Bully Ray Reveals Moment That Made Him Want To Be A Professional Wrestler
Bully Ray has done it all in professional wrestling — he's a legendary tag team star, a former IMPACT World Champion, and a WWE Hall of Famer. With such a storied history, fans may be wondering what turned the longtime Dudley Boy onto the career of pro wrestling in the first place, which he recently shed some light on during an interview with Sportskeeda.
Bully's adoration for the scripted sport started when he was a young boy, but one particular match on October 17, 1983, brought on the realization that being a pro wrestler was his destiny. The match: Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka vs. "Magnificent" Don Muraco in a steel cage. Snuka and Muraco both cut promos before it got underway, helping to hype up the grudge match. Snuka made it apparent he was seeking revenge on Muraco while the latter acted calm, cool, and collected, even with the dangerous stipulation. The match itself lived up to the violent expectations, with both men a bloody mess when it reached its conclusion. The finish came when Snuka executed a series of headbutts that actually knocked Muraco outside the cage door, forcing the match to end and Muraco to be declared the winner via escape.
This was when the legendary moment arrived; Snuka dragged Muraco back inside the ring, hit a suplex, climbed to the top of the cage, and then jumped down with a Superfly Splash. "I was in the front row, Madison Square Garden, the night [Snuka] jumped off the top of the steel cage onto the Magnificent Muraco. And that's when I knew I wanted to do this," Bully explains. This was the first time any pro wrestler dared to do something so dangerous, and it obviously made a lasting impression on Bully Ray and the wrestling world as a whole.