How Good Were The Dudley Boyz Actually?
In-Ring Ability
Well.
The Dudley Boyz are considered within some circles to be among the greatest tag teams of all-time. This is as lofty as praise gets. It literally gets no higher than that. Working one truly great or memorable match - with nowhere to hide from the shortcuts afforded by a stipulation - is not even the absolute bare minimum. You should be losing count, really, when listing the best matches to argue for a wrestler’s G.O.A.T. case.
What’s the best Dudley Boyz match?
The Triangle Ladder and TLC matches are nothing short of the very best gimmick matches ever. Futuristic to an impossible degree, three teams could do a spot-for-spot retread in 2025, and it would still be a white-knuckle, demented, frenzy of bloodlust. As a matter of fact, several times per year, many tag teams more or less do. The Dudleyz were instrumental in pioneering something that is both futuristic and timeless. Very few acts in the entire history of the medium can say that. The Dudleyz were great in those matches, too, even if they were never speared out of the sky. At WrestleMania 17, Bubba played the violent spoiler and drew an all-timer of a pop when he crashed through a stack of four tables at the perfect, late moment. The Tables match against the Hardy Boyz at Royal Rumble 2000 was an exceptional sprint boasting an outstanding number of beautifully-timed near-misses. Beyond that…
Is there a single straight tag that you could convincingly argue is a classic of the genre? A single one? In their library, is there a single straight tag that you could convincingly argue is great?
The absolute upper limit is “very good”, and they didn’t reach it very often. They didn’t achieve it much on the big stages, either. It’s actually difficult to recall these very good matches, and when you research it, you only find a few deep cut hidden gems. They worked Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam, two hardly shabby opponents, on the May 5, 2004 SmackDown. For whatever it’s worth, the Cagematch inmates awarded this match 8.11 based on 17 votes. It is the highest-ranked non-gimmick match on their matchguide. Do you even remember it?
You could counter that, and insist that Cagematch is just some smark database - but which match would you opt for instead? Right now, off the top of your head?
The Dudleyz are meant to be one of the best teams ever. They should be topping lists in this criteria - but the sheer number of teams with better match catalogues is damning.
FTR; the Hart Foundation; the Rock N’ Roll Express; the Midnight Express; the Young Bucks; the Brainbusters; the Briscoes; Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada; the Rockers; the New Day; the Steiner Brothers; the Motor City Machine Guns; the Lucha Bros.; the Hollywood Blonds; Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody; Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi; DIY; Beer Money; the Can-Am Express: all of these times, and several more, have wrestled multiple great pure tags.
The big counterargument here is: what about the Road Warriors?
They weren’t renowned for exciting, lengthy, back-and-forth matches, which are probably emphasised too often when arguing for a wrestler’s value. The Road Warriors, at their peak, were never boring. Their lean, gruesome matches were reckless, hypnotic spectacles. They were far more innovative, too, popularising the squash in the early cable era of pro wrestling.
The Dudley Boyz were often very boring at every stage of their career. They wrestled so many deeply basic, uncreative plunder slogs in ECW that dragged and dragged; where Hawk and Animal left you screaming and pounding your chest with their approach to violence, the Dudleyz frequently made you wonder if they were ever going to get to the finish.
Without factoring in the competition, the Dudleyz ranged from very fun to punishingly dull. The amount of bad matches is staggering.
In terms of pure nuts and bolts, the Dudleyz were good. They had that “tag team synchronicity”, as Jim Ross would have it. Bubba could cause whiplash with the snap of his powerbomb. D-Von could really fly. Ultimately, however, they very rarely structured their offence and built something progressively dramatic and compelling. In their defence, they didn’t have to; the WWF fans were going to scream “Wassup!”, which the Dudleyz of course didn’t come up with, regardless.
Bubba Ray would be the very first person to tell you that not everything is about matches, so moving on…
6/10