Bully Ray knew he had something special with D-Von early on in their wrestling careers.
During a recent appearance on The Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Bully Ray spoke about the birth of the Dudley Boyz and how much it helped him at the time. Co-host Lars Frederiksen asked about how the two were originally paired together and how the dynamic worked despite coming from different racial backgrounds and their lack of polished wrestling skills at the time.
“It never even crossed our minds. The color of our skin, it was never a thing. Nobody even asked us those questions back in the day. Me and D-Von had such a chemistry — you have to remember, there were nine Dudleys. And the thing was, when you didn’t have something to do with somebody, you made ’em a Dudley. You could throw the tie-dye and overalls and goofy glasses on just about anybody and just come up with a character and make them part of the Dudley family. And that’s the way it was for a while, but when D-Von came on the scene,” Bully explained, “me and him beat the sh-t out of each other. And in doing that, we realized that there was a chemistry there, there was just something there. It was very raw. It was a raw chemistry, like hitting your first with the guys you’re in the band with, you go, ‘Whoa. This is different. This is not like the guy I played with last week, this is real.’ And that’s what I felt with D-Von, it was this very real feeling.
“I was a babyface, Devon was a heel, and I had gotten exposed in the ring. I was not trained well. I was the sh-ts. I still am the sh-ts. I’m just really good with smoke and mirrors. I’m a master of smoke and mirrors. But as far as wrestling is concerned, awful. So thank God for tables. [laughs] So I was floundering as a singles guy because once they saw past the stuttering and the dancing, I actually had to wrestle and… ugh, [I was] bad. And I remember going to Paul one night in the ECW Arena and I said, ‘Listen, I think me and D-Von could do something together. Put us together and see what happens.’ And this was the response: ‘Okay, let’s try it.’ That’s it. We turned on The Sandman and Little Spike [Dudley] and that’s it.”
Frederiksen went on to talk about feeling like the team only could have happened in ECW, noting how much freedom they had to see what worked where it might have been controversial elsewhere.
“I used to wear a rebel flag bandana,” Bully explained. “And you know when Big Dick was around before he passed away, God rest his soul, like we kinda joked around like the three of us like, ‘Yeah we’re the new Freebirds’ and you know, the Freebirds with the rebel flag bandana. That was like, I was a mark for The Freebirds. Who wasn’t? If D-Von would have said to me, ‘I have a problem with that [bandana]’ I would never have worn it. I would have been cool with it, but the black and white thing was never, it never popped into either one of our minds.”
The Dudley Boyz went on to win 23 tag team titles in ECW, WWE, TNA Wrestling and New Japan-Pro Wrestling during their careers. The duo was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2018.
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