Bully Ray Talks Split With D-Von Dudley In 2002 WWE Draft
Bully Ray wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of him and D-Von Dudley being split back in 2002.
Ray, whose career is filled with accolades in tag team wrestling, has also spent years wrestling as a singles wrestler. In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, however, Ray said he never got into the pro wrestling industry to work in singles wrestling and his goal was always to be a tag team champion.
“I never got into the wrestling business to be a singles wrestler. Austin says if your goal isn’t to become the WWE Heavyweight Champion, then you’re in the wrong business or your goals are wrong. My thing as a kid was, if you’re not in the business to become the WWE World Tag Team Champions, then you’re probably in the wrong business. I always knew I wanted to be a wrestler, but I wanted to become a tag team wrestler. From the first time I saw, the Wild Samoans, the Moondogs, the Strongbows, I was hooked on tag team wrestling from day one,” Ray said.
When it came to the Dudley Boyz split at the 2002 WWE Draft, Ray said he wasn’t a fan of it, saying people weren’t ready for him and D-Von to do a singles run. Looking back on it, Ray called the split a failed experiment.
“I never had aspirations to be a singles guy. D-Von always wanted to try the singles thing. He always wanted to branch out, so when the draft came, I told Vince, this is not a good idea. He asked why and I said, ‘Because nobody wanted to see Hawk and Animal wrestle by themselves and nobody wanted to see me and D-Von wrestle by ourselves.’ I wasn’t quite sure how it would go. Did I have confidence in myself? Yeah. Did I have confidence in D-Von? Yeah, but I knew we’d never done it without each other. I just didn’t think people were ready for D-Von by himself or Bubba by himself and months later, Vince put us back together at the Garden. I looked at that as it was kind of a failed experiment,” Ray said.
The full interview with Chris Van Vliet can be seen in the video at the top of the page. If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Fightful for the transcription.
