Buff Bagwell was paid handsomely for his appearance in the legendary "WCW/nWo Revenge" game for the Nintendo 64.
At WCW's peak, they released a second Nintendo 64 video game featuring the heralded AKI engine. "WCW/nWo Revenge" was released in October 1998 and featured the era's top stars, including Goldberg, Bret Hart, Raven, Chris Jericho, and more, making their WCW video game debuts. One WCW star who was not making his video game debut was Buff Bagwell. However, Bagwell has revealed that the residual check he received for the game made him realize just how popular WCW really was.
In a video on his YouTube channel, Buff Bagwell revealed that he was paid $80,000 for his appearance in the game and was tipped off to the massive check by another top star of the era, DDP, Diamond Dallas Page.
"This was crazy. I didn't make $10,000. I didn't make $20,000. Brother, I didn't make $30,000. I didn't make $40,000. I made $80,000. Are you kidding me?! On a video game?! One video game makes Buff Bagwell 80 grand, brother. This was crazy," he began. "I'm sitting at home one day, and Dallas Page called me up, and he goes, Have you gone to your mailbox?' I said, 'No, not today.'So I sent my girlfriend at the time to the mailbox. She comes in with this $80,000 check, and he told me to call him back."
Bagwell says that he eventually called DDP back, who explained that anyone in the game got an $80,000 residual check.
"I researched further on the check and I see three letters [THQ]. I researched THQ, called Dallas, and I go, 'What's THQ?' He explains it to me, and — Buff Bagwell, Dallas Page, to Doug Dillinger, our ring security guy, if you were on the video game, you got $80,000," he recalled. "It was unbelievable. It's a story that only a few people would even believe. What I get out of it is I remember not knowing that we were that popular at the time. I had no idea that wrestling was doing this, but right after we got that check, I do remember it all just kind of starting to roll.
"Keep in mind, there's no computer. If you wanted to order that game, you went to the WCW catalog in the back of the WCW book, and you ordered it. It wasn't 'click, click' on the internet, or I would have been a multi-millionaire; it just wasn't that easy. So, to order a jacket, a Buff Bagwell hat, or anything that we made money on, you had to go to the catalog. The internet was a big deal when it came out. But, man, $80,000 at one time, that's a ton of money, man, and we made it off that video game, what a time."
Sean Waltman was not in "WCW/nWo Revenge" as he had already jumped back to WWE. However, he was in the game's prequel, "WCW vs. nWo: World Tour," and recalled being blown away by his residual check for that game, which came out in 1997. Learn more here.
For more video game residual check news, learn how much Maven made for his sole WWE video game appearance at this link.
