Bully Ray Reveals Why The Dudley Boyz Left WWE In 2005
On the latest edition of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions on Peacock and WWE Network, The Texas Rattlesnake was joined by fellow WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray.
Bully, best known as Bubba Ray Dudley in ECW and WWE, openly spoke about he and D'Von's departure from Vince McMahon's company in 2005 before signing with TNA.
"We [The Dudley Boyz] go home for a couple of months," Bully said. "I get in touch with Johnny and Vince and said, 'we're sitting here doing nothing. You're paying us, let us go to OVW and help some of the younger teams down there?' So we go down there, and we start working with Mercury & Morrison, MNM, who get called up very shortly after that. So for me, that was a – I had a sense of pride because – I let the boss know, we'll go down there, we'll get some guys ready for you, we'll get some young guys ready, and they did get the call.
"So I was happy about that, and then we were just sat home until ECW One Night Stand. They figured they'd been home for this long, why not just hold off for One Night Stand. It becomes a financial thing. It becomes, 'we'd like you to take a little bit less of a downside,' and we're like, 'we've been warriors for you for six years. We've done everything you've asked. Yes, maybe I can be a little bit difficult to do business with at times, but that's only the best interest of business.' I'm not a yes man. We just couldn't come to an agreement on money, and that was it. Thank you, see you down the road."
Bully Ray stated the one thing that WWE does different from any other company he was worked is that there is accountability when coming through the curtain.
"Here's where the WWE differs from every other company," Bully Ray stated. "The accountability of coming back through the curtain. With somebody looking down at you over the edge of those glasses like this. Vince is the ultimate accountability, and he's right there when you come back through, and you know by that look whether you did a good job for him tonight or you didn't do a good job for him tonight.
"There were degrees of accountability in other companies, but never that type of accountability. I loved it. I enjoyed it. This is all personally I ever needed. I don't chase the hug. I don't sit in the hallway and wait for Vince to pass just so he can say, 'good job tonight, pal!' so I have a good 300-mile drive from Sheboygan to Madison. He's gonna let you know. If he's not happy, he'll call you over.
"I'll never forget one night, Dudleys-RTC [Right To Censor]. Live SmackDown, Madison Square Garden, we went five minutes over on live TV. Five minutes. That's grounds for – your bags are packed, they're waiting for you. But we blew the roof off of The Garden. It went so well. I don't even get one foot through the curtain, and he's right here, and he says, 'if you ever go over on my live TV again, it better be as good as that,' and he walked away."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Broken Skull Sessions with a h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.