Dudley explains why he feels Heyman did not understand how to present said character.
When The Dudley Boys (D-Von Dudley & Bully Ray) split away from one another in WWE, both talents ventured off into singles runs. On the SmackDown side with D-Von, he became ‘Reverend D-Von’ and adding on to his persona was six-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion Dave Bautista.
Looking back at the end of the Reverend D-Von persona, Dudley feels Paul Heyman did not understand how to write for the character. He expressed that thought while appearing on a Café De René With René Duprée livestream.
D-Von cited it being a cultural misunderstanding on Heyman’s part. He added that things began to go downhill at that point. Prior to Heyman taking over the creative for SmackDown, Dudley had been working on the character with Bruce Prichard and wanted to continue working with him. He was already nervous about venturing into his singles career in addition to Heyman taking the reins because he did not want to get lost in the shuffle.
I just remember talking to Paul (Heyman) and you know, I love Paul to death but Paul, I don’t think he understood a Black preacher and how a Black preacher works. Black preachers don’t use words that you can’t pronounce let alone spell and that was the thing. Paul’s vocabulary, Paul’s intelligence is so high as we all know and he was writing promos for me that words I couldn’t even pronounce let alone spell and I’m just like, ‘Dude,’ I was like, ‘This is not gonna work for me’ and that was where it started to go downhill. Yeah, and it went down quick and I even told Paul, I said, ‘Paul, I can’t do this.’ ‘Sure you can, sure you can. Don’t worry about it. Just do it.’ I was like, ‘We need to redo these promos man. We really do because I can’t do this stuff’ and it just went downhill from there, you know? And again, I love Paul Heyman. I love him to death but I just felt that because Brother Love, Bruce Prichard, did the Brother Love gimmick, I thought that he should have been the one that should have been continuing with the Reverend D-Von, and there was nothing against Paul… It was nothing against Paul. It was just that I had already started with Bruce so it should have finished with Bruce.
I mean, I could say yes and I could say no because I don’t really know (if the gimmick would or wouldn’t have gotten more over if Prichard continued being behind it). All I know is it was working really good when Bruce Prichard and Vince (McMahon) were working together and then, you know, like I said, somewhere along the line, it went south when Paul — I don’t know if there was some beef between Paul and Bruce or whoever the powers to be but, all I know is when I came in to work that day, it didn’t seem positive and you know, Bruce was just like, ‘Oh, well, I don’t do your stuff no more.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, can you please stop? Because I’m already nervous about doing a singles career. Now you’re telling me that they took you off of it and they put Paul on’ and I was nervous, a little nervous because Paul had just got the booking for SmackDown and I was worried I was gonna get lost in the shuffle with everything that he was doing for the product.
The duo of D-Von and Bully Ray reunited at IMPACT Wrestling 1000 in the fall of 2023. The TNA and WWE Hall of Famers competed in their first tag match together since 2016.
D-Von stated that he would be open to going on another run with Bully if he felt good after IMPACT 1000.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Café De René With René Duprée with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
