Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Bubba Ray Dudley who is a 10 times Tag Team champion in WWE and a former two times TNA World Heavyweight champion recently talked about the Aces & Eights stable from TNA Wrestling and looked back at the first Impressions of it.
Aces & Eights was a professional wrestling stable that was founded back in 2012 and lasted in the end of 2013. It was TNA’s one of the last attempts to survive along with WWE. The stable was led by none other than Bubba Ray Dudley aka Bully Ray. Needless to say, it was a terrible Idea and it failed drastically.
Bubba Ray Dudley Remembers Aces & Eights And Its First Impressions
This was the time when TNA was going down the drain and they seriously needed some new and innovative idea to survive along with the mighty WWE. All they could come up with Aces & Eights. The group would have been a success but the execution was really poor. At first it seemed like it is going to be a success, but poor bookings made it completely irrelevant.
One of the biggest mistakes was pushing Bubba Ray Dudley as a main event star being the leader of the stable. He won multiple World Championship during this time. When WWE was focusing on building young talents, TNA was pushing a 41 year old man as there World champion who had never been on the main events before. It was one of the biggest reasons behind the failure of the stable.
Bubba Ray Dudley who is a 10 times Tag Team champion in WWE and a former two times TNA World Heavyweight champion recently spoke on his 83 Weeks Podcast where he talked about the Aces & Eights stable from TNA Wrestling and looked back at the first Impressions of it. He said;
“I was never a fan of Sons of Anarchy. I never really watched it. I heard about it because it was so popular. The boys would be talking about it and it was out there in mainstream media. I was never into the whole biker thing. It’s not my thing. I know Eric was and a lot of the guys liked to ride.”
“I’ll never forget where I was standing when Eric approached me backstage at TNA when we used to record at Universal. Me and Eric had been establishing more of a relationship since he had taken over creative.
“I was doing the Bully thing, but I was doing my version of Bully, and not what was about to be presented to me. Eric said to me, ‘Did you ever see yourself as the leader of a motorcycle group?’ In my head, I’m like, ‘This is the worst fu**ing idea that’s ever been told to me.’”
“I’m not into the motorcycle thing. Just thoughts of like The Undertaker’s motorcycle gang group or any other motorcycle gang group that had ever been in pro wrestling comes to mind and I was like, no this is not what I want to do.
“This is not my vision of Bully Ray. But if the booker is coming up to you with a plan, you know he’s pulling you aside for a reason. I think my exact line is, ‘If you think that’s the best utilization of the character Bully Ray, I’m on board.’”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription