D-Von Dudley credits the Eliminators with helping the Dudley Boyz become a tag team in ECW. In a new video on his YouTube channel, he also looked back at working with Rob Van Dam and Sabu, and explained why he gives Sabu credit for bringing tables into their corner of wrestling.
Dudley said John Kronus and Perry Saturn were in sync in the ring and generous with a younger team. He remembered their match at ECW Barely Legal as a particularly high-pressure night for the promotion.
“Both of those guys were very instrumental on making the Dudley Boyz. And you know, they didn’t have to do that, but they did. And it was always a pleasure working with those guys because they were truly one of the best tag teams, or shall I say one of the true tag teams during that era. They did everything in sync. Their timing was impeccable. They were very good at what they did. And again, I can’t stress enough how much they helped the Dudley Boyz get to where they are today.”
“But every time we got in that ring with the Eliminators, they basically taught the Dudleys what we know today. They were very old school. They knew what they were doing in there and they knew how to get young and up-and-coming tag teams over.”
The two teams opened Barely Legal, ECW’s first pay-per-view, with the Dudleys losing the tag titles to the Eliminators. Dudley described the pressure inside the building as ECW tried to establish itself on pay-per-view.
“Everybody was nervous. I mean, everybody was scared. If we didn’t succeed, the company was done. We opened up the pay-per-view with the Eliminators versus the Dudleys. And I can’t begin to tell you the atmosphere that day. You had to be there. And for some of you that are watching the video, who were there, you know exactly what I mean when I say you had to be there in order to realize the intensity of what it was like being on that pay-per-view, being in that building.”
Dudley also discussed Van Dam and Sabu, whose partnership he said worked better than he expected. His recollection of Sabu led to a distinction between introducing a table spot and making it synonymous with the Dudley Boyz, whose later run as Team 3D continued that association.
“Man, I loved working with those guys. Tremendous talent. Two different styles. Never thought in a million years that these two would gel the way they did. Rob was kind of like the young boy in a sense where he just came in. He was learning still. Sabu was that teacher. Sabu took him under his wing and guided him all through.”
“The Dudley Boyz are known for the tables. We never invented the tables. It was Sabu that invented the tables, but it was the Dudleys that made it popular. And we did that and made it popular because of the platform that we were on in terms of the WWE, nationwide TV, the way Vince had us booked and what we did with those tables. That, my friend, was what made the Dudleys associated with tables. But again, we weren’t the ones that invented putting people through tables, but we were the ones that made it cool. Sabu is the original pioneer of the tables, and we always gave him credit and thanked him every single time.”
Van Dam’s kicks prompted Dudley to recall deliberately taking one without raising his hands to see how much he could absorb. He said that mentality extended to chair shots and acknowledged that some wrestlers are living with the consequences.
“We didn’t put our hands up on kicks. We didn’t put our hands up when people hit us with chairs. Whatever it was, we took it head-on. But I will say this, just because we did that didn’t make us smart. We were trying to be tough. We were trying to be hardcore, exactly what ECW was. And you know, some of us are paying for it now in terms of memory loss, things like that. You can’t hit the brain like that so many times and expect nothing to come out of it.”
Source: D-Von Dudley’s ECW tag-team discussion on YouTube.
