A Detailed History of the ECW Dudley Boyz

This is a script for a video on my Youtube channel, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/tHUqfGk2Qhs

When I bring up the subject of the Dudley Boyz, I'm sure an image like this first comes to mind. Bubba Ray, D-Von and maybe Spike, but how much do you know about the original members of the group who only appeared in ECW, and it's unique backstory? In this video I'm going to take you through all of the original large wrestling family that Paul Heyman was involved with. Think of it as his training for the bloodline, with a lot less tye dye.

1 Big Daddy Dudley

Our story begins with the family's patriarch, the entirely fictional Daddy Dudley, who travelled the US presumably around the the 1960's and 70's given the age range of his offspring, working as a salesman. Think of him as a sort of Ray Croc figure, but spreading something else instead of milkshake machines. Big Daddy Dudley is said to have lived an interesting to put it one way life on the road, having fathered children across the US which we'll get back to in a little while.

This brings up many questions as to where the fictitious Dudleyville might actually be. Actually, a few things bring this question up, like why did Bubba Ray used to talk with a southern accent but later became as New York as they come? If you google this you find a few different answers like the actual town of Dudleyville which is in Arizona, and they were also at one point billed 'from the hills of Charleston Pennsylvania. I personally always assumed Dudleyville was supposed to be like Springfield in the Simpsons, in that it's geography just matches whatever is needed in that particular moment.

Despite the origins of each forthcoming Dudley being ambiguous, they are mostly linked by the same features. Glasses held together by tape, a love of tye dye and denim overalls. Many of the characters we're about to talk about have been credited to Raven, Tommy Dreamer and Taz, All of whom had influence behind the scenes in ECW.

2 Dudley Dudley

Now we get to the first of the real life Dudley's with Dudley Dudley, real name Jeff Bradley. Trained by Dean Makenko and his father Boris, Jeff has wrestled under many names such as Charlie Hunter, Man Mountain Kong and weirdly, a chef character called Evil Snack. He started wrestling in 1993 before joining ECW in 95, wrestling twice against Taz under the Evil Snack name before debuting as Dudley Dudley in his next appearance. 

Dudley was in storyline the only Dudley brother born within wedlock, and so considered himself the purest Dudley. Dudley. He wrestled seventeen matches under the gimmick, thirteen of which being losses before leaving ECW in October of the same year. From there Bradley worked as enhancement talent for WWE and WCW as he had also done before ECW, and wrestled a fair bit for Florida based IPW Hardcore for the next few years. Another interesting thing to note is that post ECW he was also a trainer at a wrestling school of Dean Makenko, and had a hand in the training of a young Glenn Jacobs who went on to be Kane, Molly Holly, and ECW star Tony Mamaluke. He also helped train the Johnson's, the skin coloured tights wearers from early days of TNA. You can't win em' all... Bradley's in ring career wrapped up in 2009, but as a nod to his trainers his final two matches in 2010 and 2013 would be battle royal appearances at an annual event held in honour of Boris Malenko.

3 Snot Dudley

Next we get to Snot Dudley, real name Michael Deek. Like Jeff Bradley Deek also entered wrestling in 1993, trained by former WCW and WWE wrestler Tim Horner. As you can likely guess by the name, there didn't seem to be much to the Snot gimmick, other than he would often be seen picking his nose. I wonder how much input Raven might have had in this, given that especially during his grunge era, one of Raven's trademark spots would be to use what he called a 'snot rag' as a weapon. Around this time the Dudley's were often used as lackeys for Raven before he later had a flock of his own. Before ECW Deek would wrestle mainly for Jim Cornette's Smokey Mountain Wresting using the name Anthony Michaels, but also as one of the Masked Infernos, sometimes as both on the same night. Hope you paid him twice Corny.

Snot would debut for ECW at Hardcore Heaven 1995, teaming with Dudley Dudley also making his in ring debut in a 6 minute loss to the Pitbulls. Unfortunately for Deek though, he would only wrestle one more match for ECW two weeks later at Heat Wave, this time a loss teaming with Raven to the Pitbulls and Tommy Dreamer. Following this Deek would be involved in a jet ski accident, though in storyline ECW claimed that the Pitbulls had injured him in the match.

Following his accident it would take Deek sixteen months to return to wrestling, spending the next few years working mainly in Florida, still using the Snot Dudley name and teaming with a wrestler called Schmuck Dudley, real name Jeff Roth who never actually worked for ECW so is technically a non canon Dudley. Bet you didn't know that was a thing did you? Kind of like all the fake Doink's that were also spreading like herpes in the 90's.

Anyway, Snot would drop the Dudley name in July of 1999, not long before Bubba and D-Von joined WWE. This may have been due to WWE trademarking the name, which annoyingly nobody in ECW thought to do, resulting in the name change to Team 3D when Brother Ray and Brother Devon (spelled differently for legal reasons, arrived in TNA in 2005. The former Snot wrestled as Anthony Michaels until 2013 on the indie scene, but would wrestle occasional matches until 2020 for Connecticut based Test of Strength Wrestling.

As best I can tell Deek's one and only match for a national promotion came on the March 13th 2007 episode of ECW on Scifi, when he and another wrestler would lose a thirty second squash match to Gene Snitsky.

4 Big Dick Dudley

Born in 1968, Alaxander Rizzo was the oldest of the Dudley clan, well the oldest real one at least. He entered wrestling in the late 80's, trained by WWE hall of famer and legendary enhancement talent Johnny Rodz at the same time as Taz. Rodz would go on to train many more successful wrestlers including Tommy Dreamer, Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley.

Billed as 6"7 and 320 pounds, Rizzo would wrestle on East Coast indies under the name Alexander the Great before being recruited to join the Dudley clan in 1995. He would join the group in August and would gradually take an outside the ring leadership role after Dudley Dudley's departure. Later on when Bubba and D-Von became the stars of the group, Dick would always be seen in the background, assisting them in their many ECW tag title reigns. The three of them would come to be the figureheads of the heel version of the group once the more comedic Dudleys had gone. During his time in ECW Rizzo's highest profile match would be the only pay per view match in his career, incidentally on one of ECW's most beloved events ever, Heat Wave 1998. In the main event of the night Bubba, D-Von and Big Dick would lose in a street fight to Spike Dudley, The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer.

While on the surface Big Dick Dudley appeared content to stand behind his on screen brothers, in reality Alex Rizzo grew more and more unhappy at not getting any opportunities for himself. This would cause a dispute with Paul Heyman over the direction of his push, and in 1999 Rizzo would leave ECW over it. 

Perhaps in an attempt to further slight Heyman, Rizzo would join West coast based Xtreme pro Wrestling even becoming their World champion. XPW being the the massively controversial promotion owned by Rob Black, which had been born from Black's own story of feeling slighted by Paul Heyman. The promotion was in brief, an attempt to recreate and surpass what ECW was doing, thus Black would look to book as many Paul Heyman guys as possible, likely jumping at the chance to steal Big Dick Dudley, who continued to wrestle under that name until the end of his career.

Sadly in May of 2002 Rizzo would pass away in his own home at the age of 34. The cause of death was claimed to be Kidney failure, possibly brought on by an addiction to painkillers.

5 Dances with Dudley

I apologise for the abrupt shift in tone now as we move on, but the next Dudley on the list was one of the more comical of the group, the brilliantly named Dances with Dudley. DW or Chief Dudley for short was brought into ECW in 1995 to replace Snot following his jet ski accident. In canon he was the result of Daddy Dudley's exploits in Cheyanne Oklahoma which is where the fun and games end, as Cheyanne is commonly associated with the battle of Washita River in 1868, which makes for some fascinating but bleak reading by the way.

To be fair, the man who portrayed Dances with Dudley Adolfo Bermudez did also hail from Oklahoma. He debuted in wrestling in 1992 using the name White Cloud, teaming with a wrestler going by Dancing Wolf as the Sioux War Party. Dancing Wolf would go on to have a much longer career, still wrestling today as Prince Al Farat. In his ECW run Bermudez' would only wrestle on tv twice, and would twice challenge for the ECW tag titles, losing to both the Pitbulls and Mikey Whipwreck and Cactus Jack. He would allegedly leave ECW on bad terms following a dispute with Paul Heyman, and would continue to use the gimmick under the radar until his retirement. Right after leaving ECW he would complete a tour with Big Japan Wrestling, where he would even compete in some death matches.

In the latter years of his career Bermudez would work in smaller US indies largely in the New York area, before retiring from the ring in 2004. According to a 2020 article by Ring the Damn Bell, Adolfo now loves in Long Island and has works a city job.

6 Chubby Dudley

Next we have another of the more eccentric Dudley's, Chubby Dudley played by Bay Ragni. Bay had competed in Todd Gordons original Eastern Championship Wrestling, the precursor to Heymans Extreme version as EZ Ryder as early as 1992, and had debuted on the indie circuit a year earlier 

Seems to have only wrestled sporadically, and said on 'perched on the top rope' podcast last year that he left because he wasn't happy with how little he got to wrestle, and also claimed that Taz threatened him for using the Dudley name outside ECW.

Aside from his time in ECW, Bay Ragni had a hand in promoting Liberty All Star Wrestling from 94-2002, almost as long as ECW existed, while wrestling sporadically under the EZ Ryder name until 2005. I'd also like to draw your attention to Bay's fairly new YouTube channel, React and Chill with Chubby Dudley', where he reacts to old mostly ECW footage.

7 Sign Guy Dudley (Lou D'Angeli)

I promise you, Bubba Ray and D-Von are up soon, but this is an interesting one. Sign Guy Dudley, real name Lou D'Angeli, began life as a pro Dudley's plant in the crowd. He would dress like the Dudleys and carry signs before eventually being introduced as part of the family. Despite being in the background of many a famous Dudley Boyz promo, he would never ever speak a word, only communicating through his signs. The in storyline reason for this was that Sign Guy was born of Daddy Dudley's time in an insane asylum, according to Dudley Dudley.

Sign guy never actually wrestled as a Dudley but had 2 matches later in ECW as Lou E. Dangerously, a blatant parody of Paul Heyman hinting at his old WCW name Paul E. Dangerously. Post ECW not being an active wrestler Lou would make occasional appearance as a manager, but in a first for this channel my resource for his latter day career comes from Lou's LinkedIn page. He worked for a few years in WWE's marketing department before spending eleven years working for Cirque du Soleil. During this time not mentioned on his LinkedIn, he was also attached to Chicago based Resistance Pro Wrestling, the oft forgotten first attempt of Billy Corgan to get into the wrestling business. In an interesting turn of events, Lou currently works as vice president of marketing for Anthem entertainment, the company that essentially saved Impact Wrestling.

Joel Gertner

I know you're likely waiting for me to get on with it at this point, but there is another man who deserves to be acknowledged in this video. A man of many nicknames, the most relevant being Studdly Dudley. It is he, the quintessential studmuffin, Joel Gertner. Joel entered the wrestling business in 1992 as a heel ring announcer. According to Joel himself he took a few classes at a wrestling school but knew the in ring life wouldn't be for him, using them to get a foot in the door.

Gertner would arrive in ECW in 1995 as a ring announcer, notable for introducing luchador's in perfect Spanish. He would also make fun of some of the babyfaces in his introductions, and they would make him pay for it. At Barely Legal 97, ECW's first pay per view, While announcing for the Dudley's he would take the Eliminators finisher, total elimination, a leg sweep head kick combination. From this day on for the rest of his career Joel would wear a neck brace following this move. Joel would eventually become the personal ring announcer for the Dudleys, adding a whole new colourfully flavour to their presentation, announcing D-Von specifically as as slim, trim, buff, cut, rough, chiselled and jacked.

Joel was never afraid of saying the filthiest one liners he could, which eventually turned him face with the ECW crowd, none of which I can give examples of on YouTube. Once Bubba, D-Von and Big Dick left in 99, Joel joined the previously solo voice of ECW Joey Styles on commentary. The two played off each other in an interesting way, with Joey being the clean cut announcer while Joel tried his best to be funny. Joel also became known for insanely dirty limericks while introducing himself on ECW pay per views. Maybe his best work in ECW was his ongoing feud with Cyrus the Virus, now known as Don Callis, eventually leading to a match between the two at Anarchy Rulz 2000, where Joel would defeat the network's stooge.

Since ECW closed Joel has made occasional tv appearances but seems to have continued on the indie level. In the early days of TNA he managed a tag team called the Rainbow Express. A short lived clearly gay tag team designed to draw heat from the Huntsville Alabama crowds. Thankfully society has moved on since those days. Joel also appeared on ECW One night stand 2005, approaching Eric Bischoff in his skybox and begging for a job, only for Eric to reject him. Ever since Joel has continued to make indie appearances and has had a run in podcasting.

8 Buh Buh Ray

Alright, we're finally here. Bubba Ray Dudley, born Mark LoMonaco, who would become the Dudley to wrestle the most matches with over two thousand on record, and the only Dudley still actively wrestling as of this video being made.

Bubba Ray was trained by Johnny Rodz who I mentioned earlier in 1991, and pre-ECW would have a biker gimmick, wrestling under the name Mongo Vyle. In late 1995 he would receive a tryout for ECW, in which he would act as a bodyguard for Bill Alfonso, and would take a chokeslam from 911, a rite of passage of sorts in early ECW. From here Mark would be hired and a month later he would first appear as the stuttering redneck Bubba Ray, though his first ECW TV match would occur in January 96. His name came from the stuttering gimmick he debuted with, which he stopped doing later when the group would become more serious heels, but briefly brought it back in his early WWE run. The stuttering act is also why you sometimes see his name spelled phonetically as 'Buh buh' Ray, as the name was meant to be a pun on his stutter.

Originally the Dudleys were heel lackeys for Raven but they would leave Raven in early 1996. Bubba would come around at a time when they were more becoming fun babyfaces, and would even dance in the ring. Anyone who was surprised and confused by Bubba's brief dancing gimmick in 2002 WWE when he and D-Von separated by the draft clearly never saw his ECW early work. It does make me laugh to think back to how in storyline, Bubba reacted to the enforced split by becoming a dancer and D-Von handled it by becoming an evil reverend. Wrestling writers...

The fun, comical direction the Dudley's had grown into would be the set up for D-Von to come in and change the dynamic again. I'll talk more about this when I get to D-Von next, but I'd be remiss if I left out Bubba's God given talent for drawing hatred from any crowd he stood in front of with a microphone in the late 90's. Bubba would cross any line he could to goad fans into a frenzy in his pre-match promos. The most famous of these was at the Heat Wave 99 pay per view, where Bubba incensed the crowd with such a vulgar promo that many thought a riot might happen. I can't quote much of it here but the unedited promo still exists on the UK version of the WWE Network, so I assume it's on Peacock too. A lesser talked about promo from Bubba led to a fan actually jumping from the balcony of the Manhattan Centre to try and get to fight Bubba. Even back then the future Bully Ray knew how to win enemies, and certainly influence people.

9 D-Von

To quote another ECW icon Taz, the mood is about to change, as we now get to D-Von Dudley. Much like Bubba Ray, Devon Hughes would be trained by Johnny Rodz and would enter wrestling in 1991. He would begin his career using the name A-Train (not that one), even in his ECW tryout, a tag team loss to the Pitbulls in March 1996. One month later he would make his debut as D-Von Dudley, a character inspired by Samuel L Jackson's bible quoting hitman character in Pulp Fiction. A little bit of this persisted in D-Vons character through the years, Oh my brother, Testify.

Unlike his brothers, D-Von had no comedic edge to him at all and he appeared to be disgusted by his brothers' antics, which would lead him to feud with Bubba Ray through 96, culminating in a match at the November to Remember pay per view where Bubba would win. On the way to this match at an event called Fight the Power on June 1st 1996, D-Von would attack Bubba, as well as Chubby and Dances with Dudley, taking the latter two out of the group, and making Bubba into a more serious competitor.

On February 1st 1997 at Crossing the Line again, Bubba Ray would turn heel on the last remaining Dudley I haven't got to yet, forming the new serious heel version of the group with D-Von, Big Dick and their manager Joel Gertner. Bubba and D-Von would hit Spike with what would become one of the most famous tag team finishers ever, up there with Demolition Decapitation and the Road Warriors' doomsday device, the Dudley Death Drop, more commonly known as the 3D. Talking to Chris Van Vleit, Bubba Ray would claim that he was inspired by watching a WCW match between Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio in which Dean launched Rey into the air, and that made him wonder what would happen if you added a Diamond Cutter on the way down. I'm paraphrasing by the way, he explains it much better. He also noted that Spike served as the crash test dummy for the move, taking it over and over in training until they perfected it.

While battling with Spike throughout the next two years D-Von and Bubba would also win a record setting eight ECW tag team championships between 1997 and 1999. The two would go on to win essentially every tag title they ever competed for over the next decade. In late 1999 just as ECW had gained it's TNN deal, the Dudley's and Taz were signed to WWE. Three of ECW's biggest stars who were very much missed once they left. I won't go into their post ECW career's here as this video could go on for hours, but their legend only grew after leaving ECW.

10 Little Spike Dudley (LSD, get it?)

Finally we get to the runt of the litter, Little Spike Dudley. Let's get this out of the way early on, Little Spike Dudley was not just the smallest Dudley, but also got his name as an acronym. I'll let you do the Steiner maths from there. 

Matt Hyson, born in Rhode Island and already working as a school teacher, would make the trek to California to train in wrestling with APW in 1993 at the age of 23. APW by the way is one of the promotions featured in the 1999 film Beyond the Mat, especially featuring a wrestler Hyson worked this, Michael Modest. He would train initially as a manager and referee presumably due to his size as wrestlers the idea that pro wrestlers should be as big as houses was still prevalent until the mid- 90's. Regardless Hyson soon began training to wrestle too, working mostly on California indies.

He would arrive in ECW in September 1996, immediately teaming with Bubba Ray, though his TV debut would come in December as part of a battle royal. As Little Spike Dudley he would enter ECW as a fan favourite, seen to be the runt of the litter, later referenced in his TNA name Brother Runt.

In February 97 things would drastically change for Spike, as Bubba would turn to the dark side of the Dudley's by joining D-Von and attacking Spike, leading to two years of brutal matches with Spike and various partners facing Bubba and D-Von. For one typical example of how brutal this feud got, search out the particularly violent match involving New Jack at Guilty as Charged 1999.

During this time when not warring with his brothers, Spike also gained a reputation as the Giant Killer, sometimes defeating much larger men than himself. Spike even earned a shocking victory over former ECW World Champion Bam Bam Bigelow. The two would also be part of an iconic ECW moment on September 23rd 1997 at an event called As good as it gets, where Bam Bam would gorilla press Spike above his head, and launch him over ringside into the crowd. Instead of carefully escorting Spike to the ground like good, caring citizens, the ECW faithful would proceed to body surf the 150 pound Dudley around the building.

Spike's giant killer reputation would eventually lead to a trilogy of the most aggressive ECW World title matches ever, starring at Guilty as Charged 2000 where Spike would challenge ECW champion Mike Awesome. The three World title matches were stunning, and I detailed them further on another video on this channel.

When Bubba and D-Von left in late 1999 Spike and new partner Balls Mahoney would get the final win over his brothers to prevent them from taking the ECW tag titles to WWE. Spike would stick around until the end of ECW, spending much of that time as the on screen commissioner while nursing a broken leg, though this didn't stop him from getting into the action every now and again.

When ECW closed it's doors in 2001, Spike was one of the ones left behind at the end. On the final ECW show from Pine Bluff Arkansas, Spike would lose in an ECW World title match against Rhino.two months later on the March 19th 2001 Raw, Spike would make his WWE debut, helping Bubba Ray and D-Von beat Edge and Christian for the tag team titles.

So that's all the original Dudley Boys. There were also some one time deals and knock off's such as the Bushwackers being honorary Dudley's, but I've talked about all the main ECW ones. Let's talk about the future now. As far as I'm aware, there are only two next generation Dudley's wrestling today, Terrence and Terrell Hughes, the sons of D-Von Dudley.

Terrence and Terrell (not really but they're D-Vons kids)

Terrence and Terrell were sometimes seen on AEW Dark during the pandemic era Daily's Place shows. Since then they have wrestled for indies under the name TNT, with their highest profile match being a first round Crockett Cup loss for NWA. They were trained by Bubba and D-Von at the Team 3D Academy, the alumni of which includes current indie stars Trish Adora, Parrow and Kilynn King.

Looking at their Cagematch stats they're somewhat active, wrestling thirteen matches this year which is about one every two weeks, more than the seven they had throughout 2022. They did it seems for a few years wrestle under the Dudley name but they seem to prefer going by their given names, making a future Dudley reboot unlikely, but maybe not impossible...