When were you sold on Bully Ray?

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

When Brother Ray hit Brother Devon as they were celebrating their retirement in 2010, I can remember shaking my head. The crowd didn't give a shit, the commentators didn't give a shit. This was just coming off the heels of the whole EV2 thing as well. They're gonna keep these two around? As singles guys? I was not happy with it at all and neither were the majority of people.

However Bully is now our current TNA world champion. And wow, what a journey it has been for him! He got into much better shape, his matches started getting really good...and his mic work! All his mic work was gold, all of his little character quirks, "Calfzilla", having MySpace instead of Twitter (then discovering Twitter and becoming obsessed with it), him being a bully and doing things "Because I can!", and of course his master plan to get the world title beginning all the way at No Surrender, it really makes him one of the most complete wrestling characters today and he has done all this in quite a short period.

But what I want to ask you all is, when were you sold on Bully Ray? When did you start to think "Hey, this guy can be a main eventer."

For me I didn't really enjoy him at all until Slammiversary 2011 where he faced AJ Styles in a last man standing match. That match was so good, I wanted him as a main event player after that. But I still did not want him winning the world title. Sure he can chase it, but not win it. The stigma of Bubba Rey Dudley being world champion was still too much for me to stomach.

It was only during his feud with Austin Aries, their match at Sacrifice 2012 to be precise, that I said "Damn, give this guy the belt!"

So, when were you sold on Bully Ray?

 

[NegativeFeedback]

I'm not sold on him at all. I think every time he speaks he sounds so fake and annoying. He's not that good of an "actor". Sure, his shouting sounds intimidating, but he overdramatizes EVERYTHING. I still cringe thinking about his promos from the parking lot when he turned on Devon. He comes off as such a silly guy.

Also, a lot of his matches have made me shake my head. In that same match with AJ you just mentioned, AJ grabs Bully by the "hair" and throws him out of the ring, completely oblivious to the fact Bully doesn't have any hair. Bully just ended up looking like an idiot by jumping out of the ring when AJ wasn't grabbing anything. That's not the only time Bully ends up coming off as unbelievable.

Bully is a midcard talent. I'm definitely proud of him for being World Champion. He probably thought that would never happen. But that's not to say I'm enjoying it. He's 42. He shouldn't be getting the push of his career at that age. There's literally no long-term investment in him. In 2010, he celebrated his retirement from tag teaming. By 2015, he will probably retire from wrestling.

So the answer to your question is NEVER. I am not sold on Bully Ray at all.

 

[The Eighties]

The match that convinced me was the same Last Man Standing match with Styles, but it was last summer that sold me on him being World champ, despite the goofy shit with Park and him losing multiple times I sat their watching him cut a promo about being the baddest MF'er in the company and I thought "I still buy it" despite evidence to the contrary.

His ring work is strong and he's such a complete overbearing bastard as a heel that he's an ideal champion for a roster that is strong on face depth.

 

[DX Mols]

It's hard to say exactly when it happened, but as soon as his "Bully Ray" character really took off and he was officially separated from D-Von. I used to hate, and i mean HATE, Bubba during the Dudleys time in the WWE, but he's easily the best heel in the business not named CM Punk.

I'm glad this hugging/pastel shirt wearing/cuddling with Brooke days are over and he can go back to being the Alpha heel that he was a year ago.


I'm actually looking forward to his promo to kick off Impact this week.

One more thing, love the picture above General Rection. Wes Brisco is worse on the mic then Great Khali.

I wish I knew how to add a picture to my profile.

 

[TNA cross the line]

For me was around February 2012 when he was kinda friends with The IT Factor. Back after Hardy's Victory Road incident when they first started doing something with bully i couldn't stand it. but after time TNA did a great job of growing his character and now he is one of the top reasons i still tune in every week. It took him time to slowly perfect his gimmick but now its the best heel character in the business hands down.

 

[dman1373]

Didn't anyone notice that when he was in the dudley boys that he was the dudley boys. I guess im the only one that noticed that he was a great promo and also a great character.

 

[Wolf Pac]

I was actually sold on Bubba during a mini-feud he had with HHH in his singles run in 2002. His singles run gets a lot of hate, but I thought he was okay, I liked it. Of course though I didn't think he was "world title material" or anything like that, but I did think to myself that he could become a main eventer with the right push and if he makes some big improvements. In TNA, he got the right push and made those big improvements. He thrives better as a heel, he got slim, his mic work and matches got better, and everything else that was said in the OP like his quirks and the bully gimmick make him one of the best characters going today.

 

[I_Like_All_Wrestling]

I was actually sold on Bubba during a mini-feud he had with HHH in his singles run in 2002....

Exactly. That right there showed that he had the chops to go single. Since then I thought he always had what it takes to be a top player if given the chance. He's always been great on the mic, and he's wrestled decently in the style he does, but when he went single he showed that he could take his style and adapt it to singles matches. He looked tough, he looked like he could fight, he looked like he was a wrestler. I think he's been pretty much underrated his whole career.

 

[multiverseman.com]

When he cut a promo on Sting, telling him how Sting was simply jealous because he spent his whole career in Hulk Hogan's shadow. I was starting to actually get upset. Then I was like.....this guy is good.

 

[Brewski]

For me it was the match with Aries. I saw he was a good talker before that, a real mean heel. Totally believable. The last man standing with AJ was excellent but AJ has a really unique ability to wrestle with anyone and be great. I though Aries would have to really go out of the way to make that a good match but Bully looked great too. After that I was hooked!

I didn't like the last few months where he became face, I just didn't like him aligning with Hogan. Now that thats over though i'm excited for the future

 

[Nadeem Ahmad]

So, when were you sold on Bully Ray?

I don't know if you are talking about time he spent in ECW, WWF, WWE or TNA, but I mostly followed the WWF out of those organizations, never liked ECW and only thought the people in ECW showed potential, and barely glimpsed at TNA for about a month or a month and a half. To answer simply, about ever being sold on Bully Ray, "Never". I thought he was extremely cheap, and that the heat he did draw was because people wanted to see him away from the arena or not on television. He was mostly coming off as someone obsessed with spots, like snapping necks off of high places for that cheapened version of the diamond cutter, or needing tables to get attention in matches more than half the time. Even when he briefly went solo in the WWE, he felt forced due to a lack of other talented wrestlers advertised for the middle portion of the card, and was pushing it at best when being in the ring with the actual performers deserving to be in the anticipated main events.

Edit: At first, this thread was in the section of TNA, which I don't normally check, but I clicked on it from the main page of www.wrestlezone.com, and ended up here. I was expecting it to be in the old school section, which I guess it moved to.

 

[~Heup©~]

I'm not sold on Billy (Bully) Ray at all. He's really not high profile and I think he's kinda worn out at this point. I mean giving him the belt and claiming he is the president of aces & 8s was such a terrible idea. I would have rather seen hogan revealed as president and had him interfere with the world title match also pulling hardy into aces. Too predictable you say? But isn't that what tna has become anyway?

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

I'm not the biggest TNA fan. I casually watch Impact, slightly less casually than I watch RAW. So don't flame me for this.

But I was watching one episode recently, in the summer or in the fall, whenever it was. Where Bully Ray was cutting a promo trying to convince Hogan to team him with Sting (or Angle?) vs Aces and Eights at whatever PPV was coming up.

I was very impressed with his mic work and his intensity. It was legit. Better than 95% of the guys in WWE right now. That's when I thought he could be a player in the company. And good for him, he's worked hard for a long time.

 

[Matty~!]

I think with Bully Ray he's always been a fantastic promo the riots he almost legitimately caused in ECW back in the day proved he had a connection with the crowd and The Dudleys were one of the few acts with legit heat from the crowd and didn't have the tweener thing going on. Once they got to WWE his physique was never going to let him be a player in the sense he is now, but I think he's always had the capability to be a big fish in a small pond because his promo skills have always been captivating.

 

[New Hot Fed]

When he cut a promo on Sting, telling him how Sting was simply jealous because he spent his whole career in Hulk Hogan's shadow. I was starting to actually get upset. Then I was like.....this guy is good.

That was awesome. Never seen a wrestler being demolished like Sting was that night on the mic.

This was around the time I too started to think "this guy is the best pure heel in the biz right now". While the whole angle of Immortal sucked, I thought it did a lot of good to Bully, he really came on his own as basically Hogan's mean dog.

This did the trick on the mic but like the OP said, his match with AJ Styles was the time I thought "wow Bully can shine in the ring too!".

Finally I think his whole run in single as heel in 2012 was sublime. That's where he became so over as a heel and got the most heat. He kept adding stuff like his calves and his twitta fire-breathing machine. The guy kept himself fresh and was so creative, kept reinventing himself on a daily basis. After this there was one thing left for him to do, become champ. But a big part of 2012 Bobby Roode was champ and he was a great heel champ so no cigars for Bully. I wished back then he would fight Devon for the TV belt and take it from him. Bully would have gotten enormous heat if he had done that, just beating challengers every week for that belt. Anyway so there came the BFG series and I thought he or Storm should have won it, either Storm beating everybody to get at Roode(with Roode getting his belt back before BFG) or Bully finally becoming the top guy and champion he should be at BFG and possibly being revealed as leader of Aces & 8s. But TNA chose to keep that for another 6 months. Still, he deserves it. He was ready for a long time.