He Wined and Dined with Kings and Queens: Goodbye, Dusty

The last couple days, and I’m sure perhaps in the days to come, we’ll read a lot about “The American Dream,” Dusty Rhodes. Rightfully so, I might add. On June 11, 2015, we all found out that we had lost our beloved legend. That there’d be no more “baybeh,” no more Bionic Elbow, no more Dusty.

The reaction amongst my group of friends was one first of shock, and then of complete sadness. Honestly, not since Macho Man’s passing can I remember seeing such a unified front of sadness. Warrior had his detractors for things he said, but Dusty? Dusty was universally loved, and it’s become quite apparent to me in these last 24 hours.

So, while I’d love to write an in-depth report about the latest in Lucha Underground, or Ring of Honor, or TNA, or WWE… I just can’t. Not today. Not this week. This week is for Dusty.

I can’t lie, and I won’t lie: as a kid, I thought Dusty Rhodes, to be polite, kinda sucked. Born in 1981, I was slowly raised on a diet of Hulkamania and the rest of the WWF’s muscleheads. I grew up watching World Class and the rock solid Von Erichs. I was used to seeing guys that looked like they would wreck you, and then they’d go out there and wreck the opponent.

Hell, even in the NWA, I saw guys like Magnum TA, Nikita Koloff, Ric Flair and, later on Sting. These guys looked like wrestlers. They acted like wrestlers. But Dusty Rhodes? To my silly little kid brain, Dusty was just a fat dude with a splotch on his belly that sounded like he was having an asthma attack every time he spoke. I didn’t hate Dusty exactly, but that was more due to the people he was wrestling against, or the people with whom he teamed. For some reason, however, Dusty was the one with the World Championship, or the US Title, or the guy winning the Bunkhouse Stampede matches.

See, without any history, Dusty seemed, if I may, way too common to be a wrestler, let alone this world beating machine that could make Ric Flair seem ordinary, or who would try to act like he was the reason his team with Sting was successful.

But one day, I noticed that he wasn’t showing up on NWA television anymore, and I kinda missed him. I still had my Stings and Lugers and such, but something just didn’t seem right with the NWA with Dusty missing.

And then, one day, while watching WWF, I saw a video with Dusty in it!

It seemed so weird at the time. He’s an NWA guy! What’s he doing here?! Still, I watched as he entered into feuds with the Honky Tonk Man, and the Big Boss Man, and in those feuds, Dusty slowly began to win me over. Of course, the fact that he had one of the greatest entrance themes in WWE history probably had something to do with it, too. Regardless, something finally clicked with me and Dusty Rhodes, and I would consider myself a fan of his from that point on.

His WWF run was fun, but it certainly wasn’t what you’d expect to see from a multiple time world heavyweight champion. Even his feud with Randy Savage, which could have been amazing, was hampered by having their biggest matches on the biggest stages get hampered. At WrestleMania VI, instead of a straight up Savage vs. Dusty match, we got the mixed tag that included Sapphire and Sensational Sherri. Man, that match is really sad to think about now, but it’s nice to know that they’re recreating it somewhere better than here.

At SummerSlam 1990, again Dusty and Savage were set to do battle, but instead, we got Ted DiBiase revealing that he had bought Sapphire, destroying Dusty’s psyche. The match itself would only last a little over a couple minutes, with Dusty trying to keep it together, before Savage clocked him with Sherri’s purse for the win.

Dusty would move on to feud with Ted DiBiase for the rest of 1990- captaining the team against which The Undertaker would make his debut- before leaving the WWF after the 1991 Royal Rumble. That final match also lives forever as the match where Virgil, after having enough of DiBiase himself, finally turned on him after the match.

He would return to WCW, where he’d be a booker, a manager to Ron Simmons, and eventually, a color commentator. It was at the booth where Dusty really hooked me as a fan for life.

See, at the booth, Dusty was free. He was free to call any match in any way he felt comfortable, and that was usually by reverting to a drunk redneck hooting and hollering. And you know what? This California kid loved it. It was so genuine. He wasn’t pretending that things were only okay when his favorites did them, and he didn’t spend too much time arguing with his co-hosts. Dusty was there to make chaos seem fun, and he did it in spades.

But there was more to the chaotic fun he brought to his commentary, at least for me personally. For me, my favorite part was how Dusty would add little details to things to make wrestling seem all the more legitimate. “The Pay Windah,” for example, was one of my favorite things to think about when I was a kid. I had, of course, wondered how wrestlers got paid. Were they given checks like normal people? Handed cash depending on if they won or lost? Who paid them, exactly? But Dusty gave me a place I could imagine: two lines, one for winners, one for losers. The winners get more, and celebrate as they’re paid, while the losers begrudgingly take whatever low payoff they’ve earned for the night.. I always thought it was such a neat addition that Dusty brought to the commentary table.

After a few years, however, Dusty would return to his “Texas Outlaw” roots, and would join the nWo, turning his back on WCW. It wasn’t the greatest heel turn ever, but for me, seeing Dusty as a heel was a shock. Yeah, with the benefit of history, I now know that he wasn’t always a clean cut babyface, but at the time, I was completely shocked by this turn. And he showed that he could still cut a heel promo if need be.

And really, for me, that’s where Dusty will live forever. His promos. Whether he was talking about Hard Times, or whether he was begging his son to team with him, or whether he was trying to rally his boys against the Shield, or whether he was trying to get his boys to get along instead of fight, Dusty knew how to strike the right chord. He truly knew the people. He knew how to make us laugh, how to make us angry, and how to make us cry, and he could do it in a way that never felt contrived.

For me, that’s the biggest thing I’m going to miss about Dusty Rhodes: he was genuine. You felt what he was saying, because you felt like he felt it. He knew how to make anything that he was a part of seem like it was the most important part of the show.

As a kid who didn’t think much of Dusty at the start, the respect that I have for him now is a testament to just how truly great he was. The sadness I feel knowing that we’ll never hear that voice again is very real.

In honor of Dusty, we’ll bypass the usual closing, and just end it with some more good times with the man himself. Thank you for everything, Dusty. We will love you forever.