Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (38 page)

In 2000, I came across Dusty’s then-brand new web site and noticed that the webmaster, Clyde Sherman, was looking for anyone that had pictures of Dusty that he could use for the web site. I contacted Clyde and told him what a huge fan I was of Dusty and that I had some pictures for him to use and offered to help any way I could. During the course of our conversations, Clyde mentioned a wrestling show coming up in Rome, Georgia, and that I should come and check it out. He said I could show up early and meet Dusty! Without any consideration, I immediately decided that I was going to drive over 1,400 miles to Rome, Georgia, and meet Dusty Rhodes! I grabbed everything I had for Dusty to sign and hit the road. I met Clyde at the venue and he introduced me to Dusty. I went to shake his hand and Dusty pulled me in and gave me a big hug and thanked me for coming down! Here I am meeting my all-time ultimate hero and he’s thanking me! He gave me a couple of T-shirts and told me to go get whatever I wanted him to sign. We sat down and talked while he was signing my stuff and he was telling the stories behind some of my memorabilia.

After that, he slapped an all-access pass on my shirt and put me to work setting up chairs. The whole Turnbuckle crew treated me like family, almost as if they knew how significant this was for me. It was truly one of the greatest highlights of my life.

About a year later, I went back down for another show in Carrollton, Georgia. Since then, I’ve seen him several times at shows and fan conventions in Philly. It is amazing that he always remembers me when I go up to him.

So were my expectations exceeded? I’ll put it this way, if the first time I met Dusty at Tower Records was the only time, it would have been fine with me, but to have lived the experience of actually laughing, talking, and listening to stories from the man who was so influential throughout my life was an incredibly significant moment. That is why I am, and always will be Dusty Rhodes #1 fan, bar none!

Now if that hasn’t convinced you, try my Top Ten List:

10. I have an entire wall dedicated to all the Dusty memorabilia I’ve collected and had signed by Dusty over the years.

9. I submitted photos from my collection for Dusty’s first website and had the honor of being asked to give ideas for and to be a part of The Dusty Rhodes Fan Club.

8. I’m an official Dustyism translator.

7. I actually saw Dusty’s Stanback commercials when they first aired.

6. I was once restrained by security at an ECW show for climbing over the rail to save Dusty from being jumped. [What can I say? I’m still a mark]

5. I drove over 1,400 miles from DE to GA twice to see Dusty.

4. Dusty’s agent contacted me to work Dusty’s merchandise table at a show in Philly.

3. The picture of Dusty and me is on my living room mantle along with our wedding and other family photos. [Married guys or guys who live with a woman should understand why this is noteworthy].

2. I stuck with him through the polka-dot years.

1. Two words: “Paradise Park” [Only a real fan knows what that is].

Isn’t that something else? You have no idea how it makes me feel to know that I affected so many people across such a wide scope in so many different ways.

Like that old television show used to say, there are a million stories in the naked city, and these ten each had their own unique quality to me that set them apart from all the others.

Like I’ve said before, if not for you, my fans, “The American Dream,” Dusty Rhodes would not have come into being.

So, thanks again for letting me live “the American Dream” by being “The American Dream.”

C
HAPTER
17

B
eing able to change is not what they call “the flow of the book.” But fuck the flow of the book; Johnny Cash is dead. I remember when he died … man, it’s hard to say this, but his impact on me when I was a child was even more than Elvis. When I was older, we traveled many nights on the road together.

It was around 5 a.m. and I was leaving Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for Oklahoma City after one of those all-night wrestling-type parties. With no sleep, still being half-drunk and taking speed to stay awake, I hit the road and was driving somewhere through Mississippi on a backwoods road. It was about 11 a.m. I was on a winding road through cotton-pickin’ U.S.A.; fields of white balls on both sides of the road, black men and women bent over with cotton sacks on their back.

On the radio, or maybe the eight-track tape player—if you don’t know what an eight-track is, ask someone older than 35, because you won’t know what I am talking about—was the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire.” It was blasting as loud as could be as both my windows were down because my air-conditioner was not working and it was already about a hundred degrees outside.

“Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire…”

Half asleep, I lost control of my car and suddenly found myself speeding wildly through the cotton fields … men, women and children were running
away; shear pandemonium at hand … the look of horror on their faces and the panic on mine … finally coming to a stop as the dust, cotton and heat filled my car. I can close my eyes and I still hear “Ring of Fire” playing so loud; the stillness of the area in the aftermath was almost deafening.

“I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher.
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire”

—Johnny Cash “Ring of Fire

I made sure everyone was all right; I climbed back up on Johnny’s back and headed for Oklahoma City! All I can remember was thinking, “How many of those haul working cotton pickers realized that ‘The American Dream,’ Dusty Rhodes, just visited their work site?”

I know you’ve walked through the light, Johnny. So long, my old friend.

When I think back on the business, I always go back to the road because that’s where I’ve spent most of my life. Even now, when driving in my car, sometimes I’ll listen to Johnny, but most of the time I’ll listen to Willie Nelson or if it’s in the morning, I’ll listen to one of my favorite radio personalities, Don Imus. I spent a lot of time on the road listening to Don and he’s a great thinker, when you get past all the crap and silliness. If they ever asked me who I would want as a manager in the wrestling business, I’d have to say that it would be Imus, but back in the era of Woodstock, when he would be in a stupor, because that was my era too.

But, of all the places I’ve been, and I’ve said this a lot to you fans and to the people who covered me through the years, Florida is that place that brought me to the dance. So when I think back on my career, I reflect back on that era in Tampa, because that is where the majority of the people were, who’ve touched me and touched our industry back then. You have to remember, back then there were no Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or Tampa Bay Devil Rays, wrestling was the only game in town, produced by the Godfather of the region, Eddie Graham and Championship Wrestling from Florida.

Tuesday nights were when I held court and I held it at the Imperial Lounge Room where Yolie and Doc Castellano were the owners. That was
the happening place. It was after the matches at the Armory on Tuesday nights and the old country stars would come in there … the country boys. Captain Lewis, my bro, my posse, led the house band and we would go there and we’d hold court. A lot of really great stories came out of there like the attack by Terry Funk that I talked about earlier, but I remember Doc and his wife so fondly as we would eat Sunday dinner over their house—Cuban beans and rice. As a matter of fact, Michelle’s and my first meeting came at the Imperial Lounge after the matches.

It’s a lot of great memories, and when I talk about Tampa, I can’t help reflecting back about how the legendary newspaperman Tom McEwen of the
Tampa Tribune
, an icon of his own industry, covered the sport of wrestling for Eddie there like it was a real sport; because that’s what it was to us! Andy Hardy, another Bay-area icon at Channel 13, covered us on the local news, and then there was “Salty” Saul Fleischmann, the local sportscaster way back then, who’d give the results from the matches at the Armory on TV … the Armory back then was as I called it, the Madison Square Garden of the south.

Everybody who was anybody in our industry wrestled at the Fort Homer W. Hesterly Armory on Howard Avenue in Tampa except for the ultimate sports entertainer of our era, yellow finger himself, Hulk Hogan. That was one of his dreams, to wrestle there. But he sure as shit saw plenty of matches there involving me, Sullivan, Matsuda, Eddie … he saw us all … and he took it all in. The Macho Man, Randy Savage was there too, as a frequent visitor who watched the matches. So those were great times.

I had my posse as we talked about, but my leaders were the old statesmen of the industry who, just like the Mafia consigliore—who you would go to confide with and seek their wisdom and advice—Henry Gonzalez, still my attorney today, was one of the most famous attorneys in the entire world.

Somebody who is really dear to me in some of things he said about me, George Steinbrenner, is a guy who is, to me, the greatest sports figure in the history of sports, even more than the figures of the NFL like Pete Rozelle and those guys. George is also the most powerful owner of the most recognizable property in all of sports, my favorite team, of course as you know, the New York Yankees. He was a guy who came to the Armory, came to the Sun Dome, and despite his larger-than-life persona, would always be inconspicuous. He would sit and watch the matches and he loved it. And I always respected that about him because he could have easily overshadowed
us, but he didn’t, because he supported me so much, and the times that we’d talk, it was an unbelievable experience for me. I always called him “the Boss” as he was and is just that, “the Boss” … not a bigger sports figure in our era, and I’m talking about every aspect of sports. The fact that I can call him a friend is really cool.

The fact Steinbrenner was friends with many of my friends was also cool. One of those friends was Father Laurence Higgins, who later received the title of Monsignor. When he became Monsignor Higgins, it was like he had gotten this award, and I didn’t know where he got it from. I still don’t know what they do to go from being a father to a monsignor, how they go from being at a Willie Nelson concert with me drinking the wine that goes to the church out of the back of a car. I don’t know where they get that from, but when he became a monsignor, that was a big deal, because he got pictures of him and the Pope together.

I think about him every day, not a day goes by where he doesn’t come into my thoughts. I remember one time asking him for a favor, when he was going to Rome to visit the Pope, and I think he and the Pope were on like an “I’ll call you on the cell phone”–type basis. He had the Pope’s number on speed dial. I guess he would say, “Hey Pope, it’s me, Monsignor Higgins, what’s going on?” Well, we had this big picnic called the “Rhodes Picnic,” which he was a part of; he came out. I knew he was going to Rome and I wanted him to take the Pope a T-shirt, one of my Dusty Rhodes T-shirts! In my head, I was imagining this scene—as egotistical as I am—where the Pope comes out on the balcony in Vatican City, looking over the vast sea of people … thousands standing below like they usually do, and he has his white robe on … and he just rips open the robe and there it is … he’s wearing a black “Rhodes Picnic” T-shirt that Monsignor Higgins gave him from me. So when I knew that wasn’t gonna fly, I asked Monsignor Higgins to wear it underneath his deal and then bring it back to me … this way it’d be close to me and God and all of those things. I don’t know who gave him that award, but I know God gave it to him, so it’s really cool with me. I don’t think anybody is as close to God as Monsignor Higgins, and I think that’s why he’s continuously on my mind, in my thoughts. Reflecting back on him was so important.

And when I talk about my posse and everybody else who was involved in it, I’ve got to talk about the guys who were just part of that whole experience. Dick Slater to me was one of the great performers in our industry, and he was
a big bud of mine back then and he was part of everything that was going on and that Imperial Lounge. I think about Miami too, not just Tampa, and I think about “Peanut” and Judy; they were two of my biggest fans, still to this day two of my biggest fans … and they were fans when fans were fans, man! They were just cool about everything.

I reflect back to Bobby Jack—big Black Jack Mulligan—who’s one of my closest friends and somebody I love so dearly. Watching that big bastard do things was unbelievable, and I remember back on some of those times and smile.

I remember the times when the Bucs first played in the NFL and won their first game. Chelle and I were sitting in the owners box with Hugh Culverhouse when they won their first game ever! Doug Williams was the fucking quarterback.

All of those things that happened in Yeehaw Junction, like the time I pulled into this gas station and there was Arlo Guthrie’s tour bus and I saw two legs sticking out from underneath and I said, “Arlo?” and he said, “Dream?” and I said, “Where the fuck is your bus driver?” and he said, “You’re looking at him. I’m the bus driver, the mechanic, and the singer. …”