D-Von Dudley Chooses Favorite Classic TLC Match That He Was A Part Of

Last week on The New Day: Feel the Power podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and producer, D-Von Dudley, came in with a lot to say about Xavier Woods. He emphasized what a special talent he is now and back when he was in TNA (as Rasheed Lucius "Consequences" Creed) from 2007-2008. Unfortunately, Dudley, like many others in TNA, saw the heart Woods had, but it wasn't enough for him to win over management. Instead, they were more invested in stars like D-Von Dudley's tag team partner, Bully Ray.

"You and I hit. I saw respect, I saw everything that you were doing. And what impressed me the most was that not only were you [Xavier Woods] in TNA as gifted as you were in the ring, but you were also gifted up here in the mind," Dudley began. "You were studying. You were doing what you had to do just in case this business didn't work out. A lot of us don't do that. A lot of us just go headfirst into it without thinking of what's going to happen. Well, you did that, and I remember telling you, 'Go ahead and get your education, it'll come. Stick with it!'

"I felt TNA dropped the ball, not only with you but with so many other people that came through those doors. I knew, and I remember telling you, 'They're going to regret what they did. They don't know what they had.' You know that old saying, 'You don't know what you have until it's gone.' They realize it when you're on WWE with Kofi and Big E, and now all of a sudden, The New Day is as popular as it is.

"Only if they would have done the right thing, not only with you but with so many other talents, there's no telling what could've happened with that company. But my thing was with you, I knew exactly what you were going through because I went through the same thing with that company. I had to fight and claw to even get the Television Title because they thought Bubba was a messiah.

Known for their hardcore style, The Dudley Boyz have always loved putting their bodies on the line to give the fans something to pop for. Over the years, more and more stipulations have been added to a variety of WWE matches. For D-Von, stipulation matches where ladders are used is something he has had many years of experience with. He retraces the first time he and Bubba Ray Dudley were asked to be part of a TLC match, at WrestleMania 16, and how nervous they were before it.

"It was called a ladder match, but really, it was a TLC Match because we used everything. I think when they told us about the ladder match at Wrestlemania 16, you know, we were nervous as hell," he recalled. "So when they said the ladder match, we were like, 'Okay, fine, what can we do?' And we all thought about Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon, and how it was probably one of the best matches. All of a sudden, we said, 'How can we duplicate that? How can we be better than that?' So, what we wanted to do was not only did we want to use the table, ladders, and chairs, but we wanted to do it to where we just didn't want to put people through tables or hit them with chairs. We wanted it to mean something. We wanted a story – just like when we put matches together.

"We wanted everything to mean something; we wanted A to go with B, and B to go with C, and so on and so forth. We all locked ourselves in a room and had these ideas. Only thing was, we knew there was a story that had to be told, and it couldn't just be, you know, like a demolition derby, crashing everything and doing it. It had to tell a story, and although we were so nervous, you know, doing that, we basically just said, 'You know what? Let's go out there and help this story. The way we feel it should be told, and then go forward and start to do what we said we were going to do, and that steals the show."

From there, The Dudley's found themselves part of more ladder-based matches with the likes of The Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian. D-Von mentioned how their match at SummerSlam 2000 was one of his favorite matches to be part of.

"They came up to us four months later with SummerSlam, and that was the one that was called TLC. That was the one that was my favorite," he said with excitement. "That was the one I was hanging with Jeff Hardy 25 or 30 feet up in the air, and I just remember, I remembered saying to myself, 'Why am I up here with Jeff?'

"Bubba went through like 5 or 6 tables to the outside from the ring, Matt Hardy went backward outside the ring through a table, so the only one that was left was me hanging with Jeff. As far as I'm concerned, before WrestleMania 17, I thought that was the best one out of them all because we were comfortable after the first one. We told an even bigger story, and I felt that the people really knew at that point that The Dudleyz, Hardyz, and Edge & Christian were here to sta, and we weren't going anywhere."

You can listen to D-Von Dudley's full interview here. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The New Day: Feel the Power with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Mehdy Labriny contributed to this article.