On the latest edition of his Table Talk podcast WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley spoke about a potential Royal Rumble 2022 appearance, stating that he would love to make an in-ring return but it would require WWE to clear him for action, something that might prove difficult following his stroke last year. Hear Dudley’s full thoughts on the subject, as well as his experience working with Mustafa Ali and Ricochet, below.
Says he would be willing to compete in the 2022 Royal Rumble if WWE cleared him:
I would love to but then I heard all of the hurdles that I gotta jump [through], just to go to medical to get me there. I’m just like, ‘Eh.’ It’s not the point that I’m fine, it’s the point that they [WWE] gotta think that I’m fine. It’s not me. I’ll go in there tonight but I gotta get them to believe that I’m okay to go in there and do it. I can’t pass out. I can see them now, they try to get me to do a stress test and all of a sudden I pass out, I just pass out. They would say, ‘Oh, well you know, D-Von, he didn’t make it. He passed out.’ Listen, I didn’t have to have the stroke. I would have passed out before the stroke [if] had they had me do a stress test. I don’t know about that [being in the 2022 Royal Rumble match], I would love to. We’ll see what happens. We still have a few months to go so we’ll see.
Says the first match that he agented when he came back was Ricochet and Mustafa Ali. He would thank both men for being so easy to work with:
Well I was just happy and again, I wanna thank you [Ricochet] and [Mustafa] Ali because when I came back from my stroke and I came back to work, I’m nervous. It was like the first time I had ever been back on a headset again and you know, I’m just like, ‘Oh God, what do I do?’ And I had Ali and Ricochet’s match on Main Event and you talk about a clinic, you talk about Tiger [Mask] and Dynamite [Kid] part two, that was it right there. I mean they did — we did I think three of those matches. We did two and then you did the whole Main Event match, the whole Main Event show where you guys had like three or four segments into one and I’m nervous as hell because I’m like, ‘This is the first time I’ve been back from my stroke. How am I gonna keep up with these guys?’ You know, get all this stuff started. I remember going back to them and asking them like seven times, ‘So, I know you just told me but what did you say again? Just tell me one more time so I have it’ and I expected one of them to give me a dropkick and drop me into the wall or something like, ‘God damn it D-Von, I told you already, sh*t.’ But no, but it was great man.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)