D-Von Dudley Reflects on His Relationship With Bully Ray, Says ‘The Business Made Him Grumpy’

During a recent interview with Denise Salcedo, WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley discussed his longtime tag team partner, Bully Ray (aka Bubba Ray Dudley). According to D-Von, Bully Ray was a lot calmer and friendlier when they started in the wrestling business, but “the business made him grumpy.” Below are some highlights:

D-Von Dudley on His First Impressions of Bully Ray

“Well, the Bubba that you see now, you call him Bully, but I call him Bubba. So, what you see now wasn’t what I saw when I first met him. He was a lot more calmer. He was friendlier, and you know, he wasn’t what you see now. The business made him grumpy, so to speak. But again, when you’ve been around this business long enough, and you see the cutthroat people in the business, you can’t help but to somewhat turn out that way because you don’t trust anybody. And you realize as time goes on that that’s the attitude that you have to take. I think Stone Cold Steve Austin said it best, DTA. Don’t trust anybody. And it’s the truth because your friends will stab you in the back, especially when there’s a contract or money involved. They will do that. And it’s heart-wrenching to say that, but it’s the truth. And you know, but Bubba was always the one that was, you know, he voiced his opinion. He didn’t care and blah blah blah. And I was like, ‘Yeah, Bubba.’ I was like, I would go to Bubba. ‘Bubba, come on, man. You got to be easy. You can’t be doing that.’ But in the background, I was like, ‘Yeah, do it. Do it.’ Cuz I didn’t want to be the bad guy. So, he was the bad guy, I was the good guy. But, you know, we played off of each other very well. The thing about that also is that to become a successful tag team, one can’t try to outdo the other. You have to dance together.”

“And even if I didn’t agree with certain things, I took time to understand it as opposed to going, ‘No, you don’t do that. What the hell is wrong with you?’ As opposed to most tag teams, like we saw, like the Rockers or even Arn [Anderson] and Tully [Blanchard], where they had disagreements and things like that. But you know, unfortunately, at a certain time, they gave up on each other in terms of they went their separate ways, not knowing the full story about the Rockers and Tully & Arn, but you hear what you hear on the dark side of wrestling and all of that. So you got to assume that that was the case. LOD, same thing, there was always dissension, but me and Bubba, we had our disagreements, we even had our fights, but we knew we were good together as a team, and we were like LOD when nobody wanted to see us separate. And you know, I hated that because I know he wanted to do his singles, which he did, and I wanted to do mine, which is what I did. But at the same token, they wanted us together.”

D-Von Dudley on His Relationship With Bully

“Well, I knew that about Bubba from day one. I mean, again, I knew what Bubba was before the business. So, watching him progress into Bully Ray or whatever people thought he was, I knew Bubba. So, totally different compared to what everybody else probably thought. And you got to know Bubba to love Bubba and understand where Bubba’s coming from. Because again, you can’t let people take advantage of you in this business. And they will. If you don’t put your foot down and say the things that you have to say, even if it means, you know, getting a little hostile about it or, you know, being very firm about it, you have to do it.”

D-Von Dudley and Bully Ray were inducted together as The Dudley Boyz into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2018. At TNA Bound For Glory 2025, they wrestled their last match together, losing to The Hardys in a Tables Match.

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Denise Salcedo, with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.