Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (37 page)

However, to a kid growing up during that time, Dusty looked and acted cool. No wrestler was even close to Dusty’s big-time Texas style; big stars on the wrestling boots, red, white and blue jacket and tights, bushy blonde hair, an Apple Jack hat and preaching about “the American Dream.” I loved hearing his “jive” talk and telling fans WHAT he was going to do an opponent, BEFORE a match, and then actually DOING IT during the match.

For those of us that were childhood wrestling fans back in the
‘
70s and early
‘
80s, Dusty Rhodes was Muhammad Ali, Evil Knievel and Bruce Lee all wrapped up into one. Dusty’s matches were classic “old school” and what pro wrestling should always be —two guys either settling a score or the stories of competition, the eternal quest for the championship. No matter what it was, Dusty Rhodes was the guy you needed to see get the best of Ric Flair or any of the major heels of the time. No one, as I remember, rooted for the “bad guy” when Dusty was in the ring.

I have been a wrestling fan since 1967. There aren’t many times that I can remember crying during a wrestling show, but two events quickly come to mind:

Whenever Dusty talked about “the best day of his life being also the worst day of his life,” referring to his father dying on the same day that his son, Dustin was born. You could always hear the hurt AND the pride every time he referred to this. I’ve always thought about how hard that must be to live with and how there must not be a day that goes by where he doesn’t think about it. It is one of those things that you just have to hear.

When Dusty gave an emotional speech to his son Dustin about “being your own man” and “being the best” and if you end up always being a “follower,” how “the view never changes.” Anytime I might be feeling low, I pull out the tape and watch this interview. I know that was real because my own father has given me the same speech many, many times. It is one of those rare moments where you could see the true passion and the feeling between father and son.

Dusty Rhodes always made me feel good about being a pro wrestling fan. This was at a time when you couldn’t talk about being a fan Professional Wrestling even in CASUAL situations. These were the days when most people weren’t sure whether wrestling was real or fake. Because of Dusty, I didn’t care what people thought of professional wrestling, I remain a fan even to this day.

Go back and look at some of the old NWA tapes and look at the crowd response during a Dusty match. No matter who the opponent was, whether it was when the Andersons turned on him during the match with the Assassins, Dusty winning his NWA titles or the Barry Windham heel turn, Dusty made it real for everyone watching. He made you believe.

“The American Dream” was a concept that I had heard many times during my life, and damn it, America is STILL the greatest country on Earth. Going to work, making a living for your family and having time to enjoy yourself IS “the American Dream.” During his career, Dusty Rhodes has embodied that spirit and all that it entails.

Dusty Rhodes is truly the most charismatic wrestler that has ever lived. No one has combined telling a story during a match in the ring in combination with real life personal events like Dusty has. For me, it has been 30 years of seeing Dusty during his many, many high points and his times of “pain, blues and agony.”

I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. Thanks, Big Dust.

4. Allen L. Kelso. Amarillo, Texas

I started watching wrestling at a very early age. My parents hated it and always said it was not real, but Dusty Rhodes was MORE REAL to me than anyone in any type of sports. He would fight anyone at anytime in any place. I was always the little skinny kid, but when I turned on the TV and saw Dusty kicking ass and taking names, I knew you didn’t have to be a huge, muscle-bound giant to be the very best at whatever you wanted to do in life.

As I grew older I lost track of wrestling for a few years because of fast cars and running around after the ladies. But in 1985 I joined the U.S. Army as a military policeman and I once again started watching wrestling. Once again it was Dusty and he was one hundred percent “The American Dream” fighting for everything he was worth against the evil force of the Four Horsemen.

When I was not deployed to different places around the world, I was stuck to the NWA watching Rhodes fight off Ric Flair and the other Horsemen. In 1989 I got to go to Starrcade with my wife who was seven months pregnant with my daughter. I would be leaving for Europe in a few months and my wife got me the tickets for Christmas. I got to shake Dusty’s hand as he was leaving the ring covered in his own blood and I have the tape of us sitting three rows back and loving every minute of the action.

Now I am out of the Army living back in Amarillo, Texas, and I have achieved a “Dream” of my own. Still not the biggest guy in the area, but I have a great job and an even better family. I have only been back home for 11 months now, but I have been lucky enough to be part of a local wrestling promotion as a manager and I only hope to be able to put on a show here and one day have one of the kids at ringside see us and say, “Even though I am not the biggest one around, if they can do what they do every week, then I also have a very good shot in life.” One day I hope to work a show where Dusty is booked on the very same card.

Thank you, Dusty, for all the great memories!

3. Jeff Lumpkin. Huntsville, Texas

Why I’m Dream’s biggest fan? Um, how to even start? I was a chunky kid, kind of athletic, but so shy. … I had come to believe that you had to have a great body to be popular or be an athlete.

That all changed for me in the early
‘
70s. I had started watching Houston Wrestling with Paul Boesch every Saturday night. One night Bad Leroy Brown was fighting Killer Karl Krupp and was in the midst of the claw hold, when down the aisle came a man with blonde curly hair and a stove top hat with a chicken foot on it … not an Adonis by any means, but even at that early age I knew he was electric

He got on the house mic and said, “Mr. Promoter play it one more time,” and they started playing Brown’s music and he came alive … someone else came down to help Krupp and soon the man I later learned was Dusty Rhodes, came in and helped clean house with the “Bionic Elbow” and a charisma I’d never before or since. The next thing I saw was an interview with the “man of the hour, too sweet to be sour, the tower of power” … and by God, the “Son of a Plumber” from Austin Texas … and who could ever forget the million-dollar smile?

I was hooked from then on and developed a new self-image that propelled me to be very popular in high school … watching every week on Houston Wrestling, Mid-south, Atlanta and WCW … through his feuds with the Sheik, Abdullah the Butcher, the Four Horsemen, and a hundred others. To pick one favorite moment would be tough, but if put to the task I believe it would be back in Mid-South after Dusty lost a loser leaves town match and then came the first promo for the Midnight Rider. I marked out, as they say, so bad that I could hardly breathe.

But in truth “The American Dream” has given me so many moments in the last 30-plus years that I can’t pick one, but can only hope that I can relay in my own little way how grateful I am that Virgil Runnels became my hero, Dusty Rhodes “The American Dream” and helped me see how much more I could be.

Thanks Dusty, and God bless you.

2. Greg Fiske. Homestead, Florida

For a wrestling fan growing up in New York in 1980, there was one hour of WWWF wrestling a week at midnight. At that point, the only exposure to the wrestling world outside of New York came from the wrestling magazines.

The wrestling magazines loved Dusty and painted a picture of him being a gritty, gutsy competitor who seemed to win against all odds. Dusty was a New York favorite, primarily for his run at “Superstar” Billy Graham’s title reign in 1977. After his WWWF stint, Dusty would appear at Madison Square Garden once a year or on special occasions.

Unfortunately, I became a fan of wrestling at a time in between one of his Madison Square Garden appearances. So, all I really knew of Dusty was from the bloody pictures and romantic articles in
Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

I was a regular at the monthly Monday night Garden cards and at some point in 1981 it was announced that Dusty was going to make a guest appearance against King Kong Angelo Mosca. I was pretty psyched because this was my first chance to see “The American Dream” live.

When I got to the Garden on the night of the event, I noticed from the program that Dusty’s match was last. Back in those days, they would put the World Title match in the middle of the card and not at the end. On this night I am fairly sure that there were two big main event matches with Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales that would go on before Dusty’s match, so it was almost guaranteed that the crowd would be burned out and ready to go home by the time Dusty faced Mosca.

I have to laugh, because this is the funniest part of the story. Halfway through the show, I got really sick. I started to run a fever and have really bad stomach cramps. By the main event I had gone to the bathroom seven times with diarrhea. I was feeling really bad. I had some sort of stomach virus or flu; however, I waited and waited because I wanted to see Dusty.

Finally, at 10:40 p.m., King Kong Mosca entered the ring and grabbed the microphone and yelled, “Dusty Rhodes get your big fat ass out here.” Dusty came prancing out and jumped in the ring and the crowd went nuts. It was amazing because the crowd had already seen a few other big matches, but they gladly stayed until the end and were going nuts for Dusty. This formula would never work today, because everyone is patterned on going home after the so-called main event.

I momentarily forgot about my situation and jumped up and down for Dusty. Unfortunately I forgot about everything and had an accident in my pants. It was horrible. You can imagine the subway ride home.

Soon after this incident, cable television brought WTBS to where I lived and I saw Dusty every week. Years later, I moved to Florida and actually became a professional wrestler for a short period of time.

Dusty, thanks again for the memories!

1. Frank Ginocchio. Wilmington, Delaware

When people meet one of their heroes, they’re always concerned about either the person or the experience living up to their expectations. I can wholeheartedly say that whatever expectations or hopes of meeting Dusty Rhodes I may have ever had were definitely exceeded! The magical part of it all is that I never thought it would happen.

I have been a fan of Dusty Rhodes for 29 years. I was eight years old when I first saw Dusty wrestle. It was 1976 on TV and I have been a fan of his from then to this very day. I saw Dusty wrestle “Superstar” Billy Graham in a bull rope match at the Philadelphia Spectrum from the second row. It was one of the most memorable matches I’ve ever seen. Every time Dusty would get the upper hand on Graham, there was a thunderous roar and when Dusty was down, the crowd stomped so loudly I thought the roof was caving in.

Then around 1979, we started to get the Superstation TBS and I saw Dusty on Georgia Championship Wrestling. I was glued to the TV every Saturday night from 6:05 to 8:05.

I grew up in a lower middle-class neighborhood. I was 11 years old and pretty insecure and the more I saw Dusty on TV and how he carried himself, he made me feel better about myself and I started to gain more confidence. Dusty was the good guy, the hero that thwarted evil. When he got knocked down, he got right back up and eventually prevailed, and oh boy, could he talk. He was the common man, the plumber’s son, and the simple unassuming man that just wanted what was rightfully his and fought long and hard to get it and keep it. I totally related to this on a personal level. Whatever Dusty was selling, I was buying every bit of it. He made me truly believe that I could be somebody if I kept trying. He was my role model growing up. If he did something, like winning the NWA belt, I believed I could achieve my goals. Now that’s much more powerful than being told to say my prayers and take my vitamins.

In 1996, I finally realized my childhood dream of meeting Dusty at a WCW promotional event at Tower Records near Philly. I brought my camera and some pictures in the hopes that he would sign them and take a picture with me. As I was waiting in line I kept thinking about what I would say to him when I got there. I swore I wouldn’t do the cliché “Hey, I’m a longtime fan!” I got up there, showed him the pictures and he signed them and stood for a picture with me but I was so nervous, the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Hey Dusty, I’ve been fan of yours for over 20 years!”