Bully Ray Is A Perfect Fit For Ring Of Honor Ahead Of ROH/NJPW G1 Supercard At Madison Square Garden

When Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling take over Madison Square Garden Saturday night for the historic, sold-out G1 SuperCard event, just about every wrestler on the card will be performing at the world's most famous arena for the first time in their respective careers. Bully Ray is one of the few exceptions, having worked MSG in some of the biggest wrestling shows of the last two decades.

Technically the Bully Ray character has never performed in the building in Midtown Manhattan. Bubba Ray Dudley had matches at the Garden, and he'll be returning to the venue under a different persona.

“In many ways, this show at Madison Square Garden, I guess in the past five years, has become a bucket list item for me,” Bully Ray told International Business Times. “Bubba Ray Dudley has performed in Madison Square Garden many times. Bubba Ray has wrestled at WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden, stole the show at the Royal Rumble, main-evented Madison Square Garden. But this is the first time that Bully Ray will ever step foot inside Madison Square Garden, and the reason why that's a bucket list thing for me is Bully Ray is my creation. It's something that I came up with. It's something that I cultivated, and it's something that I'm proud to say I was able to take to world-championship status.”

Bully Ray made his Ring of Honor debut two years ago at Manhattan Mayhem VI. It came more than 20 years after he started wrestling in ECW, and ROH is a place that Ray was confident he would end up wrestling for at some point.

“I always knew that one day I would be in Ring of Honor. It was just going to be a question of when,” Ray told IBT. “And it's because Ring of Honor reminded me so much of ECW, and let's be honest, Ring of Honor would not exist if ECW would not have folded. The entire wrestling business wouldn't have evolved into what it became if it wasn't for ECW. So nobody understands the Ring of Honor mentality better than I do because I was those guys when I was in ECW.

“You talk about the moves and the spots, the wrestling matches bell to bell. We (ECW) were about violence bell to bell. That's what made us special, and that's what makes Ring of Honor special.”

IWGP United States Champion Juice Robinson has answered Ray's open challenge for a New York City Street Fight at MSG Saturday night. Robinson is 18 years younger than Ray, who has been in the wrestling business almost as long as Robinson has been alive.

Robinson is similar to the wrestlers Ray has worked with in ROH. Since turning heel almost exactly a year ago at SuperCard of Honor XII in New Orleans, Ray has feuded with up-and-coming wrestlers on the ROH roster. His program with 27-year-old Flip Gordon lasted for almost three-quarters of 2018.

“I'm the perfect fit for that locker room because I'm the exact opposite of what everybody in that locker room is,” Ray said. “You want great wrestling matches? Go watch Jay Lethal. You want great wrestling matches? Go watch The Briscoes. You want great wrestling matches? Go watch Jeff Cobb. Go watch anybody else on that card. You want to see some great storytelling and you want to listen to some awesome promos that make you want to see me get punched in the face? You watch Bully Ray.”

Unconcerned with impressing the fans and putting on five-star matches, Ray considers himself to be the last of a dying breed. While many of today’s performers are seemingly after praise for their in-ring ability, Ray isn’t here for any kind words you might have for him.

“I'm the only legitimate heel in the wrestling business,” Ray said, “and that's not me patting myself on the back and that's not being an egomaniac. That's being honest. I challenge anybody to tell me who's a better heel than Bully Ray. When Bully Ray walks out there, there's only one thing you hear and that is people booing. That's why I don't have entrance music. That's why I got rid of my entrance music. My entrance music is the booing of all the people. Who else has the balls to do that? Oh yeah, Paul Heyman did it, but I wonder where he got it from?”

“Whenever you hear fans or wrestling ‘experts’ talk and they're like, ‘I love to hate that guy,’ I don't want anybody loving to hate me. Why should you love me? If you're loving to hate me that just means you love the character that I'm portraying. I want genuine hatred. I want the emotion of hatred to take over your body. I want you to hate me more than you love the other guy.”

Even in his hometown, Ray won’t get much, if any, support from the MSG crowd. He had all of New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom rooting for Gordon at December’s Final Battle when the two wrestlers competed in an “I Quit” match.

Ray’s character has attacked younger ROH wrestlers like Gordon and Cheeseburger, decrying that things have been handed to the current generation of wrestlers.

“When you look at modern-day wrestling, things have drastically changed over the last 20 years about how guys get into the wrestling business—how guys are coddled, how guys truly don't pay their dues on the road, and they don't pay their dues physically. Some of these old school rules and values should still be adhered to today. So when you look at a Flip Gordon and a Cheeseburger: did they come up the way I did? Hell no! Did they get stretched like I did? Hell no! Did they put in as much time behind the wheel as I did? Hell no! So I look at these guys and I go, ‘You were handed stuff. If you didn't pay your dues to the wrestling industry, now you're going to pay your dues directly to me.’

“And here's another thing. How many veterans do you know with two Hall-of-Fame inductions that have the resume that I do, who are willing to work with guys like Cheeseburger and Flip Gordon? Not too many. Because a lot of guys would say that’s beneath them. But it's perfect for me.”

No one in ROH, NJPW, WWE or any other wrestling promotion is more focused on being hated than Ray. His only goal is getting everyone that’s watching to root against him, and it’s something he believes is a lost art in the business.

“I think that there's a lot of people that are afraid of real heel heat. They don't know how to embrace it. I think social media poisons wrestlers' minds into thinking that they are better than they really are or they’re more than they really are. I also think that social media hurts some younger heel mentalities because you see people on social media going, ‘I saw your match, I love to hate you’ or ‘I hated you so much that I bought your t-shirt.’ Well, then obviously you weren't hated that much! Now, there's a lot of younger wrestlers that are going to tell me, ‘Bubba, I need 20 bucks. Whatever I have to do to sell a t-shirt.’ Alright, man. You do what works for you. But you will never be as hated as I am, and I have made a 28-year career with no time off in the business doing it my way. I know what works.”

On the night before Ray turned heel last year, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as Bubba Ray Dudley alongside D-Von Dudley. The Dudley Boyz held the WWE Tag Team Championships eight times over the course of their seven years with the promotion.

The Bully Ray character was created in TNA, where he spent nearly a decade. Ray became the promotion's top heel. He even headlined TNA's biggest house ever when he defeated Jeff Hardy for the heavyweight championship at Lockdown on March 10, 2013.

What has allowed Ray to perform at such a high level for so long?

“The reason that I'm so successful at what I do is because I have no fear. You can't have fear in the wrestling business and say what you want to say. Society has changed from 20 years ago. There are certain things you should not say, and there are certain topics that I won't deal with, but then there are always ways to say things to get your point across. I can tell you to f*** off without telling you to f*** off.”

“The black cloud of fear has loomed over the wrestling business for so long that guys are afraid to take chances. That's where I applaud guys like Cody and the Young Bucks, because they had the balls to step out from underneath the black cloud of fear and take chances and risks. Look at what we did in ECW. We took so many chances and so many risks that we changed the entire wrestling industry, and anybody that says that we didn't is just lying to themselves or jealous. I’ve said there's two kinds of wrestlers in this world: those that are jealous that they weren't in ECW, and those that are really f****** jealous that they weren't in ECW. Because we were an industry-changing company that was not afraid to take risks and chances.”

You can watch Bully Ray’s match Saturday night as part of G1 Supercard from Madison Square Garden. The event starts live at 7:30 p.m. EDT on traditional pay-per-view and streaming free for all HonorClub members.

HonorClub content can be streamed via the ROH and FITE apps and at ROHHonorClub.com.