On the latest episode of Cody Rhodes’s What Do You Wanna Talk About? podcast, Triple H shared a backstage story from his early WWF run that runs directly counter to one of the most persistent narratives about The Kliq’s power in the mid-1990s. According to Triple H, when Vince McMahon once asked the group to help decide which wrestlers should stay on the roster and which should be cut, all of them unanimously voted to keep Bam Bam Bigelow, despite Bigelow’s well-known hatred of The Kliq.
The Indianapolis meeting
Triple H was answering a question from Cody Rhodes about who he would want on his “dream team” of people he trusts most in the business. To explain his philosophy on team building, he told a story about a meeting Vince McMahon held during Triple H’s early days in the company.
“There was a moment when I look back, there was this moment where a bunch of us were in a room, and Vince was there, famous meeting Indianapolis, and Vince took out a roster and was like, who leaves, who stays. And this point in time when I was kind of newish, right, I didn’t feel qualified to even be making that thing. But I remember there were some people on there that their names came up. I remember one in particular and it’s Bam Bam Bigelow, right? And Bam Bam hated the Kliq. I don’t know that anybody had an issue with him per se, but he’s just, for whatever reason, he hated. And his name came up, and we had all written down our stuff on paper and given them to Vince. And he’s like, you guys all unanimously want him here. We’re like, he’s f–king really good. Yeah, but he hates you guys. So what? Like, he’s good.”
Triple H said the Kliq’s position was that personal feelings had nothing to do with their recommendation.
“It’s not about you don’t like us, or it’s not about, it’s like, he’s f–king good, so he should be here.”
Bigelow’s side of the story
Bam Bam Bigelow was one of the central figures in the long-running narrative that The Kliq had abused their political power in the WWF in the mid-1990s. Bigelow left the company in November 1995, the same year he main evented WrestleMania XI against NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor, and spoke openly about his reasons in a shoot interview on Title Match Wrestling that has been widely circulated online.
In that interview, Bigelow said the friction with The Kliq began over his friendship with Chris Candido, who had issues of his own with Shawn Michaels and the rest of the group.
“Vince gave me a hell of a push, even though they abused me in the end. But I think that was the influence of the Kliq trying to bury me. Because there was some problems with my friend Chris Candido, and some rumors that I didn’t like, and some things. See, I’m old school, and these guys forgot what old school was all about. And there’s certain things you do and you don’t do, and they were doing the things that you shouldn’t do. And in the day with the old timers around, if you did that sh-t, every wrestler would be on your case. Now all of a sudden they were scared of these guys, and I was the only one that stepped up to the plate. You know, f–k all you guys, man, it’s not right, it’s wrong. And they went to Vince and just said, look, this guy’s got a bad attitude, it’s bad for morale, let’s abuse him. And I didn’t let them abuse me as much as they wanted to, and I just left.”
Bigelow said he eventually went to Vince McMahon directly about the situation and was frustrated by the response.
“Vince said, no, there’s no Kliq. Vince refused to acknowledge it at all, which right there let me believe that it was time to get out. And then they were definitely influencing him. Just all the heat went on me, I was bad for morale.”
Bigelow also said in the same interview that he believed the tension with The Kliq was one-sided, and that if it had ever come to a physical confrontation, he was confident in the outcome.
“They would have got their ass kicked. I would’ve beat the sh-t out of all three of them at one time. They all wanted to jump me, and it was like, all right, you go first. I kick all three of their asses.”
Scott Hall on Chris Candido
Scott Hall addressed some of the same period in his own Title Match Wrestling shoot interview. When asked directly if The Kliq was too hard on Chris Candido, Hall said yes.
“It was not his fault. It was a stupid gimmick. I mean, come on, this is a horrible gimmick. Chris is a really talented, good worker. And the thing is, coming in with your girlfriend into that shark tank environment that we had going, you know, we almost prided ourselves on how vicious our locker room was. I’m not saying it’s the right thing, but those were the conditions. Some guys thrive on that, some guys don’t. He got treated bad. I crossed paths with him later in TNA, and there was no hard feelings. I was happy because I think people have to realize that a lot of it, man, was the conditions.”
Hall also revealed something interesting about The Kliq’s name itself. He said Bam Bam Bigelow was the one who actually coined the term.
“First of all, Bam Bam Bigelow, God rest his soul, was the one who named us the Kliq. But we were just a bunch of friends who all thought the same.”
Bigelow left the WWF after losing to Goldust at Survivor Series 1995 on November 19. He went on to have what many consider the best run of his career in ECW, winning the ECW World Heavyweight Championship and becoming part of The Triple Threat alongside Shane Douglas and Chris Candido. He passed away on January 19, 2007 at the age of 45.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit What Do You Wanna Talk About? with Cody Rhodes and Title Match Wrestling, and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
