D-Von Dudley says it was just time to move on from WWE.
WrestlingNews.co’s Steve Fall recently spoke with D-Von Dudley about his wrestling career, which recently included a run as a producer for WWE. D-Von left the company in January 2023. The departure was described as a mutual parting of ways, and now D-Von shared a bit more insight about why he left the company after nearly seven years in his backstage role.
“A friend of mine, a wise man once said, everything has an expiration date. Regardless of if it’s going so good or not, everything has an expiration date. Whether it be life, because everybody has to die, you’re born and then you die, and even jobs. You’re not doing a job forever. You either walk away or you get fired or you retire, everything happens for a reason. Well you know, there were certain things and I can’t get into detail with it, but you would agree to disagree on certain things and that’s what it was. I think it was just time to move on and to do something else. I have other projects, I have a car detailing business in Florida, I have the 3D Academy in Winter Park, so I thought maybe it was just best that I concentrated on those things and to move on.
“I’m very happy and grateful for the time that I spent, not only as talent, but definitely a producer. I was very happy with my time in NXT and I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not taking anything away from the main roster, but I love NXT. I love those men and women down there, I think they are a great bunch of guys and girls. I don’t want to start mentioning names because if any one of them sees this and I don’t mention their name, I’ll probably [get heat with them] [laughs]. I know I would be mad if I worked with somebody and they forgot to [mention my name]. But no, I loved everyone there, it was such a great feeling and I just didn’t — I hated to go. I really hated to go.”
Fall then addressed rumors that D-Von’s inclusion in a ECW tribute show had something to do with being fired. Battleground Championship Wrestling featured a match between Bully Ray and Matt Cardona, with D-Von advertised as appearing in Bully’s corner. PWInsider.com reported that D-Von was later pulled from the event by WWE and didn’t have permission to appear at the show.
Battleground promoter Timothy Embler initially claimed WWE sent a legal complaint about D-Von’s appearance, but later said he had more talks about the situation and it was a misunderstanding. F4WOnline.com later reported (via The Wrestling Observer Newsletter) that D-Von went through John Cone in talent relations to get the booking, but Bruce Prichard later got wind of it and cancelled it. Ultimately the matter went to Triple H, who was rumored to have threaten to fire D-Von if he did the appearance.
Now speaking to Fall, D-Von said that he has no issues with Triple H and he actually has a lot to thank him for.
“Let me just say this — no issues with Triple H. Triple H did not threaten to fire me. What a lot of people don’t know, I did not speak to Hunter directly during that, but no, he did not threaten to fire me. It was just again, a miscommunication on the dirt sheet writers or whatever, but that was not the case. Again, I can’t go into detail right now, but again, Triple H — they have shirt out there that say ‘I’m a Paul Heyman Guy’. I’m a Paul Heyman guy because he helped me with ECW, but I am totally a Triple H guy. I can’t begin to thank that man enough for everything he’s done for me. He was the reason why I became a producer.”
Read More: D-Von Dudley Released By WWE, Issues Statement
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