The Big Boss Man shaped the old WWE days – and also the later stars in a way not known to everyone. Today, 20 years ago, he died much too early.
In the 80s, he was Hulk Hogan’s rival, and in the Attitude Era, he was Stone Cold Steve Austin’s opponent. Wrestling fans of the early 90s, when the boom spilled over from the US to Germany, remember him as the crowd favorite of the WWF at the time. In the new millennium, he was a teacher for the later superstars John Cena and Brock Lesnar.
Raymond “Ray” Traylor, best known as Big Boss Man, was a wrestling star who left his mark on three WWE generations – and also made his mark on his former rival WCW and in Japan. He was never the biggest star wherever he entered the wrestling ring, but he was always a striking figure who was positively remembered – by fans and colleagues alike.
But the packed wrestling life ended abruptly and much too early: On September 22, 2004, the future WWE Hall of Famer died at the age of just 41, the cause of death was heart problems.
The WWF brought him in as an opponent for Hulk Hogan
In the eighties, the former prison guard – born on May 2, 1963 in Marietta, Georgia – was discovered for wrestling. In the WCW predecessor league Jim Crockett Promotions, the legendary Dusty Rhodes was the first to recognize the great potential in the agile heavyweight: He wrote the bodyguard character “Big Bubba Rogers” for him and built him up as a rival for himself.
After a stint in AJPW in Japan, where he partnered with the late Bruiser Brody, WWF boss Vince McMahon hired him for a role similar to Crockett’s: Traylor’s professional background allowed the WWF to create the role of an evil law enforcement officer who handcuffed his opponents to the ring and beat them with a baton.
The Boss Man was set up as a rival for superstar Hogan, whom he challenged for the WWF title in a steel cage match in 1989. The Boss Man also had a big match with his partner Akeem (team name: The Twin Towers) against the “Dream Team” of Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage (“The Mega Powers”) – which was the vehicle for the highly publicized break between Hogan and Savage and their subsequent feud.
In the nineties, the Boss Man switched from the villain to the hero role. With his distinctive theme “Hard Times”, he was henceforth the good law enforcer and fought the colorful villains of the era: the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Mr. Perfect (a good friend of his behind the scenes) with manager Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, Nailz and the Mountie (Jacques Rougeau).
The latter was his opponent in what is arguably the Boss Man’s most famous fight: at the 1991 SummerSlam, he defeated the loudmouthed French-Canadian in a “Jailhouse Match,” thereby ensuring that he had to spend a night in jail.
Brock Lesnar and John Cena learned from him
In 1993, the Boss Man left the WWF and went back to Japan, where he shared the ring with Far East legends such as Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi in various tag team duels – and where his own, often underestimated talent was better suited to the ring than in the USA.
He then moved to WCW, where he appeared as “The Boss”, “Guardian Angel” and again as Big Bubba, as well as under his real name, and was also a member of the revolutionary New World Order around Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
From 1998, the WWF cast him again for a bigger role: as the enforcer of Boss McMahon in his feuds against Steve Austin, who was then rising to become a super-character. As a core member of McMahon’s “Team Corporate”, he was also the antithesis of the similarly popular D-Generation X, and he was an integral part of the often trashy but popular “Hardcore Division”.
In 2000, the Boss Man also got another title feud against the then champion Big Show – which, however, was remembered as a clumsy faux pas: it was built on tasteless comments and actions against Big Show’s deceased father. Also a typical lustful transgression of this WWE era: the feud with Al Snow, in which the Boss Man supposedly killed Snow’s dog “Pepper” and served it to him as steak.
In his last years with WWE, the Boss Man played an increasingly minor role, but passed on his experience to the younger generation as a veteran and, in the end, as a trainer. Lesnar often toured with the Boss Man in his earlier career years and later described him as a mentor who helped him learn the basics of the business.
One of his partners in the last match the Boss Man fought in 2002 for the then WWE development league OVW was the masked “Mr. P” aka “The Prototype” – who later made it big under his real name John Cena.
Fatal heart attack in 2004
The Boss Man – described by colleagues as very affable and rather shy – led a scandal-free life outside the ring, was married to his childhood sweetheart Angela when his career ended, and made his money from real estate and a storage company.
On September 22, 2004, he died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack while visiting family. According to his family, Traylor had not complained about health problems before, except for the usual pain from physical exertion and as a result of a motorcycle accident in 2002.
The Wrestling Observer reported that Traylor had a problem with painkiller use, but unlike many of his contemporaries, he was not associated with steroid abuse – his weight issues and stressful life “on the road” are more likely to have had a negative impact on his health. “Ray Traylor was a good guy, but he wasn’t necessarily a health nut,” wrote fellow WWE star Jim Duggan in his autobiography.
The Boss Man left behind two daughters, who, together with their mother, accepted the WWE’s posthumous Hall of Fame honor for the Boss Man in 2016.