Meltzer 10/04/04

 

Two weeks ago, Ray Traylor and Brad Armstrong bumped into each other for the first time in a while working a small indie show in Georgia. They had been friends for about 19 years, but when you get out of the wrestling mainstream, you lose contact with people. They started talking about how they had to stay in closer contact, because so many of their good friends who were about the same age, in particular Curt Hennig, Rick Rude and Road Warrior Hawk, had passed away, not to mention Taylor being emotional over his mother passing away just over a month ago.

 

For Traylor, those dreams had to be hard, because when he was the Big Bossman in the WWF, and later in WCW when they reunited, his running buddies were Hennig and Rude. They loved to joke. They loved to party, and they loved to laugh. If there was one thing consistent from just about everyone who was in contact with Traylor in wrestling, it was he was a fun guy to have in a dressing room, and he was pretty well universally liked. He was a big guy, but had no chip on his shoulder or trace of bully in him, very much unlike his various TV personas. Even though he had immediate success in wrestling, he was one of the few people who got a big push from day one who never seemed to let it go to his head.

 

In what has become far too often in the profession, Traylor became the third member of the threesome to pass away at a young age, at about 9pm on 9/22. His wife, Angie, came into the living room in their house just outside of Acworth, GA, and found him on the couch. She bent over to kiss him and felt he was cold. She asked if he needed a blanket, and there was no response, and she noticed he wasn't breathing. She called 911, and paramedics called to the scene couldn't revive him, and he was rushed to Wellstar Paulding Hospital in Dallas, GA, where he was pronounced dead. The belief was he passed away from a massive heart attack, at the age of 42. The death came out of nowhere, as he had not been complaining at all about not feeling well, other than he had talked that day of his knees bothering him. While most were shocked and his close friends were numbed, several wrestlers who knew him for years were privately not as shocked.

 

According to Paulding County coroner Sam Clark, they will not have a listed cause of death for about 90 days, pending a complete autopsy, including the results of toxicology reports. The coroners sound was only too familiar when it comes to far too many top wrestlers of the 80s and 90s, as the most noticeable thing about Traylor was he had, even for a 325 pound man, a greatly enlarged heart. He also had a few clogged arteries.

 

Traylor was best known as the Big Bossman. Before back and knee injuries slowed him down, he was also known for being a hell of a working big man, and a particularly big bump taker. He set what were, at the time, box office records in many cities, including St.Louis, Chicago, San Diego, and Boston, in early 1989 for a run of cage matches with Hulk Hogan. Until the modern era, the Hogan vs. Bossman cage match program was among the most successful house show programs there had been. Inside the ring, in matches which included Hogan's most famous bump of his career, when he gave Bossman a superplex off the cage, the run produced some of Hogan's best run of matches. At the time, the matches were written up as Hogan's best run of matches since his original late-1985-early 1986 feud with Randy Savage. Most notable were a March 19,1989, match in Madison Square Garden, and an April 25, 1989, match in Des Moines that aired on May 27, 1989, as an NBC Saturday Night's Main Event.

 

After leaving WWF in 1993, he quickly got over in All Japan, which had probably the highest standard of work in wrestling at the time. Giant Baba loved big guys who could move. His big spots like sliding punches got over, and he sold great for his Japanese foes. He'd already done one tour in 1988 for Baba under the name Big Bubba [pronounced , strangely enough, like Booba in Japan], the name he used when he first got over as the giant bodyguard for Jim Cornette. Baba's idea was to pair him with Steve Williams, and make him one of his main event foreigners. While that was considered a plum job in wrestling at the time, WCW signed him away, because Davey Boy Smith had just been let go after a contract dispute, and they needed a top star immediately for a program with Rick Rude. He was brought in as The Boss, basically trying to use his WWF gimmick without getting sued for it. That didn't work, as WWF claimed they were violating company intellectual property. They changed his name to The Guardian Angel, named after a vigilante-like group that tried to stop street crimes that were big in the media in those days. Leader Curtis Sliwa [whose wife was a big wrestling fan and wanted to wrestle at one point] okayed the name, and he wore the group's trademark uniform. But the gimmick flopped. Between injuried and not getting much of a push, he was just one of the guys in WCW, until his contract expired. His career was thought to be pretty much over, but McMahon brought him back as the Bossman, and he was a top heel for another big run. By no means was he the wrestler he was in his prime, but he worked with every top star in the company before the decision was made not to use him anymore. He was sent to OVW to work as a trainer, but it didn't work out. He didn't want to be there, as he felt he could still perform on the big stage. He stopped coming to Louisville. In the end, even thought they quite possibly could have found a clause or cycles to drop him, because there were no plans of using him, McMahon paid him until his contract expired several months later, apparently because he respected that in his heyday he had made the company a lot of money.

 

"He was a neighbor of mine here in the Bentwater subdivision in Acworth," said Bryan Pritchard [no relation to anyone in wrestling]. "He was a gentle giant for sure, and always took time to speak with the neighborhood kids. He was a blast at Halloween, and would sit on his porch, and give the kids rocks and candy, and sign autographs. I had just seen him out in his yard last weekend as I went by on my Harley, and he gave me a thumbs up. My kids will miss him, and I still have my 'Elect Ray Traylor' sign."

 

Traylor had run for Commission Chairman for Paulding County in July, but lost in the election. He had helped organize a public memorial service 11 days before his death for the victims of 9/11. The day before his death, he was filming a TV commercial for a local hunting business.

 

"I don't know of anyone who was on top from almost the day he started in the business," noted Jim Cornette, who helped make him a star by putting him over as the world's most dangerous bodyguard in 1986. After Cornette had taken so many beatings as manager, the storyline was his rich mother sent in the Baddest street fighter in Louisville, Big Bubba Rogers, to protect him, which was a half shoot because he was getting fans so riled up it was good to have a menacing force watching his back as he did his ringside routine. The gimmick got over far beyond anyone's wildest expectations. After he had only a handful of matches in three weeks with the gimmick in the ring, he and Dusty Rhodes headlined Charlotte Colesium on August 31, 1986. Six months later, on February 27, 1987, when the two wrestled in the finals of a Bunkhouse Stampede match in Pittsburgh, they set the city's all-time gate record with a sellout of 16,678 paying $165,000. It was considered a huge deal at the time, because they went into one of the original core WWF cities, and outdid anything WWF could do at the time.

 

The whole gimmick from the match is that in December 1986, Crockett Promotions ran a series of Bunkhouse Stampede, a Rhodes-created version of a Battle Royal, only adding in street clothes, weapons and a promo piece by Nelson Royal in front of a campfire. Whomever won the most would be declared "The Bull of the Woods," and get a trophy and a supposed cash prize. When December ended, at least in storyline, Rhodes and Bubba had tied, to set up the Pittsburgh show. To thums his nose at McMahon's cage match rules, Rhodes announces that the only way to win was to eliminate your opponent from the cage, throwing him over the top, and naturally, it wasn't Rhodes that was going to take that bump.

 

Ray Traylor came from a lineage of wrestling fans. His grandfather, in the 50s, once got so excited at a wrestling show in Rome, GA, that he clocked lead heel Freddie Blassie over the head with a chair. Born on May 2, 1962, he grew in the Rome area, a few years after Marty Lunde [Arn Anderson]. He played some football, and after high school. worked as a guard at the Cobb County prison. He met Ted Allen, who taught him almost nothing, but got him booked as a job guy on some independent shows in late 1985. There are a few tapes of Ray Traylor as this pasty-white oversized job guy in a T-shirt, including as part of a jobber team against both the Road Warriors and the Midnight Express. In February of 1986, he was booked on a TBS match with Tully Blanchard, who he probably outweighed by 120 pounds. Rhodes saw how he went up for Blanchard's slingshot suplex finisher, and thought he could do something with a big guy, as he was probably 340 pounds at the time, who could move and bump. He immediately took Traylor off the jobber crew, and told him to sit tight, as he wanted people to forget about him.

 

On May 27, 1986, he debuted as Cornette's bodyguard on a TV taping. He was billed as being 6-8, even though he was closer to 6-4. Wearing thick boots. He towered over just about everyone at the time. In the suit, looked like his role of a mob boss enforcer. His gimmick was to be stoic at all times in front of the people, which wasn't easy. Cornette was the funniest man in wrestling at the time, and not so much on the national promos, but when they'd do localized promos, part of his game was to see if he could make Traylor crack up and break character. Cornette would surprise Traylor with something funny, so Traylor would turn his head away from the camera and bite his lip to keep from laughing. A famous story was when they were getting out of a taxi at an arena, the door accidentally slammed on Traylor's hand. Since there were fans there, he had to no-sell it.

 

Cornette would come up with crazy interviews talking about how tough Bubba was and what he'd done, to where it would have been almost impossible for him to live up to the hype, particularly since he only had a handful of matches by that point. One night, they were in a spot show and the Midnight Express was wrestling The New Breed [Sean Royal and Chris Champion], and Champion in a comedy spot, knocked Bubba's hat off. Rhodes had expressed orders that none of the faces were to touch Bubba, being that he was being set up for a program with Rhodes. Traylor didn't know what to do, and Cornette told him, that the Big Bubba character would have no choice but to go in the ring and beat the hell out of both those guys. So he did. Royal and Champion had no idea it was coming. There probably wasn't much they could have done about it, but even so, if they had fought back, Rhodes would have had their hide. Cornette's catch phrase was "Big Bubba. No Trouble," taken from a TV commercial he'd heard for a Bubble-Yum bubble gum, which had the phrase, "Big Bubble. No trouble."

 

His first actual match, after about ten weeks of television build-up, was a TV bout against, of all people, The Warlord on an August 10, 1986, World Wide taping. No chances were taken, as the Midnight Express ran in and they destroyed Warlord in very short order. The angle that got him over, and that was one of the more memorable moments of his career, was when he was abusing some job guys, and finally, Rhodes, came in. and went face-to-face with him. They had done such a great job of pushing the gimmick that the tension was unbelievable. Rhodes then hit Bubba with a chair. The spot was set up where Klondike Bill was supposed to gimmick the chair, and it would splatter on Bubba's head, and he'd calmly no sell it, while Rhodes would back off, something he'd never done, figuring he didn't know what to make of this monster. As it turned out, Bill forgot to gimmick the chair. Nevertheless, Rhodes busted the chair on him, and he no sold it, giving him the reputation in wrestling as a guy who couldn't be hurt. He just adjusted his aht, while Rhodes gave the perfect look of what the hell is this monster, and backed off to the shock of everyone. The feud did immediate big business in most places. He would do TV matches, but Cornette would choreograph spots and moves for him to do. Cornette's idea was he didn't want him doing traditional pro wrestling moves, but tried to come up with ideas based on what he thought a giant man would do in a street fight. Traylor himself came up with the idea of the Bubba Slam, later known as the Bossman slam and the cyclone slam, as his finisher. He debuted it against a job guy, who may have been cult bumptaker Randy Mulkey, who flew so impressively for the move that, before Traylor had ever done a match, he already a finisher.

 

While Bubba never got to beat Rhodes, at Starrcade on November 27, 1986, in Atlanta, he beat Ronnie Garvin in a street fight. He still had so few matches that he hadn't garnered a rep as a worker, and this was considered at the time a amtch that wasn't going to be much, other than Bubba was over and people believed in Garvin as a tough guy, so it would work. While it wasn't smooth, you could see there was going to be more to this guy that similar monsters like One Man Gang or Kamala that were running around. It was also interesting because Garvin was such a tough guy legit that he was really handling the much larger guy, and there wasn't much Bubba could do. Later in the show, Traylor was supposed to catch Cornette as he took a bump off the scaffold in the Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express match. Cornette hung from the top, and let go, and flew right through Bubba's arms and landed on the mat, blowing out his knee. He was screaming at Bubba to carry him to the back, screaming to him, "I'm hurt, and it's a shoot," but Bubba was so green, he just thought Cornette was doing an amazing acting job in the ring.

 

Still, even though his feud with Rhodes was a huge success, once he lost, the aura was done and he was starting to be forgotten about to a degree. Like most monsters of the time who weren't particularly talented, once the babyface slays them, it's all downhill from there. With his huge buildup and limited experience, Traylor was really put in a position of being a flop waiting to happen once he got exposed.

 

"He been a big fan all his life," said Cornette. "He wasn't about to flop. He picked it up fast, understood the gimmick and made it natural to him."

 

While most of the Crockett headliners had big contracts to keep them from going to WWF, since Traylor was in management's eyes, simply a Rhodes creation and not an established star, he was not offered a big money deal. At one point, he was sent to Kansas City, which Crockett tried to turn into a "B" developmental territory, which quickly failed. Then, after Crockett purchased the red-ink-bleeding UWF from Bill Watts in March of 1987, on his first TV taping, Rhodes immediately started destroying what he'd bought. Bubba beat One Man Gang [who later became his tag team partner as the Twin Towers in WWF a few years later] to win the UWF title on April 19, 1987, in Muskogee, OK. At the next taping, Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner won the UWF tag team titles from UWF stars Sting and Rick Steiner. In one fell swoop, Rhodes had proven that Crockett mid-card wrestlers could win UWF world titles. Bubba was meant to be an interim champ, as the only UWF wrestler Rhodes was interested in pushing was Steve Williams, who was the company's top star, but had never won the title. In what was a hell of a match, Williams pinned Bubba on July 11, 1987, in Oklahoma City, with the Oklahoma Stampede [running powerslam] to win the title. They had many rematches. Bubba was a great opponent for the guy Baba wanted to be his tag partner years later, particularly because even at his size, Williams, who was as strong as anyone in the business at that time, would press slam him overhead. After J.J. Dillon was injured in the original War Games on July 4, 1987, at the Omni in Atlanta, Traylor was given his spot, teaming with the Four Horsemen [at the time composed of Rick Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger and Tully Blanchard] against Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, Paul Ellering and the Road warriors, for the main event of a show on July 31, 1987, at the Orange Bowl in Miami that drew 16,000 fans. He worked under a mask as the giant War Machine, and he submitted in the end, and never used the name again, even thought from the one promo, it remains a name used to this day by indie promoters in the Carolinas who grew up as fans. It was a funny story, because he'd been working as champion what was still being called the old UWF territory after the buyout. He was flown to Atlanta to stand there with a mask on and say nothing as this new monster the Horsemen had recruited, even though, by this time, he was an established star, and the guise fooled nobody as people joked he was the Bubba Machine.

 

"He was still a big kid, who was fun to be around," said Cornette. "He'd drive you crazy, but he made me laugh sometimes until my face hurt."

 

Cornette socialized with Traylor outside the ring, as when Traylor started making money, he moved his wife up from Georgia to Charlotte. One time, Cornette and his wife at the time and Traylor and Angie went to a comedy club where the comedian started telling jokes about a big redneck named Bubba. He had no idea who was in the club, but Traylor had a good seat and the comedian looked at him and said, "what's your name" and while the comedian wasn't aware who he was, this was Charlotte in 1987, and the wrestlers were local celebrities and many in the crowd knew him and Cornette. He responded, "Bubba." The comedian turned shades of white and his act was dead.

 

Traylor had weeks he was making only $700 as the UWF territory was dying with the Crockett midcarders as champions. The straw that broke the camel's back, in his mind, was after Crockett abandoned UWF as a separate entity, he was put back together with Cornette, and when he got his payoff for Starrcade 87. He wasn't booked in match on the card to begin with, but was involved in the Midnight Express vs. Rock and Roll Express scaffold match in Chicago. He ended up climbing up to the scaffold and doing some spots with Ricky Morton, although he didn't take a bump off it. The four wrestlers and Cornette were all paid $10,000 for the match, but Traylor was only paid $5,000. That, coupled with the fact Crockett never put him under contract made him feel unappreciated. He won the Observer's Most Improved Wrestler of the year in 1987. While he stayed a few months longer, he never forgot it, and began talking to WWF. After a tour of Japan in April. he started with the company. The WWF had the need to create new characters for people, even when their prior gimmicks were successful. They asked about his background, and he mentioned his job before wrestling, and he was christened the Big Bossman, a heel bully prison guard from cobb County, GA.

 

He worked prelim matches on house shows before his TV debut, on a June 1, 1988, taping at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. His gimmick was, he'd beat the guy, read the guy his rights, and then handcuff him to the ropes and beat on the jobber with a night stick. His first victim was, ironically enough, Louie Spicolli. The way WWF booked in those days is they'd introduce a new big heel, and everyone knew he would be put over strong, with no losses, until being matched up with Hogan, who was not the champion at the time, got beaten on TV with a night stick. Bossman became Hogan's exclusive opponent for months. With Traylor's size, as he was probably about 355 pounds at the time and could move, the in-ring was no question. The question was the promos, since he was totally inexperienced at it from his non-speaking role with Crockett. But he could talk fast, and intense, using the catch phrase, "Serving Hard Times" and ended up being more than able to hold up his end. It was a unique program for Hogan, as his usual m.o. with opponents was to draw well on the first go around in every city, usually doing a DQ type finish, but the return business usually went down significantly. Before long, he was pulling in $12,000 a week, and sometimes even more, working with Hogan. With Bossman it worked in reverse. The original did well, but it was the second and third match in most cities, the cage matches, that did the best. They set record gates for the time with sellouts on February 4 in San Diego, February 19 in St. Louis [selling out the Arena with 18,000 paid and $189,000-breaking the gate set by a Ric Flair vs. Bruiser Brody match and joining only legendary matches like Joe Stetcher vs. Strangler Lewis, Buddy Rogers vs. Bill Longson, Longson vs. Lou Thesz and Ric Flair matches with Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes in the short list of St. Louis Arena sellouts up to that point in time] and March 18 in Boston. They also did the second biggest gate up to that point in history on February 18 in Chicago [behind Wrestlemania II; with 17,900 paying $213,000; the 19,000 in the building was the largest crowd for any event ever up to that time at the Rosemont Horizon] as well as selling out Madison Square Garden on March 18 in their third meeting after drawing a virtual sellout of 19,700 on Novembre 28 for Hogan winning via count out and 14,000 on January 23 where Bossman won via DQ.

 

In Milwaukee, they sold out the Bradley Center twice in a row, doing the second and third biggest gates in city history, behind the County Stadium show headlined by Hogan vs. Andre. The first was for a live NBC special on February 3 which shot the angle for Wrestlemania, as Hogan and Savage beat Bossman and Akeem [One Man Gang], the Twin Towers. This was the match where Hogan and Savage split up over Elizabeth to set up their Wrestlemania V main event. Bossman was the man who, in the ring, carried the 22:00 long bout for his team. The 11.6 rating remains the third highest rated wrestling television show in the U.S. of modern times, and it's safe to say that won't be challenged any time soon. On March 23, they came back with the singles cage match with Hogan and Bossman, and sold out again. After such a big year on top, when it came to Wrestlemania on April 2 at Trump Plaza, he was in the second match, teaming with Akeem to beat the Rockers [Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty], on a 15-match show.

 

After teaming with Akeem [who remained friends with him long after George Gray got out of wrestling, and ironically, Gray a few years back suffered a serious heart attack and now works as a prison guard in Louisiana], managed by Slick for a while, he went babyface after a lengthy period where Bobby Heenan would go on television and continually insult "Bossman's mother." His most memorable feud as a face would have been against The Mountie, with the American prison guard against the heel Canadian played by Jacques Rougeau. The feud climaxed at Summerslam on August 26, 1991, in Madison Square Garden where the loser [Mountie of course] would have to spend a night in a New York prison. He also frequently wrestled his buddy Hennig after he made the turn.

 

"I thought he worked hard," remembered Bret Hart. "I always liked him. He was part of the Southern contingent. He was funny and always laughing a lot. He was fun to ride with and a good guy to have in the dressing room."

 

Hart teamed with him a few times, but remembered most a TV match with the Twin Towers against the Hart Foundation, noting in those days, a lot of wrestlers didn't want to do a lot in television matches, but when they had a chance to work, Traylor was excited about it and suggested all kinds of things to do.

 

By 1993, with his character going nowhere and unhappy when he felt promises of where he was going weren't fulfilled, he quit the company, and in July, got hooked up with Baba. In the 1993 tag team tournament, he and Williams had some strong matches, particularly against eventual winners Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue. They placed fourth, behind those two teams and the duo of Stan Hansen & Baba.

 

After the tournament, with his future in Japan looking to be a lock, WCW offered him guaranteed bigger money to come in for an immediate feud with Rude for the International title, when they needed a star in a hurry to slleviate the loss of Davey Boy Smith in that program. In early 1994, under both The Boss and Guardian Angel names, he worked a pushed program with Vader. When the Guardian Angel gimmick failed, he turned heel on Sting, and went back to Bubba Rogers. Later in the run, he worked under his real name, Ray Traylor. He was just a face in the crowd, in the heel mix in Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom, and later in the overblown version of the NWO. Injuries were catching up to him, and well, it was WCW, and the attitude of him and his friends was that it was one big paid party. Perhaps his highest profile match was when he was handpicked by Hogan to be his challenger for the WCW title in the main event on the very first episode of Nitro. It took place on September 4, 1995, from the Mall of America in Minneapolis. It was nothing like their matches six years earlier, but Traylor worked hard to carry things, and they had a decent match. Hogan kicked out of the Bubba slam, did the superman comeback, and finished him with a legdrop in 7:08. Right after, he went on a WCW tour of New Japan, and was involved in some major matches on big shows, including a singles loss to Keiji Muto, a Yokohama Arena match teaming with Scott Norton and losing to the Hell Raisers [Hawk and Kensuke Sasaki] and Muto & Sting, but beating Hawk & Sting.

 

Traylor always had outside business interests, investing the money he made in the Dallas, GA area that he used for his storage business, "RWT Store All," that he and his wife had operated. He and Rick Steiner also owned a print shop at one point, that many wrestlers, including Mick Foley, regularly went to. Traylor had two daughters, age 11 and 8.

 

Traylor never seemed fully comfortable in his lengthy WCW run with all the different names and guises. People remember when he had to do an interview, he'd be nervous. He'd spend all day memorizing it, and be scared to death to perform it. His career as a major player seemed to have run its course when his contract expired in 1998. However, WWF took him back, and people in WCW were shocked at seeing the guy who was afraid to do promos, on WWFTV in his old character, cutting good promos and comfortably doing crazy angles. While Bossman's work in the ring, due to injuries, was nothing like it was in his first run with the company, his work as a heel character was probably the best of his career. He dropped a lot of weight to take the pressure off his knees and back. His first high-profile match was against Steve Austin in the first round of a WWF title tournament show at the November 15, 1998 Survivor Series in St.Louis. He then formed a heel tag team with Ken Shamrock, working with the New Age Outlaws over the tag titles. They beat the Outlaws for the titles on December 14, 1998, in Tacoma, before losing to Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett on January 25, 1999, in Phoenix. At Wrestlemania 15 on March 28, 1999, he did the forgettable Hell in a Cell match with Undertaker, which was so bad it was eraed from company Hell in the Cell history.

 

It was supposed to be the highest profile match of his career, second from the top, at Wrestlemania, with this "great idea" for a finish worked out. But iwas a disaster. Bossman locked Undertaker to the cage with handcuffs for his heat spot. After a few stick shots, the gimmicked handcuffs broke early. Undertaker then had to pretend to be locked in the position for Bossman to continue the planned long beating, and the match was dead from that point. It was so bad, that even with double juice, the Philadelphia crowd yawned. There were loud boring chants by the end. The Brood [Edge, Christian and Gangrel] dropped a noose through the cage and Undertaker put the noose around Bossman's head. Paul Bearer had a remote control box which lifted the cage. Bossman was being hung as the cage was raised, and acted as if he passed out. The crowd hated that. Instead of concern about this man being hung and should have died, they went right to a video feature and never said another world about it again.

 

He was involved in two of the more tasteless angles of 1999, during the reign of Vince Russo. In the first, he kidnapped Al Snow's dog Pepper. He then went to make up with Snow, and invited him over for a steak dinner. Of course, it was revealed that the "Pepper steak" Snow was eating was that of his own pet dog. They had a long series of matches, including trading the hardcore title, culminating on September 26, 1999, in the infamous Kennel from Hell match at the Charlotte Coliseum. They had a regular cage, and surrounding that, the Hell in a Cell cage. The idea was there were vicious dogs that were going to attack Bossman in between the two cages. A lesson was learned, that you can teach dogs to do high spots, but you can't guarantee the timing of them will be good on television. The first thing that happened was one of the dogs peed on the floor, and it actually got worse from there. The dogs, that were supposed to attack Bossman, instead paid no attention to him and barked at each other. It wasn't long into the match that Jim Ross brought out the bowling shoe reference. When it was over, Ross said it was the first time, "and quite possibly the last time" such a match had taken place. Fans were chanting boring, even with Bossman once again taking the superplex off the top of the cage [somehow, far less memorable than when he did it several times for Hogan], tons of objects being used, Snow bleeding and finally. In an apropos ending, the dogs were supposed to chase Bossman, and he was supposed to have to run for his life to escape. Instead, the dogs paid no attention to Bossman despite their trainers urging them to attack. The Kennel from Hell match was named worst match of the year. The Wrestlemania match placed third. Bossman vs. Snow finished second for worst feud of the year.

 

Then came the first time WWF ever broached the subject of fake death. The angle started when they claimed Big Show's father had cancer. The feud saw Bossman call Show a bastard, and finally, Show's father passed away. The company web site, which usually printed real news, actually printed an obituary for "Paul Wight, Sr.," claiming he had just died of cancer. They filmed the mock funeral, where Bossman showed up in a truck, interrupted the funeral and put a chain around the casket, and drove off with it. Show jumped on the casket to try and keep Bossman from stealing it. This culminated in the December 12, 1999, Armageddon PPV from Fort Lauderdale. Show had won the WWF title a month earlier from HHH, in a three-way that also involved Rock, during a period where they changed the title 11 times in one year. So Bossman was challenging for the belt in the semi-main of a terrible show headlined by HHH vs. Vince. After all the buildup, the match was a disaster, both because the fans didn't buy the angle, and also because the company had no faith in them. Loud boring chants started at the 2:00 mark, and Show went right to the finish, winning with a choke slam in 3:11. It had to be rushed because Vince and HHH needed 30:00 for their horrible main event, made worse because HHH hyperextended his knee when he and Vince were practicing the match that afternoon. While the sight of Show jumping on the casket as Bossman was dragging it away is remember for comedy, almost nobody remembers how badly it was viewed at the time and how fans crapped all over the match coming off it. It was voted worst feud of 1999, and was really his last U.S. high profile match.

 

Bossman and Bull Buchanan were made a tag team in early 2000 with the idea of making the younger Buchanan a star with the rub with an established star. It went nowhere, and he was really out of the mix by the spring. He was riding his Harley in 2002 when he hit a deer, and was banged up pretty bad. He was sent to OVW to train, but that didn't work out either. He was built up for a six-man match on an OVW major show, largely to protect him because his back was so bad by this point, and he ended up ruining his shoulder in the match and needed surgery. He took the death of Hennig, his best friend, in early 2003, hard. Like so many wrestlers seem to do after their time in the spotlight is over and having to deal with losing so many close friends, Traylor had recently turned to religion after meeting with Ted Dibease when Steve Williams booked him on a tour earlier this year with IWA.

 

"I hadn't seen him for a long time when I saw him in January on the IWA tour," Dibease said. "I always thought he was a great guy and a fun guy. He wasn't a trouble maker ever. He worked his gimmick very well. I enjoyed working with him and I had good matches with him. Bobby Fulton and I talked with him about religion. After we talked with him, everyday he was reading his bible on the bus and asking questions. He came to the meeting [the athletes conference in Phoenix this past June] with his wife. I want to believe he accepted religion, but I can't be sure."

 

His final major match, on 8/31, was for the IWA. He worked the tournament Williams was scheduled to win at first, and went to the finals before losing to Jim Duggan in what was a nostalgia tournament where the guys were protected by only having to work 3:00 matches. He had gained a lot of weight since he'd left WWF, but still moved well, but obviously couldn't take much in the way of bumps.