How did he propose to you?
16:40We were watching TV, and he was like...
16:44Want to get married?
16:46And I was like, okay.
16:48And that was basically it. There was no fanfare.
16:50I saw him 10 times a year. I don't even know.
16:54Maybe that's why the marriage lasted so long.
16:56Maybe that's why I don't have anything bad to say.
16:58He was on the road and hit the ground running, and it was on from there.
17:03Back in the early days with WWF, we were working 60 days in a row.
17:07The main event in front of a sold-out crowd every night,
17:11and on the weekends, we would do two shows.
17:13Life in New Fancy.
17:15When he was home, you know, he did regular things.
17:19So he remained very humble.
17:21Scott was who he was around here.
17:23But, you know, it was cool to see him on TV.
17:26He was in the first Nintendo game.
17:28Like I said, he was just breaking into the business, and he worked, and he provided.
17:33He knew to take advantage of that situation
17:36and take advantage of everything that was given to him.
17:39What a monster!
17:41Everybody that gets a pair of boots and tights wants to be the world champion, right?
17:44And they think they're ready for it yesterday.
17:46For me, it was 11 years before I saw a world title.
17:49So when I did get that belt, I understood the responsibility that went with it.
17:54So I would think that Bam Bam being thrown that quickly into main events
17:58with, you know, Hulk Hogan or one of these massive names,
18:01it would have been intimidating.
18:03He never had to crawl his way up.
18:05There's always going to be jealousy, especially when you've been in the business 15 years,
18:08and he's been in the business for two or one, and he's on the top of the card.
18:12He was young, and these guys were big,
18:14and it was Georgie Animal Steel and King Kong Bundy,
18:17and it was just people that he always saw on TV,
18:20and all of a sudden he's standing in the middle of the ring in the Survivor Series,
18:23and the older guys were like, you know what, you need to step in line.
18:27The Eighth Wonder up!
18:29I remember there was an Andre match.
18:31Of course, Andre the Giant was the biggest man you'll ever see.
18:34Andre got him in the ring up against the ropes,
18:37and wrapped the rope around his neck.
18:40Scott was like, he's on top of him, and he was pounding on him.
18:43I mean, hard.
18:45It was a bad night at the office for Bam Bam Bigalow.
18:47And Andre said something to him like,
18:49young boy, you know, you're a little green for us.
18:52Like, this is how it works. Like, you're going to learn.
18:55And Andre really just stuck it to him,
18:58but, you know, they were just letting him know he had to pay his dues.
19:02He was green, and you need to wait your turn,
19:04because it's not right now.
19:07After only a year in the big leagues,
19:09Bam Bam Bigalow's match with Andre the Giant
19:12marks his exit from the WWF.
19:16He'd gotten such a big push,
19:18but at a certain point, they did sour on him.
19:21Bam Bam Bigalow paid the price here.
19:23And it may have been ego-wise, the other guys not liking him.
19:26My father just knowing when things get a little too thick,
19:30and it's not his time, he moved on.
19:32Now on his own, Bam Bam travels the country
19:35working for various U.S. promotions
19:37before receiving a lucrative offer to wrestle in Japan.
19:42I don't even know what years these are, but judging by the suit,
19:45probably early 90s.
19:47This is one of his original Japanese suits.
19:50There was more money for him to be had overseas.
19:53They offered me a lot of money to go work in Japan.
19:56I was working with Antonio Inoki.
19:58There was a lot of talent there.
20:00When he went to Japan, he was on for two weeks,
20:02and then home for two weeks.
20:04So he had longer stretches of time home.
20:07What sparked his return to WWF?
20:09The contract, and it was time for him to come back to the States.
20:12I guess in his meeting with Vince, they worked a deal
20:16that he felt comfortable, and he was a little bit more mature,
20:19and he was ready to come back.
20:21All right, man.
20:23So what do you got here?
20:25So this is his coming out to the ring attire
20:29when he was in his second run in the WWF.
20:33He would have pyrotechnics underneath here,
20:35and they would shoot, like, fireworks out.
20:42I don't fill it out as much as he did.
20:48He said he used to look like a tulip in it.
20:52In 1992, as the WWF struggles with declining popularity,
20:57Vince McMahon brings Bam Bam back to the roster,
21:01once again proving to be a top-level star.
21:04Bam Bam gets thrust into the main event of WrestleMania XI...
21:08WrestleMania XI!
21:10...when McMahon books him against one of the NFL's most celebrated players.
21:15Lawrence Taylor.
21:17Probably the most media-frenzied time of my father's career.
21:22That was Scott's idol, like, LT and the Giants.
21:26Like, now I'm gonna wrestle him. You know, I'm gonna wrestle with him.
21:29That build-up and that whole pomp and circumstance
21:34of being the main event at WrestleMania...
21:37Lawrence Taylor, just me and you!
21:39This was a match not for wrestling fans.
21:42The media hype around this match has been absolutely huge.
21:45This was a match for the general public,
21:47and the idea was, is by being in the match,
21:50all the exposure from the football press and the mainstream press
21:54would then make Bam Bam's name bigger,
21:56so then he could be the big star that they wanted him to be.
22:01That means I'm here. I did it.
22:03I am the 1%.
22:05Every little boy wants to be a WWE wrestler.
22:10Almost every little boy. And he was main event.
22:13It was a paycheck bigger than a lot of people make in one year.
22:17I see a lot of videos online.
22:19People all, it's the worst WrestleMania.
22:21You know what?
22:23There's not another person that could have carried Lawrence Taylor
22:27to do that show.
22:29Business was down. Vince needed to hit a home run.
22:32And they picked me because I'm the only guy that could take chicken shit
22:36and turn it into chicken salad.
22:38You know, Vince trusted my father enough to be the person to pull that off.
22:42Bam Bam soon learns that when he took a toll on his body...
22:46I mean, every time he sits in a chair and stands up,
22:49he just squatted 400 pounds.
22:51A lot of wear and tear on your knees, your back, your neck, your shoulders.
22:57I mean, the thing that made him so great was, you know, an agile big guy.
23:02The problem with the agile big guys is that by doing that stuff,
23:05a smaller guy can take that stuff longer,
23:07and a big guy, it starts wearing down on you a lot.
23:10He definitely had some knee surgeries and an elbow surgery
23:14or a shoulder surgery.
23:16You know, his body was starting to take a little bit of a licking.
23:20That's one thing I didn't do. I didn't worry, and I didn't stress out.
23:23It was his job, and he was an entertainer, and he was an athlete.
23:27And I was too young to think about the lifelong lasting effects of wrestling
23:33and what it would have on his body and his mind.
23:36But I do know that he knew if he was out and he was injured too long,
23:40somebody was going to step up and replace him.
23:42So that was a no-no.
23:44I'm not letting an opportunity walk by me.
23:46That heavyweight championship is going to be mine.
23:49He's got multiple injuries at this point. How is he dealing with that?
23:52Probably pain pills like everybody else,
23:54but I do remember that was so commonplace among wrestlers then.
23:57It was such a part of the scene that it wasn't like a big deal,
24:02and it was a, hey, do you got any vikes?
24:04So you just gave them to your boy, you know, because he needed them right there.
24:08When you see this symbol, you can be assured of drug-free entertainment
24:12you can be proud of.
24:14Been tested for marijuana and performance-enhancing drugs,
24:18but you've got a prescription, you're good.
24:21Through that 80s and then into the 90s,
24:23there were two things that coincided running.
24:25If this is the wrestling industry, running right next to that is the pharmaceutical industry.
24:29And the pharmaceutical industry is now coming up with better, more accessible opiates,
24:33OxyContin, which I did have a problem with.
24:36I've seen it so much in my career.
24:39So many of my peers during that time just left us way too early
24:43because of addiction, especially pain pills.
24:46He was diabetic, and he had an endocrinologist, not a pain management doctor.
24:52And he would call, and I need perks, I need vikes, I need Oxy's.
24:57They need something to keep me going.
24:59If you were at the pool party and old Doc came by,
25:02well, I happened to have a refillable script of OxyContin in return for autographs
25:08or, you know, tickets to local shows here and there.
25:11It's a pretty powerful thing to have over someone.
25:14They might as well have just put heroin in a bottle and called it OxyContin.
25:19I can guarantee you, before that prescription was done, he was probably addicted.
25:29In 1995, after a three-year run with the WWF,
25:34Bam Bam Bigelow leaves the company to sign with the notorious hardcore wrestling promotion ECW,
25:40run by his old friend, Paul Heyman.
25:44I mean, the one reason he went to ECW was because he liked how it was local.
25:48Obviously, if he was in Asbury, the whole family would get together, and we'd all go.
25:52And he knew he had a commodity.
25:54You know, he didn't take his character off.
25:56It was tattooed on his head, so wherever he went, Bam Bam Bigelow was going.
26:00There is only one Bam Bam Bigelow!
26:04I think it was a little too hardcore for me, being so young.
26:10Our fans were riding with us. That was the whole gimmick.
26:14We were renegades? Well, damn it. We the fans, we're renegades, too.
26:18From fit to finish, those shows were chaos.
26:23I remember this crowd just like a mosh pit.
26:26And this dude, who is drunk as a skunk, comes barreling and just absolutely face-punches me,
26:32chucks me right into the ground.
26:34I'm like 10, 11 years old. I've never been hit by a grown man.
26:38And it's that type of like, where you're like, you can't catch your breath.
26:42So I remember going backstage, and I don't even think I told my father anything.
26:47He just like saw it, and he's like, what happened?
26:50And I'm like, I don't know, this guy punched me, like went through the crowd.
26:54He's like, fine.
26:56The gentleman who did that was escorted to the back for a conversation.
27:00I witnessed this quasi-conversation. I'll never forget it.
27:04I'll never forget it.
27:05And all you hear is, so you want to hit kids?
27:07And you know that like, this dude is just getting the life smacked out of him.
27:12I don't know how else to put it. It was very bad.
27:16I'm sure everybody's okay now.
27:18But the fans in turn are fueled by ECW's over-the-top, ultraviolet brand of extreme wrestling.
27:26In ECW, we were a bunch of wrestlers that most of the bigger promotions,
27:32they didn't want us, kind of.
27:34And we were like the land of missed victories.
27:36And incorporated a lot of new stuff into pro wrestling in a revolutionary way.
27:41I mean, you had to be tough to be in our company.
27:44And Bigelow was a very tough guy, a legitimate guy.
27:47And he really started to come into his own amongst what we were doing.
27:51The stuff that these guys were doing, jumping off the rafters, through tables,
27:56getting thrown into the stands.
27:58It's just as hardcore as hardcore can get.
28:03We weren't just trying to hurt each other. We were professionals.
28:06What happens in that ring is built on trust.
28:08So, the infamous Taz and Bigelow go through the ring in Asbury Park.
28:14So I get this phone call from Paul Heyman.
28:17And he says, you and Bigelow, he's going to beat you for the belt.
28:21And he's going to put you through the ring to do it.
28:23He goes, what do you think?
28:25And the first thing I thought is, I'm going to die.
28:27So the way a ring is constructed, it's a steel frame.
28:31And then there's these thick wood boards.
28:34And then there's kind of like a cushion. It's not as big as a mat.
28:38And then a canvas.
28:40So these wood boards were cut first.
28:42So then the boards would just be moved out of the way.
28:45Then open the trap door.
28:47And Bam Bam was concerned.
28:49What about Taz's head? Like, his head's going to hit the frame of this thing.
28:52How are we going to clear this hole?
28:54I almost feel dirty explaining this on air.
28:57I'm so old school. Like, it's like, unbelievable.
29:00So, basically, we fought, fought, fought.
29:03We were outside the ring for quite some time fighting.
29:06Until we get the signal that this door is open.
29:11He's got both champion and challenger back in the ring.
29:13So, if you watch closely.
29:15He's got it. He's got it.
29:17When I have the choker.
29:19And I'm really pulling it back this curtain all the way here, right?
29:22So, Bam Bam, he's tapping first.
29:24Then he puts his hand on the top rope.
29:27Under his hand is a little piece of white tape.
29:30That white tape was the measurement to clear my head.
29:39We hit that crash mat hard as hell.
29:43The ring engulfs us.
29:45And we heard the people.
29:49My eyes lit up. I was so happy.
29:51And the first thing he says to me.
29:53Are you okay?
29:55That's Bam Bam Big Road.
29:57And he goes, we did it.
29:59And we were laughing.
30:01Because the place was rumbling.
30:03He waited for the people to come down a teeny bit.
30:05And then once they saw him come out first.
30:07We knew the pop would be loud.
30:09But I don't know if we knew it was going to be that loud.
30:11I'll never forget it as long as I live.
30:15I got goosebumps.
30:18There's so many things that could have gone wrong.
30:20It could break your back. It could break your neck.
30:22But Scotty never ever said no to anything.
30:25It's a small miracle that Bigelow is moving.
30:28ECW was definitely extreme.
30:31I'm just surprised nobody died.
30:33I am really surprised nobody died.
30:35You would see him come out.
30:37He'd have giant gashes on his head.
30:39And he would just put some super glue on it, close it up.
30:41And then we would go have a cheesesteak.
30:43I can't tell you how many times he's been sewed up in our living room.
30:45Doctor just would come over and just sew him up in the middle of the night while he was half asleep.
30:49So the injuries were the beginning of the end.
30:53He had stenosis in the entirety of his spine.
30:57He had crushed discs.
30:59He had sections fused of his back at that time.
31:02You could run your finger down his spine.
31:04And you could feel almost like braille.
31:07The pills just allowed him to move.
31:10If you didn't go out and you didn't put on a show, you weren't getting paid.
31:15So I understand the aspect of having to take something to basically push you through that.
31:22I did see Bigelow struggling a little bit physically, but he hit it well.
31:27He wouldn't tell you if you had to go for a match,
31:30Hey dude, I'm hurting here. My shoulder hurts. My neck hurts. My back hurts.
31:33He was just, let's go.
31:35You know, let's do it. You know, whatever it was.
31:39The pain pills Bam Bam Bigelow consumes allow him to continue performing at the highest level.
31:45But they also take a toll on his life away from the ring.
31:49He was never, never, never aggressive.
31:51And he was always very respectful.
31:53And he became angry.
31:55He would at times be very coherent and at times be very incoherent.
31:59And he would be like, you're just crazy and you're making things up.
32:02I'm under a doctor's care and this is, you know, what I have to do to be in the business.
32:06It was a doctor, an MD who got paid a lot of money to treat him for one disease and gave him another whole nother one.
32:16The pill bottles from that doctor. I've never seen pill bottles that size in my life before.
32:22A hundred pills, 300 pills.
32:24This doctor was a fan and he would have done anything that Scott wanted, regardless of his license.
32:31And he did.
32:32Scott was in denial.
32:34And so was the doctor, because I would call him and say, stop writing these prescriptions.
32:39You're destroying our lives. You're ruining our family.
32:42And that doctor's response, he would call my father and say that the warden's calling me, telling me not to come over.
32:48Undermining my mother to my father in an already weakened state.
32:54Nobody's paying attention to these doctors.
32:57You're a drug dealer because he was not a pain doctor.
33:01It's a tragedy. Scott sold his soul for OxyContin.
33:07And he would have stepped over us in the street to get them.
33:10Addiction continues to get worse, fueled by an endless supply of OxyContin from his doctor.
33:16OxyContin is one of America's new wonder drugs.
33:19Since the drug came on the market, the number of annual prescriptions has risen to nearly six million.
33:25Contributing to the problem are pill mills, where doctors write prescriptions.
33:30I'm going to buy drugs off the street.
33:33He was home taking OxyContin.
33:36And then I got pregnant with Richie, and then the promises, you know,
33:44this is going to be different, we're going to get through this.
33:48I think he tried to pull himself together because he said he always wanted a daughter his whole life.
33:52It was like beyond anything to have this daughter.
33:55And when she was little, he used to put her to bed every single night,
33:58and he would get a pillow, and he would lay on the floor next to her,
34:01and he would sing her songs and hold her hands.
34:03And he was in her room on her floor every night.
34:06Wednesdays, every Wednesday, my dad would pick me up from preschool, big red truck,
34:12eat all the Doritos you can imagine, paint pictures, just normal father-daughter relationship.
34:18When he was around, he was focused on being with us and spending time with us.
34:23How you doing, boy?
34:26His body was a little hindered, and he was starting to feel the pain.
34:29But, you know, that didn't stop us from going to every opening day for fishing,
34:34every opening day for hunting.
34:36He got to be a dad.
34:38And without being on the road 300-plus days a year, those are the fondest memories.
34:43There's no pension in professional wrestling.
34:45So he needed to make as much money as he could with the body that he had
34:51because he knew it was deteriorating.
34:53He even says that he's the highest-paid loser in the world
34:56because he'll take a loss as long as that loss pays.
34:59I'm the guy who helped bring Bam Bam in to WCW.
35:03When he heard that I was wrestling, somehow he got my number.
35:11He's like, dude, you're doing it.
35:13Like, we grew up maybe seven miles from each other.
35:16These two Jersey Shore boys.
35:18But now we're tag team champions.
35:20I never felt like he was under the influence in the ring.
35:23But, you know, eventually, you know, people start to go back to their old habits.
35:26And that's why so many guys died.
35:28Overconsumption of pills.
35:31Because when you're taking five at a time, because three stopped working.
35:37I'm like, you can't remember if you took them or not, so you take five more.
35:41You know, and before you know it, you're that guy.
35:45He went on the road, and he would not show up to shows or tapings.
35:50He was in Arizona, and friends of ours were there.
35:54And he didn't make it to the show, and they called home, and I was like,
35:57what do you mean? He's there.
35:59Got to the point where he was a liability, and that's what they said.
36:04And they paid him the rest of his contract to stay home
36:06because he could not function.
36:09I saw a man broken.
36:11He's away from his family, and he's not in the best physical shape
36:16because he's in constant pain, you know, having to take a pill just to get up.
36:20And not just a pill, multiple pills.
36:22But the tradeoff of that is it completely dulls your senses.
36:26It completely just destroys your sense of person.
36:30How many pills do you think he was taking a day?
36:3215, 20 Oxycontins, easily.
36:34A day?
36:35Yeah.
36:36It was dangerous.
36:37And a situation happened with the youngest where it became very dangerous.
36:42I had wrote a paper about it when I was in 8th grade,
36:46and I went back and read it last night,
36:48understanding that what was happening is,
36:50I'm writing about my father nodding out, driving.
36:54And when I wrote that in 8th grade, I had no idea that's what was going on.
36:58And I remember the officers were asking me all these questions,
37:01like, I mean, for a 3-year-old, they're asking me my address,
37:03my phone number, my mom's phone number, like all this information.
37:06And I'm just like, I don't know, where's my dad?
37:10So when I went back last night and read it,
37:12really knowing what was going on, what was in his system,
37:15it just hits 10 times harder.
37:19As Bam Bam Bigelow's addiction sends him crashing to rock bottom,
37:23he's charged with endangering the welfare of his daughter.
37:26He was given an ultimatum.
37:28I'm like, you've either got to go get help or you have to go.
37:31He wouldn't get help.
37:33And he went. He didn't see that he had a problem the way that he did,
37:37the way that addicts do.
37:39You know, Dad's not going to be home anymore, they're getting a divorce.
37:43That's when he picked up and basically went to Florida.
37:46He was married to a drug.
37:48So to watch a man who would choose that over his children,
37:51when I knew that that was the most important thing,
37:53was just the worst thing ever.
37:55I got to talk to him on the phone,
37:57but it would be like spans of where it would be really quiet
38:00because I could hear him crying.
38:03He was struggling to form the words hi.
38:08I went down to Tampa, spring break, my senior year.
38:12I wanted to go down there to see my friends,
38:14but I really just wanted to go down there to find my dad.
38:16And his girlfriend answered the phone,
38:22said he wasn't available at the point in time.
38:25And then I got a phone call when I landed back in New Jersey
38:29from my father apologizing.
38:31And, you know, I kind of aired him out a little bit.
38:34I told him how I felt.
38:37And then he died three weeks later.
38:44I was in school teaching,
38:46and a phone call got patched to my classroom,
38:48and it was his brother, Todd.
38:50And Todd said, he's gone.
38:53I was like, what do you mean?
38:55He's like, he's gone, and he was crying hysterically.
38:57And I just hung up the phone and ran out of the building,
39:00and Shane was in college.
39:02Yeah, I got that call.
39:04I'll never forget.
39:06I'm walking back through the quad.
39:08There's kids going to class,
39:10and I got a phone call from my father's childhood friend.
39:13Your father died last night.
39:16And it's just like everybody around you is moving fast,
39:19and you're just still.
39:22I just remember being numb.
39:24It rocked me.
39:27What I heard, at that time,
39:31he was, you know, going through a tough time.
39:35I thought of his family instantly,
39:37because I know how much he loved his family and his wife.
39:39You know, I just felt for him.
39:41He died of an overdose, accidental overdose.
39:45But, you know, the word accidental and overdose
39:47should just not be in the same sentence.
39:49How do you accidentally, oops, took one too many?
39:52Took one too many for a long time.
39:57Look at this man.
39:59I'm telling you, ladies, send your kids out of the room,
40:01because I want you to take a look at Bam Bam Bigelow.
40:05There's no one who doesn't know Bam Bam Bigelow.
40:07And if they don't know his name,
40:09if they see the face and the head, they know it.
40:12His entire head was aflame.
40:14So he started doing the flames on his suits and his boots,
40:17and you'd look out into the audience, and the flame everywhere.
40:19Bam!
40:21Oh, wow!
40:23But so athletic.
40:28So quick.
40:30Bammer did it almost like a ballet dancer.
40:32Bigelow can move for a big man,
40:34and he knows what he's doing in there.
40:36Look at this 400-pound man doing flips and cartwheels
40:39and going through the ring.
40:41This is crazy.
40:43In his time, in the 80s, nobody was like him.
40:45Like, this isn't right.
40:47It wasn't just Rookie of the Year, it was Phenomenon of the Year.
40:49Bam Bam Bigelow!
40:52Arriving in the world of nature,
40:54Bam Bam Bigelow catapulted to the top of the wrestling world
40:57and never looked back.
40:59You need a little excitement!
41:01When you've been on top in WWE,
41:03and then you're on tippity-top-top in ECW,
41:06you know, they beat the f*** out of each other.
41:10Wrestling rewarded Bam Bam's talents with money and fame,
41:13but those rewards came with a heavy price.
41:16All the wear and tear, and you're not going to feel it right away.
41:20And that's when it changed,
41:22and everything spiraled out of control.
41:25You're selling your body, you're selling your health
41:28to have fame, fortune, and everything that goes with it.
41:32People had mouths to feed,
41:34so guys did what they had to do to earn their living.
41:37He was in pain, and there was a doctor involved
41:41that was willing to take that away,
41:43and things went downhill from there.
41:46But Bam Bam's addictions eventually pushed him
41:49beyond the point of redemption.
41:51Everything he loved.
41:53A trusted professional gave him the thing
41:57that was his biggest demise.
42:00This doctor could have had a loaded machine gun to our family,
42:04and it would have been no different.
42:06No different.
42:17Just digging through the vast archives,
42:19you have Dad's calendar,
42:21and then if you go to November 15, 1987,
42:25he got married, and then not even taking a honeymoon,
42:28like he had a day off, and then he was in Des Moines, Iowa.
42:31This is literally the first 4 days of his career with the WWF in 1987.
42:36He definitely wanted kids right away.
42:38He was like, I just want to stay home and raise the kids.
42:40You could go to work, go to school, do what you want to do.
42:43He was more excited about being a dad
42:45than he was when he got WrestleMania.
42:48Hi, I'm Dana Breckenridge.
42:50I was married to Bam Bam Bigelow.
42:52And when Richie came, I mean, that was the best thing ever.
42:56Because all he ever really wanted was a daughter.
42:58Oh yeah, he was a giant teddy bear.
43:01What fans saw in the ring was not at all what we saw at home.
43:06It was love, it was playing around.
43:08My name is Richie Bigelow, and my family...
43:14My father is Bam Bam Bigelow.
43:16He had this giant, giant bed that we would all cuddle up in
43:19and just jump around.
43:21Yeah, it was a great time.
43:23When you think of your dad, what's the first memory that comes to mind?
43:26It was the last time I saw him.
43:29We were just driving in the car, and I was 2 or 3 years old.
43:32But I remember seeing his head slowly drop to his chest
43:38and then come back up.
43:40And whenever I think back on how I went about the situation,
43:44I'm always so baffled because I was so young.
43:47But in some way, I understood that we were in some sort of danger.
43:52And as a toddler, I went into panic mode.
43:56I gotta go to the bathroom, I gotta get out.
43:58Daddy, daddy, pull over, I can't.
44:00So we pulled over on the side of the road,
44:02and he looked at me and gave me this big toothless smile.
44:05He's like, come on, do you have to go?
44:07It was just on the side of the road.
44:09I was like, I don't know, but kind of stalling.
44:12And then we just got back on the road, and it started happening again.
44:16This time we were by a diner, and we pulled into that diner.
44:20And the next thing I know, my car door was opened,
44:25and a man just scooped me up and put me in the back of this gray car.
44:30And from the back seat, I watched them take my dad in handcuffs across.
44:35That was it.
44:37My mom even picked me up, and she was real gentle about it.
44:40And she told me, you're probably not going to be seeing daddy anymore.
44:45He needs help.
44:48And that was the last time I saw him.
44:50He wanted to be a wrestler, but he wanted to be a father more.
44:55And everything was taken away.
44:58So was wrestling what took it away,
45:01or was Scott and all the other outside influences what took it away?
45:06How did this happen?
45:10Here we go.
45:13This is dad his sophomore year in high school.
45:16Oh, my God.