WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray (Bubba Ray Dudley) appeared on Busted Open Radio to discuss various topics, including his reasons for believing that ticket sales are down for WrestleMania 42.
Ray said, “Right off the bat, we said ‘Ugh, going back to Vegas?’ [in response to the location switch]. ou know what we call that in pro wrestling? Burning out to town. WWE has learned over the years to not burn out a town. You know why? Because they’ve burned out towns before. It’s typical pro wrestling stuff, but the WWE hasn’t burned out of town in a long time. You go to a town, it sells out, you do monster business. What are we going to do? ‘Let’s come back three months later.’ No, you don’t go back three months later. You go back six months or a year later. You don’t burn out the town. Vegas is getting burned out because TKO made the decision.”
On the difference between TKO and Vince McMahon:
“This is where TKO and Vince McMahon differ, aand I don’t know Vince McMahon like he’s my best friend in the whole world. I know the man that I worked for seven years, so I have a little bit of an idea of the guy. TKO has shown us now this is about one thing and one thing only: the almighty dollar. Vince would have made a deal with New Orleans. He would have shook on it. He would have signed on the dotted line. And if Las Vegas would have come over the top a couple of months later and said, ‘Hey, Vince, we’ll give you $3 million up front,’ Vince would have said, ‘Thank you. Maybe I’ll see you the year after. I already have a deal with New Orleans.’ That’s the businessman that Vince was.”
On WWE and TKO’s recent promotional tactics for the event:
“They’re scrambling to make things work.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
