Joey Janela has become the latest name to take aim at Bully Ray, adding to a social media feud that grew out of the WWE Hall of Famer’s recent comments about Jon Moxley.
The back-and-forth began when Bully Ray, speaking on Busted Open Radio, was critical of Moxley and the Death Riders, calling Moxley a “fraud” and saying he would “beat the living s***” out of him. That prompted a response from MMA veteran Josh Barnett, who offered to fight Bully, an exchange previously covered on WrestlingNews.co.
Bully Ray has continued to trade posts with Barnett on X. In one reply, he told Barnett he could handle himself and fight his own battles, and offered to “put you over” in a way that “would make ya ass legendary.” After Barnett suggested fans would pay to see the two fight, Bully responded that Barnett had “interjected yourself into something that was none of your business,” adding, “I have never mentioned your name in a negative way. My name is Mark, you should stop acting like one.”
Janela then entered the conversation: “There’s no bigger fraud on the Jersey Shore than 54-year-old Bubba Dudley,” Janela wrote, claiming Bully spends Sundays at a Jersey Shore club “buying groups of 22 year old girls shots” and telling fans who approach him to “f*** off.” He tagged Bully directly and added, “Here you go, tough guy.”
In follow-up posts, Janela recounted meeting Bully as a 21-year-old indie wrestler, claiming Bully told him to buy him a drink or “f*** off,” and brushed him off even after he bought him a shot.
Janela also made a serious allegation about a past match. He claimed that during a spot involving a flaming table, Bully used too much lighter fluid and did not let it dissipate, leaving Janela with what he described as near-third-degree burns. Janela further alleged that Bully did not check on him afterward and reacted dismissively when he said he was going to the hospital. By contrast, Janela said Matt Cardona checked in on him every day following the incident.
The claims are Janela’s account and have not been independently verified. As of the posts captured, Bully Ray’s replies on X had been directed at Barnett rather than Janela.
Janela’s comments echo criticism Bully Ray has faced before. His best-known issue was with Randy Orton, stemming from a house show match around 2008 in which Orton was injured. In a 2008 interview, Orton called Bubba Ray, as Bully was then known, “the most out of shape, fat, non-work-ethic-having person” he knew, and the feud reignited during a 2017 Twitter exchange over independent wrestling, when Orton mocked him as “an old outta shape ‘vet’ …….falling”. Dave Batista leveled similar criticism in his autobiography, Batista Unleashed, writing that Bully never checked on the injured Orton and accusing him of throwing his weight around and treating younger talent poorly, an account that, like Janela’s, included a claim that Bully did not check on an injured colleague.
Orton and Bully Ray later reconciled, however. In 2024, Bully said the two had “squashed all of our issues” and no longer wanted to speak ill of one another.
