Author: Big Boss Man (real name Ray Traylor) went from being used as an enhancement talent with only a handful of matches under his belt to feuding with the NWA and WWE’s top stars as The Big Boss Man within just a few years. His was a career defined by showing up and putting in the work.
Outside the ring, his life appeared fairly normal. But, sadly, tragedy would find him while recovering from two terrible losses.
Ray Traylor: Before Becoming The Big Boss Man
Ray Traylor was at Jim Crockett Promotions to do the job. That was it.
His career was just starting, and he was being used underneath on the NWA’s flagship TV show.
Booker Dusty Rhodes, maybe feeling a little mischievous that day, took a look at the 6-foot, 6-inch Traylor and booked him against NWA World TV Champion Tully Blanchard for the taping.
Did you know? Big Boss Man is the second WWE Hall of Famer trained by Ted Allen. The other? The Enforcer” Arn Anderson.
Blanchard, 5-feet, 10-inches tall on his best day, used a slingshot suplex as his finisher. It required two parts to be effective.
One, Blanchard had to successfully hoist his opponent thigh-first onto the top rope; and second, the opponent would have to rebound into the suplex.
They had the match, and when it was time for the finish, Traylor floated up, rebounded from the top rope, and went over onto his back perfectly. He started to think of believable ways he could beat the big man.
“I can take it,” Traylor told him, meaning he could execute the move, and so they stuck with the suplex as the finish. When the finish came, Traylor did it flawlessly and took the pin by the world TV champion.
What started as a rib on Tully Blanchard opened some eyes at Jim Crockett Promotions. Specifically, Traylor’s ability and size caught Rhodes’ attention, who promptly took the big man off TV for 12 weeks.
When he returned, he was wearing a suit, sunglasses, and a fedora and acting as Jim Cornette’s bodyguard.
Dusty saw that and said ‘I’m gonna do something with that boy,'” Jim Cornette told Steve Austin during an episode of Steve Austin’s podcast.
He wasn’t Ray Traylor, a good ol’ boy from Marietta, Georgia, anymore. Now he was Big Bubba Rogers.
Bubba didn’t talk, which was good. Traylor had a naturally high-pitched voice in real life, and Jim Cornette could talk enough for seven people as it was. So Bubba stood around and looked menacing. He could do that, for sure.
As Cornette’s Midnight Express feuded with the James Boys (Rhodes and Magnum TA under masks), Rogers was a silent predator whose issues with the American Dream began to grow on a personal level, which would lead to a feud between the two.
Less than a year in the business, Ray Traylor was feuding with one of the top four draws in the country (behind Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Ric Flair). It was like something out of a Horatio Alger novel.
As Big Bubba Rogers, Traylor would face Rhodes in a series of bunkhouse stampede matches. The blowoff to the feud was a steel cage match, which Rhodes won.
No-Selling Dusty Rhodes
But most people don’t remember the matches. They remember a moment that caused Dusty Rhodes some consternation on national television.
During an angle between Cornette and Baby Doll, Traylor inserted himself into the action.
Rhodes ran in to save Baby Doll and promptly smashed a wooden chair over Traylor’s head. The chair exploded — but it didn’t even knock Traylor’s hat all the way off.
Traylor never sold the chair shot. He calmly began taking off his coat and tie, getting ready to fight, until Magnum TA ran in with a pair of shovels, and Cornette pulled his bodyguard away.
After the angle, Cornette congratulated agent Klondike Bill, who was supposed to gimmick the chair so that it would break easier. Bill looked at Cornette in horror and said, “Oh s***. I forgot!”
Traylor took the full brunt of the un-gimmicked chair and no-sold it because he was supposed to. Rhodes was building him up as a monster who felt no pain, who was unstoppable.
And Traylor’s commitment to kayfabe sometimes came back to bite him.
Once, approaching a show at The Omni in Atlanta, he, Cornette, and the Midnight Express rolled up to the venue in a cab. The driver accidentally shut Traylor’s hand in the door.
Calmly — or at least as calmly as he could — Traylor said, “Hey, brother. The door. Hey, brother, the door.”
The cab driver screamed, “Your hand!” and opened the door. Traylor put his hand in his coat pocket, grabbed his bag with his other hand, and marched into The Omni with Cornette behind him, asking if he was all right.
Traylor didn’t scream until the doors closed.
“My God, why didn’t you sell that?” Cornette recalls asking Traylor.
“I couldn’t, Jimmy,” Traylor replied. “The fans were watching!”
Becoming The Big Boss Man
Ray Traylor would eventually leave the NWA for the WWF/E.
Vince McMahon christened him The Big Boss Man, nightstick in tow, playing on Traylor’s former career as a prison guard in Cobb County, Georgia.
As a heel as Big Boss Man, Traylor was put into an immediate feud with Hulk Hogan, which drew huge house show numbers across the country.
Traylor was more than just a big man, and in WWF/E, he got a chance to prove it. He was quick as a cat and agile to boot.
He had size, he had a presence, and despite his grizzled, veteran look, he was still young.
In the fall of 1990, Boss Man would feud with Bobby Heenan and Heenan Family after Heenan continually insulted Boss Man’s mother.
He teamed with Akeem the African Dream (AKA One Man Gang) in a storyline to form the Twin Towers, the team against whom the Mega Powers (Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage) would finally implode.
Traylor would move on to high-profile singles feuds with The Mountie (Jacques Rougeau) in a notable Jailhouse Match at SummerSlam ’91 and Nailz (Kevin Wacholz).
Fun fact: Before coming to the WWF/E, Ray Traylor (as Big Bubba Rogers) defeated his soon-to-be tag team partner, Akeem (as One Man Gang), for the UWF Heavyweight Title.
Attitude Era Big Boss Man
After an unremarkable return stint at WCW, where he went through multiple gimmicks (The Big Boss Man, The Guardian Angel, and finally Big Bubba Rogers again) and feuding with the nWo, seeking managerial support from Ted DiBiase, Traylor returned to the World Wrestling Federation, where he’d had his biggest success.
He spent the Attitude Era feuding with the likes of John Tenta and Al Snow, including the infamous Kennel in a Cell match, which was voted the Worst Worked Match of 1999 by the Wrestling Observer. (And as much as we love Big Boss Man around these parts, it was a shoo-in for that award.)
The feud, ostensibly over becoming Hardcore Champion, took a weirdly gruesome turn. I’ll let Wikipedia tell you about it:
“… In the WWF’s Hardcore division, Big Boss Man’s major feud was with Al Snow, a feud that eventually involved Snow’s pet chihuahua, Pepper.
“At SummerSlam, the two had a Falls Count Anywhere match that spilled into the backstage area, the street, and, finally, into a nearby bar.
“Just prior to the match, Snow had set Pepper’s pet carrier near the entranceway. Minutes into the match, Boss Man picked it up, taunted Pepper, struck Snow with the carrier, and carelessly tossed it behind him.
“Commentator Jim Ross immediately apologized to viewers for the act and stated that Pepper had been removed from the box before the match.
“Two weeks later, Boss Man kidnapped and ransomed Pepper, arranging a meeting in which he fed Snow a meat dish supposedly made from Pepper’s remains.
“The two settled their feud in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven, in which a blue solid steel cage surrounded the ring itself and ringside surrounded by the chain-link fenced “cell.”
“The object of the match was to escape from the cage and the cell while avoiding “attack dogs” (which turned out to be disappointingly docile) positioned outside the ring.
“Snow won the match and retained the Hardcore title, which had been returned to him by Davey Boy Smith, who had defeated Boss Man for it.
Boss Man would later win back the Hardcore title in a triple threat match involving Al Snow and The Big Show, and would hold it until January 2000, when he lost it to Test.
But despite that weirdness (or maybe because of it, who knows?), Traylor eventually ascended to the main event again, this time feuding with Big Show over the WWE title.
It also led to this memorable moment involving a casket at Big Show’s father’s funeral.
While Traylor never won the big title, he had the size and ability to work with the giant and put on credible performances.
The Attitude Era was good to the Big Boss Man, as he feuded with Undertaker (infamously being “hung” after a Hell in the Cell match) and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Eventually, he was assigned to OVW to help train young talent.
In 2003, he was released, though he stayed on good terms with the company.
Even though his career was inarguably a success, it’s important to remember Ray Traylor, the man, too.
“He was a nice guy,” Cornette recalled to Austin. “He was fun to be around. He had a great sense of humor, and he was into the business without being markish.”
The Tragic Death of Big Boss Man
In May of 2002, The Big Boss Man Ray Traylor sustained a serious injury after hitting a deer on his Harley-Davidson.
While still recovering from the accident, his close friend Curt Hennig (Mr. Perfect) passed away. This was a terrible loss for Traylor.
In July 2004, Traylor ran for Commission Chairman for Paulding County, Georgia. He had been living in Paulding County for some time and had organized/attended a public memorial ceremony on September 11th, 2001, and 2004 for the victims of 9/11.
He was also the owner of a Dallas, Georgia storage company called RWT Enterprises.
On September 22nd, 2004, at around 9:00 a.m., Ray Traylor suffered a massive heart attack in his Dallas, Georgia home.
Local authorities were called to his house later that evening but were unable to revive him. He was 41 years old. His mother had passed away a little over a month before.
He left behind his wife, Angela, his childhood sweetheart, and two daughters, Lacy and Megan.
Even as recently as the day before his passing, he was filming a commercial for a hunting business, and life seemed fairly normal.
The Big Boss Man was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a part of the 2016 class.
These stories may also interest you:
- Curt Hennig – Better Than Perfect
- Rick Rude – More Than Ravishing
- Brian Pillman: How He Worked the Workers and Made Himself a Superstar
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