Bully Ray on Advice for Younger Talent Following His Retirement

Bully Ray was a guest on First Thing where he discussed what his plans are now, following his retirement and what his advice to younger talent is.

On his retirement and what he is going to do now:

“I’m gonna be able to work behind the scenes with Ring Of Honor, help a lot of the younger guys develop their characters and help them out there. I totally enjoy seeing other guys succeed based on some of the advice I’ve given them.”

On what he will do if approached for advice:

“I don’t go up to guys and say, ‘Hey, you should do this,’ or, ‘I think you should do that.’ If they come to me I’m more than happy to help them out, because if they’re coming to me they obviously have thought about it and they’ve [sought] out the help on their own. ‘Hey, can you help me with this aspect of my character,’ or, ‘What do you think I should do for a move over here?’ Anything that they want to do to help tell their story in the ring better, I’ll be there for.”

On the biggest advice he can give:

“Character development and storytelling, because a lot of young wrestlers today think it’s all about the moves,” he said. “They just go out there and flip all around the place, and listen, there is a section of the fan base and the audience that likes that. But for the most part, for 100 years, what has professional wrestling been built on? The art of storytelling and characters. Good vs. evil. Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker. Black hat vs. white hat.”

If you would like to relive Ray’s emotional retirement, we have featured the video below for you. We also referenced what happened during the speech here, if you’d prefer a visual read as opposed to the audio.

Bully Ray retirement speech ROH Global Wars 2017 (sad)

Did you enjoy watching Ray as a performer? Do you want to wrestle? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page or Twitter account. Additionally, you can find me on Twitter at @SOSNH1995. We also want to remind you that we have a Newsletter you can sign up to. This will allow us to send you the best news in one place via an email. We also have the Wrestling Rumors app that we encourage you all to download to get updates faster than they release on our various pages. It is available on Android and iOS devices.