During his appearance on Cut Pro Wrestling, D-Von Dudley spoke on Bubba Ray not feeling like the WWE was treating them fairly and that ultimately leading to the team not re-signing. Here’s what he had to say:
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. Well, Bubba didn’t want to play fair. And I know Bubba will have his own opinion about what happened, but again, that’s the majority of it. They gave us both the contract. I signed it. He didn’t want to sign it and it left a bad taste in their mouth,” D-Von said. “And by the time he was ready to sign it, some time had already went by. Let me give you a timeline: when Shane McMahon came back in Detroit, that was when I signed the deal. That was in March. So the deal actually came to us in February of that year. Now they’ve been trying to get us to sign it and Bubba wouldn’t sign it. Now all of a sudden we go forward and I’ve signed it and he hasn’t because there’s still things he felt he had to take care of on his side. By the time he got through that, the company was like, ‘Nah, we don’t want it anymore. We’re not dealing with the headaches.’ And they decided not to do it. It wasn’t like the WWE did a bad thing by us. Let me put it to you this way – they gave us a contract that was great, and at 44 and 45 years of age, I even told Bubba, ‘We need to take the money and just go. We’re not gonna get another opportunity like this again. We just need to sign this contract and do another year. If you don’t do another year after it, don’t do it. I’ll go on my own.’ But I couldn’t make him sign it.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: Cut Pro Wrestling. H/T 411Mania.