Old School ECW/WWF Tag Team Legend D-Von Dudley was interviewed on a recent episode of The Cut Pro Wrestling Podcast, where he talked about The Dudley Boyz and how they split up after their 2015/2016 WWE run.
Here’s what the WWE Hall of Famer had to say:
“Just for the record, I never wanted to stop wrestling. I never wanted to be a producer backstage for WWE. I enjoy it now but it took me some years to actually embrace it and like it.
Bubba decided during that 2016 run that the Dudley Boys were not being treated fair in terms of the position we were in. And I get it to a certain degree but you have to understand, the Attitude Era was gone. And I even said that to him – ‘It’s gone, it’s not coming back.’
I’m not coming back to WWE to relive the Attitude Era. In my opinion and my opinion only, in terms of between the both of us, I didn’t feel that way, like he felt. Like they were messing up the legacy that we chose.
A Title doesn’t mean anything at this point and stage of the game when you’ve won 24 already. So to have another Title that says you’re the Tag Team Champion at that point didn’t really mean anything.
What meant to me coming back to WWE was helping the young talent out, being able to pass that torch and go back to a place that I felt, back in 2005, that we didn’t leave the right way. There was still some stuff left on the table that I felt we had to come back to WWE in order for me to finish out my career the way I wanted to.
There was a contract given to us after the second run [from 2015-16] and Bubba didn’t want to sign it. He wanted to do the Bully Ray character and Vince said no. He didn’t want that, he wanted the Dudleys. He didn’t want us to break up. Regardless to what we did in 2002 when we broke up, it still lay fresh in their minds that we were better as a tag team. It’s his sandbox, you have to play in his sandbox or go home.
I knew coming back we weren’t going to be the top of the food chain. Although the respect we got from the locker room was tremendous, at the same token, I knew my role in coming back was to help the younger talent and help them get over. And in order for that to happen, we got to lay down and we got to do things we probably don’t want to do. But again, that’s Vince’s philosophy and Vince’s sandbox and you got to play by his rules.
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