D-Von Dudley knows exactly what he accomplished during his WWE career, but there’s one area where he feels the company repeatedly failed to give him his flowers. Looking back at WWE’s Black History Month celebrations, D-Von says being left out genuinely bothered him.
During an episode of D-Von and The Duke, the WWE Hall of Famer opened up about feeling overlooked whenever WWE celebrated the contributions of Black wrestlers. D-Von said he would see other African-American talent recognized while his own name was nowhere to be found.
“When, you know, African-Americans come up to me and say, ‘You have no idea what you did for me. You gave me hope and you gave me everything to know that we are somebody.’ And, you know, I had a few African-Americans tell me that. And that brought joy to my heart because I always felt that whenever there was Black History Month or anything like that, D-Von was left out. You know, they would mention other people who were African-American in the wrestling business, but my name was never brought up.”
It wasn’t just a general feeling either. D-Von recalled occasions when WWE put together Black History Month promotional material featuring Black talent from the company, only for him to notice that he wasn’t included.
“And there were some websites that did acknowledge me for my work and what I did, but a lot of times some of them didn’t. Point in case, there was a couple of times when Black History Month came around in WWE and everybody else who was African-American in the company was put on a poster celebrating Black History Month, and I wasn’t on there, nor was I mentioned, and that bothered me.”
What eventually changed D-Von’s perspective was hearing from the fans themselves. Once he started doing more conventions, people would approach him and Bubba Ray Dudley to explain just how much watching the Dudley Boyz meant to them growing up.
“It was only until I started doing the Comic Cons and people coming up to the table asking for autographs and merchandise where I would always get, ‘Man, you guys don’t realize the influence that you had on our lives. You know, we were going through a rough time and things like that, and we would turn on the TV, we would see the Dudley Boyz, and the way your matches were done, it just brought joy to our hearts, our family, and we want to say thank you.’ And I get that all the time.”
D-Von admitted it’s still strange hearing people tell him that the Dudley Boyz were their childhood. He remembers being the kid saying those same things to wrestlers from the generations before him, but now he understands what that kind of connection actually means from the other side.
“Now, one of the things I get, I’m like, ‘You have to tell me that,’ is when they say, ‘Man, you guys are my childhood.’ And you look at that and you’re like, ‘God, how old am I now?’ You know, because I remember being the young boy and me meeting the Hogan and Andre era, the Dusty and Flair era, meeting these guys and telling them the same thing. So now I get it and I understand it. But it’s such a joy, and it gives me peace to know that what Bubba and I did was not in vain. And we did touch a lot of lives, especially me being Black and in the wrestling business.”
That became even more meaningful when younger Black wrestlers started approaching him. D-Von said some have directly credited his Attitude Era run with showing them that Black wrestlers could succeed at the highest levels of the business.
“But going to these Comic Cons, meeting the fans there, meeting the fans when I go to restaurants or go out in public, and them coming to me and telling me that, no, you were an inspiration to me, and I thank you. So many of the young African-American talent that are in the business today, when they come to me and tell me the reason why we decided to get in the business, we loved the business. We love what you did in the Attitude Era. You gave me hope that Black America can survive in the wrestling business and be successful.”
So even if D-Von feels WWE didn’t always recognize that part of his legacy when Black History Month rolled around, the people who watched him clearly haven’t forgotten it. These days, hearing directly from fans and wrestlers he inspired seems to mean a hell of a lot more to him than whether his face made it onto a poster.
Do you think WWE overlooked D-Von Dudley’s contributions during its Black History Month celebrations? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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