D-von Dudley

A generation of wrestling fans will have grown up with Devon “D-Von Dudley” Hughes. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, he achieved sports entertainment fame with ECW and then with the WWF and WWE. He became particularly well known as one of half of The Dudley Boyz, a tag-team he formed with his “half-brother” Bubba Ray Dudley. The pair won innumerable championship titles and became the first tag-team to be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame and were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018. Still highly active and visible today, Dudley is currently back with the WWE, working as a producer.

Hughes began wrestling on the independent circuit in the early 1990s under his real name. After an initial spell with Extreme Championship Wrestling as “A-Train”, his D-Von Dudley character was born in 1996. Having teamed up with Bubba Ray Dudley to form the Dudley Boyz, the pair dominated ECW until they were signed by WWF in mid-1999. Here, they quickly became fan favourites, as wrestling enjoyed one of its golden ages. A third Dudley brother, Spike, was added to their gang, but the original pair were still the best, and they went on to win the WWF and WWE World Tag Team Championship title an incredible nine times.

Despite all of his joint success, Dudley remains a highly-rated wrestler in his own right. In 2012, two decades into his career, Pro Wrestling Illustrated named him as the 25th best singles wrestler in the world in their annual PWI Top 500.