- 03/07/2016 (2:30:16 pm)
- Bob Mulrenin
…
Ray Traylor Jr. was never supposed to be a professional wrestling star. An actual prison guard in Cobb County, Georgia, he decided to give the business a try in his early 20s and spent nearly half his life inside the squared circle, winning over fans worldwide as the legendary Big Boss Man. Traylor's next stop will be the WWE Hall of Fame, which CBS Sports learned Monday he will be posthumously inducted into on April 2, the night before WrestleMania 32, in Dallas.
If the best professional wrestling characters are merely an extension of their real-life selves, Boss Man's enshrinement is a long time coming. But Traylor did not simply jump from his days enforcing the law in a correctional facility into the beloved Boss Man role; he got a hand from a legend who propelled him on a path he could never have expected.
Like most wrestlers, Traylor's career began on the independent circuit where he was seen simply as a jobber, a no-name who could be thrown into matches as a squash victory for a top-level or mid-card performer. It was not until Dusty Rhodes took Traylor by the hand and molded him into a complete wrestler that Traylor eventually caught the eye of Vince McMahon, owner of what was then known as the World Wrestling Federation.
McMahon, learning of Traylor's prior job, created Big Boss Man, a blue-collar prison guard from Cobb County who wore a standard issue short sleeve blue button-down shirt and black trousers to the ring, carrying a nightstick in his right hand and a set of handcuffs in his pocket. (Those handcuffs would often be used to attach opponents to the ring ropes while Boss Man inflicted damage with his nightstick to the dismay of the crowd.)
Boss Man drew crowd reaction from the start as a performer who actually spoke to the average Joe in the audience. Most likely never expected Boss Man to be more than a mid-card body; after all, a working-class prison guard with a Southern drawl, pot belly and crew cut was not the typical WWF superstar of the day. McMahon saw him as more than that.
An early feud with Hulk Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage brought Boss Man right to the front of the WWF card as he saw great success at the onset of his career as a heel tag team wrestler. Under the management of Slick, Boss Man teamed up with Akeem, The African Dream, to form The Twin Towers. And though Boss Man would never capture the tag team gold, The Twin Towers feuded with and defeated some of the biggest names in the business, including The Mega Powers (Hogan/Savage), Demolition and The Rockers (Shawn Michaels/Marty Jannetty).
Boss Man was so accepted by fans that he broke out as a singles performer, going head-to-head with Hogan as a headliner in the late 1980s. The duo often competed in steel cage matches that earned critical praise and astonished fans, including one during Saturday Night's Main Event on May 27, 1989, that featured a suplex off the top of the cage that had simply not been seen before in the industry.
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