Bully Ray Details How Quickly His WWE WrestleMania 40 Appearance Came About

With WrestleMania 40 taking place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, WWE fans wondered if things might get a little extreme, as the city was once home to ECW. Those fans got their answer on night two when WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray, also known as Bubba Ray Dudley, returned as the special guest referee for the Philadelphia Street Fight between The Pride and The Final Testament. Ray spoke to Notsam Wrestling, and revealed that his WrestleMania appearance came about at the very last minute.

"Me and Triple H had a brief texting conversation. 'Here's the idea. Love it. Done.' And it happened 48 hours before WrestleMania," Ray said. "I talk about on Busted Open so often about how in the wrestling business it can happen that quickly, and that happened that quickly. It was the brief — I still have the text, I saved it, it was so brief. It happened on Thursday evening at like 10. That was it; that's how quickly it happened. There's no like big story, it's not, 'Oh, we cultivated this idea and we came up with this a year ago, and then we did this and put into motion... Idea. Love it. Done.'"

Ray raising The Pride's hands in victory was the only time he was able to celebrate at WWE's biggest show of the year. Along with D-Von Dudley, Ray lost all five of his WrestleMania matches, which included the first ever Triangle Ladder Match at WrestleMania 16 in 2000, and the second-ever TLC match at WrestleMania X-Seven in 2001.

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