Bully Ray recently spoke with The Wrap; you can read a few highlights below:
Bully Ray on Ring Of Honor filling the void of ECW:
“One of the whole reasons I’m in Ring of Honor is because of how much it reminds me of ECW. There is not one wrestler out there — or one veteran out there — who understands the Ring of Honor mentality … more than I do.”
“ECW was Ring of Honor before Ring of Honor. Ring of Honor was created because of the void that ECW left when it disappeared. These Ring of Honor guys, they go out there and they do all of these crazy moves — and Ring of Honor matches may not be heavy on psychology, but it’s heavy on excitement. And fans love it, “our interviewee said. “Well, ECW wasn’t heavy on psychology, it was heavy on violence — and people loved it. So, I totally understand what younger wrestlers in the Ring of Honor locker room are trying to do, because we did the same thing 25 years ago. They’re doing it with acrobatics today, we did it with violence back then.”
Bully comments on Combat Zone Wrestling being ‘extreme’, but says it’s violence for the sake of it:
“CZW does not carry the torch of ECW at all. ECW was not about violence — it was about passion and it was about a mindset. ECW was truly a rebellious movement, giving our middle finger to the rest of the wrestling business, telling people that we were gonna do it our way. And we did it our way so much that we revolutionized the entire business.
“ECW was the Napster of pro wrestling. Napster went bankrupt and failed as a business, but it revolutionized the way we listen to music. ECW went bankrupt and failed as a wrestling company, but it changed the landscape of wrestling forever. Without ECW, you would never have the [WWE] Attitude Era.
CZW is just gratuitous violence for the sake of gratuitous violence, just to shock people,” he continued. “Do they make more money year after year? Are their crowds any bigger? No. So I kind of compare them to GWAR.
Listen, GWAR could continue to tour for as long as GWAR wants to. They’ll perform to the same 100 fans every night, and they’ll make the same amount of money. They’ll never grow financially and they’ll never grow as an act — and that’s just a fact when you look at CZW as a business model.”
