D-Von Dudley Dismisses JBL Racism Claims
D-Von Dudley has made clear his recent comments on racism in WWE were not about JBL.
Speaking on Good Karma Wrestling recently, D-Von Dudley discussed the discrimination he faced as an African-American star in the wrestling business and said one “prominent figure in WWE” openly disliked him because of his race:
“There was a prominent figure in WWE, he was office, who basically told me he didn’t like me because I was black. Two occasions told me. Bubba was there on one of them, and he was there on the second one, along with Paul Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, and Spike [Spike Dudley].
“To this day, I have no respect, nor do I like this individual. I’m not going to go put him on blast, but I don’t care for him, so I stay away from him. I just know we have come a long way. I’m not going to sit here and cry over something that might have happened ten years ago. I move on and make the best of it. Look at my career. I have nothing to be sad about or have any remorse about.”
D-Von Dudley rules out JBL and Michael Hayes as the culprit
Now speaking in an interview with Mike Johnson of PWInsider, D-Von Dudley has noted that he wants people to stop guessing who he was talking about:
“I want people to stop guessing who it was because I’m not gonna say who it was. You want me to say it because now you want to run this person through the mud. And yes, does that person deserve it? Yes. But I’ve always said God has his way of getting back at these people that do things like that.
“Again, there were witnesses that were there. Bubba [Ray Dudley] was there for the first one. He was the one that actually grabbed me and stopped me from knocking the hell out of this person.
“The second time, Bubba was there again, along with Paul Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, Spike Dudley. We were in Indianapolis, Indiana, sitting down in catering when that happened the second time.”
D-Von Dudley then made clear that he was not referring to JBL, Michael Hayes, or even Vince McMahon with his comments and noted that he had a great working relationship with both men. Dudley continued that his way of dealing with things was to make the unnamed person very uncomfortable in front of other people:
“Well, I was being very condescending to this individual afterwards because this person came to me and said, ‘Hey, D-Von, how’re you doing? How is everything?’ I was like, ‘Why are you saying hi to me? You don’t like me.’ But I would say this in front of the people.
“‘What do you mean I don’t like you? Of course I like you.’ I go, ‘No, you don’t. Stop lying. Come on, you know you don’t like me. You’ve admitted it.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course I do. Why would you think that? No, I’m there for you all the way.’
“I would be very condescending with this person. I tried to embarrass him as much as I could in front of people, but without being disrespectful. And so then I realized [I] got underneath this person’s skin, and that person basically stopped talking to me after a while.”
D-Von Dudley recently reformed his iconic tag team with Bubba Ray (Bully Ray) on the 1,000th edition of IMPACT Wrestling and has noted that he is officially unretired from the ring.