10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About The Dudley Boyz

D-Von's run as a singles competitor in 2002 is more famous (largely because it was the first glimpse we got at future superstar Batista), but Bubba Ray also had a short-lived - and perhaps equally unsuccessful - run at a solo career in the same year.

If his brother's problem was that fans couldn't accept his change of character, Bubba's was perhaps that he didn't do anything differently. His act was pretty much unchanged from when he was competing in a two-piece, inviting the question of why they didn't just stay together.

Before long, Bubba was forced back into the tag team ranks anyway, teaming initially with Spike - the so-called runt of the Dudley litter - before being reunited with D-Von, who dropped the clerical collar at the end of the year.

The real shame here is that Bubba would go on to prove - during his run as "Bully Ray" in TNA - that he did, in fact, have bucket loads of potential as a singles star. WWE - for all its experience and expertise - just didn't know how to tease it out of him.