In an interview with USA Today, Bubba Ray Dudley explained the origins of the Bully Ray character, “When me and D-Von went our separate way, I knew I had so much left in the tank. There was no reason for me to sit back on my past history and rely on that. I’m sure people want something different. The band KISS goes out there every night and they give you enough of what they’ve done in the past along with the coolest things they do now. They are always reinventing themselves. Bully Ray is Bad Guy 101. I did not reinvent the wheel. I just stuck to the plan of being an effective bad guy and I just put my own little twists on it. … I became that heel that I knew I could be.”
The Bully Ray character quickly became one of the best parts of TNA. There was skepticism at the time however, did anybody really want to see Team 3D broken up? How effective can they be alone after being together for so long?
Bully Ray quickly alleviated those doubts by pulling off some incredible matches, undoubtedly the best singles matches of his career, and his heel work was some of the best in all of wrestling at the time. The character would truly shine however when he entered into the defining storyline of this run...
The Aces & Eights Made Bully Ray
The Aces & Eights storyline will go down as one of TNA’s most memorable. The company-wide story lasted well over a year and included all of the company’s biggest names at the time. The Aces & Eights story had its ups and downs but what was undeniable was that it gave Bully Ray the first main event level run of his career and he truly proved that he deserved to be on top all along.
This was right in the middle of the Hogan/Bischoff era of TNA and Bully Ray really thrived. It was revealed Bully Ray had manipulated the entire company for over a year, marrying Brooke Hogan (and surprisingly pulling off one of the best wedding angles in all of wrestling) to get in Hulk Hogan’s good books, then betraying the company he was appearing to defend and becoming the TNA World Heavyweight Champion as the President of the Aces & Eights. It was a long-term storyline that really cemented Bully Ray at the top of the company.
At the time, there was even talk of Bully Ray having a match with Hulk Hogan. On the Talk is Jericho podcast, Bully Ray would say, “The end was result was we were supposed to have a match. Me and Hulk had talked about this match on several different occasions and he felt totally comfortable with me because he knew I could custom tailor the match to exactly what he needed. It just didn’t happen.”
Why Did The Bully Ray Character Not Debut In WWE?
When The Dudley Boyz signed with WWE, fans were crying out for Bubba Ray Dudley to once again become Bully Ray in WWE and hopefully be just as successful as he was in TNA. Unfortunately it never happened, though Bully Ray himself said they were close to pulling the trigger and that Vince McMahon himself even knew about the Bully Ray persona.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Bully Ray would say, “So we had the Bully discussions, he couldn’t get around the word Bully because of the Be A Star program. I told Vince, ‘Here is how we’re going to work around it. Let’s do the Bully Ray thing for a year and at the end of the Bully Ray thing, story or run, that one babyface makes Bully understand the error of his ways and why you shouldn’t be a bully and now Bully Ray can do all the Be A Star stuff with the younger kids, saying I mended my ways. It was an in-the-ring and out-of-the-ring concept.’ He goes, ‘My god, I love it! It’s great. But in that year, I’m going to get killed by the media because how can you have an anti-bullying program but call somebody Bully Ray?”
While it was a shame the character was never used in WWE, the run in TNA was absolutely incredible and well worth a look. The Bully Ray character will go down as one of the best character reinventions in wrestling history and proved that Bubba Ray Dudley was always worthy of a main event run.