Spike Dudley Says He Wasn’t Taken Advantage Of, Recalls Bam Bam Bigelow Crowd Toss

Spike Dudley took a lot of punishment during his time in wrestling, but he doesn’t believe he was taken advantage of. Dudley reflected on the notion during his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet as well as his famed toss into the crowd by Bam Bam Bigelow, and you can see highlights below:

On helping get the Dudleys over: “Well, they could beat the s**t out of me, and I say that with love. They didn’t take advantage. Having worked with them so much, especially Bubba. He knew how much I could take, and that was my gift, was I could take a hell of a beating, and he pushed it to the limit. He never injured me. Bubba never injured me, but he beat the s**t out of me. D-Von was a little bit more gentle, but D-Von did some stuff too. In fact, got time for a story? This was hilarious. During that debut, Bubba was the face, D-Von was the heel. Dick was a face, and I forgot who else was involved. I think Axel was involved as a heel with D-Von. So I pop out of that bag and get knocked out of the ring and disappear. Now, to get to that balcony, it was like a schmoz through the crowd. D-Von was mixing it up with someone with Bubba on the floor, and he drops Bubba with something, and I just improv. I see D-Von and I jump on his back, and I start wailing him. He had just met me. He didn’t know who I was, and he thought it was a fan. So he grabbed me by the neck, over his shoulder, and did like that Judo throw onto the concrete with everything, I was just like, oh. He looked down at me and was like, ‘Oh s**t Spike, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.’ He thought he was getting jumped by a fan. So, yeah, that was the only time he really, really layed it in. But that was a shoot because he thought he was protecting himself from some idiot fan, had no clue that it was me.”

On being thrown into the crowd by Bam Bam Bigelow: “It’s strange, yeah, I think it’s a part of wrestling history, and I’m not trying to brag. But it always comes back, and this was a few years ago. I don’t watch too much of it. Occasionally, I’ll mark out and search and stuff like that, and I saw something, it was like, five, seven years ago. They were showing the new WWE guys. It was some vignette, and they were like, This is old ECW stuff. They showed this thing. They didn’t even know who I was, of me getting thrown in the crowd. And these kids were just like, ‘Oh my God. Did they throw him in the crowd? That’s insane!’ This is from these new guys that do all of these crazy high spots and all that sort of stuff, and they watch that and they’re like, holy s**t. And a lot of that you could only do with ECW, because you need the crowd to catch for one thing.”

On if he knew they were going to catch him: “There’s no way of knowing. We were fairly confident. And one of the things that Bam Bam did, especially at the arena, the one that’s played is from the Philadelphia ring, that was the best image was prior to him throwing me, he’d beat on me, and I’d be down selling. He’d look at the crowd, he’s like, ‘Do you want me to throw him to you?’ And they’d all go, ‘Yeah!’ And then he’d go to the other side, yeah, yeah. So he fed the crowd. Hey, he’s coming, not are you gonna catch him, but do you want it? And they’re all like, yeah. And at the arena, they caught me like a baby. It was like crowd surfing, where everybody puts their arms up and cool, all right, this is great. Go for a ride. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I always go back to the biggest influences. Bam Bam one, he got me over, because the whole gimmick behind that and the storyline has been lost. All everybody sees is the throw. But the storyline behind that was, I just did a match with him. The first time I wrestled was on TV, ECW TV. I beat him with a nutshot, and I rolled him up. And he was like the big beast with the triple threat with Shane and Chris Candido and all of that. And he wasn’t supposed to lose the little job or Spike Dudley. He put me over. And then the revenge was the throw. And after I beat him, I probably wrestled him like 20 or 30 times for the next three months, and I never beat him again. Obviously, didn’t matter. The ECW crowd saw me pin him one time. Now I had the credibility to beat anybody at any time, and he put me on the map.”