Bully Ray was recently interviewed by Sports Illustrated and had a few interesting things to say:
He said that WWE almost gave him the Bully Ray character during his last run:
“We came one day away in August from debuting Bully Ray in WWE,” said Bully, who starred for the majority of his career as Bubba Dudley before enjoying a run as world champion in TNA as Bully Ray. “At the last second, the decision was made to not go forward with it. Bully Ray was ready to go, but that’s all I can tell you. We were one day away, and they had to pull the plug on it.”
He also mentioned that he didn’t end up coming back to TNA because he felt it would be “pointless”:
“At the last minute, TNA came in hard and heavy and made me a significant offer,” said Bully. “But the way I look at it is this: If I can’t go back some place and top what I did before, then it’s kind of pointless. I’m not blowing smoke up my own ass here, Bully Ray was the top heel in TNA. I generated ratings—me and Jeff Hardy drew TNA’s biggest house of all time at Lockdown, and I had my run with Hulk and with Sting. If you take a look at the landscape of TNA and their locker room, I don’t have anybody to top what I did before.”