OO Column: Online Onslaught by Rick Scaia (Pro Wrestling News, Analysis, and Commentary... WWE, WWF, WCW, ECW, The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, Rob Van Dam, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler, Divas, RAW, SmackDown, WrestleMania

ONLINE ONSLAUGHT
Dusty Rhodes Passes Away
June 11, 2015

by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OOWrestling.com

Sad news to report today... Dusty Rhodes (real name: Virgil Runnels) passed away this morning, at the age of 69.

Multiple media reports indicate he was hospitalized yesterday morning (June 10) after passing out at his home in Orlando, FL. His condition worsened over the course of the next 24 hours, with the complications from kidney failure eventually proving fatal.

Dusty is on a very short list of guys who pretty much deserves to be in any and every Hall of Fame that has to do with pro wrestling, due to a very rare combination of being the biggest draw as a performer on the biggest stages that existed in his day (national wrestling didn't quite exist yet, but Dusty was the biggest star in the strongest of the territories), and then turning into one of the most influential behind the scenes figures in both of the two major companies in the national era of wrestling.

I can't personally speak to the first aspect of that... due to my age, and the fact that I was a WWF fan growing up, my first real memories of Dusty Rhodes are his polka-dot run in the WWF, from 1989 to 1991. It's safe to say that, though he worked towards the top of cards, against big names like Randy Savage and Ted DiBiase, it was clear that Dusty's prime had passed.

Therefore, I think it'd be pretty unfair of me to try to pawn off my retroactive appreciation for Dusty's work as a performer on you, as if it were some kind of comprehensive and in-depth analysis of his body of work. I came by my knowledge of Dusty's performance excellence the same way most of you did: watching the old tapes, and listening to his peers put him over.

I actually came to my Dusty Appreciation in a round-about way... Ric Flair's WWF run came just after Dusty's, and at a time when I had finally started to realize that the WWF wasn't the only wrestling worth watching (thanks to the Apter Mags and TBS, I FINALLY figured all that out once I got to high school). Then, once Flair went back to WCW, and I moved onto college and discovered the internet, I had been won over by Flair, and wanted to see more of his best work.

Enter tape trading. Through my efforts to watch as much Classic Ric Flair as I could, I kept running into all these big moments featuring Dusty Rhodes. Even if Flair and Dusty weren't involved in the same story (though they often were), there was no such thing as an NWA/Crockett show without both of them in major roles. I started to grasp just how good Dusty was, too. Not just good... but IMPORTANT, in the exact same way that Roddy Piper was in the WWF.

Maybe it's more apt to say in the exact OPPOSITE way as Piper... because in all honesty, Dusty Rhodes was the Hulk Hogan to Flair's Roddy Piper. That's how big he was as a character and as a draw, and if the national explosion had gone just a little differently, Dusty just may have become the breakout mainstream star of wrestling instead of Hogan. His ability to connect with the fans was that profound.

So yeah: I understand all of this, intellectually, even if I did not experience it, first-hand. I won't belabor the point, but instead tell you that the internet is lousy with all kinds of awesome Dusty clips. And if you're on the WWE Network, the Dusty Tribute DVD from 8 years ago is available, on-demand, and it should pretty much be required viewing for any fan who wants to know how pro wrestling got to today the way it did.

I also suspect the Network will pre-empt scheduled programming for a bunch of other Dusty stuff, possibly starting tonight... and I'd be shocked if WWE didn't dedicate a decent chunk of Monday's RAW to Dusty highlights and memories, too. It's too late to do anything besides a quick bumper screen for tonight's SmackDown, but even if you don't make an effort to go out there and check out some classic "American Dream," you'll have it served up for you by WWE over the next couple days, anyway.

But moving past Dusty's days as a performer, the thing I can speak to, more personally, is how influential he's been behind the scenes, and in two totally different ways.

First, he was the head booker for NWA/Crockett in the mid- and late-80s, as that group enjoyed its greatest successes, following the WWF into the national spotlight thanks to TBS. Every major angle/story you remember, that was Dusty. All the signature events and gimmicks -- StarrCade, the Great American Bash, Wargames -- those were all Dusty's ideas. Just as his own status as a top line in-ring performer was starting to taper off, he was coming into his own as one of wrestling's most successfull promoters.

But then, Ted Turner bought out Crockett Promotions... instead of a wrestling company airing on TBS, WCW became a TV company owned by TBS. Dusty did not thrive in this environment, and within a year, he was squeezed out of power.

That's when Dusty jumped over to the WWF, where whatever you say about the polka dots and Sapphire, he still got "The American Dream Boogie" theme music that is awesome in so many ways. It's widely assumed that the booking was Vince McMahon's idea to humiliate Dusty for being the driving force behind his biggest opposition, though in later years, Dusty has tried to smooth that over saying that nobody held a gun to his head, and he welcomed the polka dots with open arms, because it was a chance to stand out and look like no one else on the roster.

Whatever the true source of the polka dots, the fact is that period of time is one of the longer stretches where Dusty wasn't exerting some kind of creative force behind the scenes. For two years, he was just one of the boys, doing as he was told. He might have called in one little favor, as his son Dustin made his TV debut in the wrestling business right at the tail end of Dusty's run (a fact often forgotten, due to the brevity of Dustin's stay), but that would be about it.

Then, as happened numerous times over the course of Turner's 13 year ownership of the company, WCW was in shambles and needed help. The backstage turmoil that directly resulted in Ric Flair leaving WCW and taking their World Title belt with him eventually necessitated a complete shake-up to their booking committee. WCW had no choice but to call the last guy who'd had any success in that position, and Dusty Rhodes was back in charge of WCW again by the end of 1991.

Dusty presided over a period of WCW television that lagged substantially behind the WWF in terms of ratings, but which was largely seen as the superior product, in terms of quality. Sting and Vader tore down the house wherever they went; Rick Rude, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, the Steiners, Steve Austin, Brian Pillman, a young Cactus Jack, and a working agreement with New Japan Pro Wrestling meant the card was loaded from top to bottom with incredible in-ring talent.

Dusty had also completely taken himself out of the mix as an in-ring performer, at this point, though he periodically acted as a manager/mentor (including bringing his son Dustin in, and getting him over as a star in his own right) and did color commentary for WCW Saturday Night (their top TV show, at the time).

But no matter how good the product was, Turner was deadset on beating Vince McMahon... when Vince and Hulk Hogan had a falling out, Turner stopped looking at WCW as a cheap source of TV programming, and decided to put actual money into WCW by signing Hogan. This set off a chain reaction in which the talent roster was diluted by high priced WWF cast-offs, as WCW started trying to out-WWF the WWF.

Dusty never quite found the right formula for mixing the quality in-ring product with the high-priced sizzle, so Turner execs famously gave fledgling WCW executive Eric Bischoff what they thought was just enough rope to hang himself.... figuring a live Monday night show would tank, and Ted Turner would finally be forced to get out of the wrestling business entirely, Bischoff was put in control of the whole company, and WCW Nitro was created.

Though Bischoff was the boss, he was notorious for focusing his attention on just the main storylines (read: the nWo)... so to fill 2 hours of Nitro, then 3 hours, then adding Thunder, he relied on other Wrestling Minds to book the shows, leading to the phenomenon where a lot of fans thought it seemed like there were two WCWs, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Dusty, along with Terry Taylor, kept the lesser WCW (the first hour of Nitro) chugging along nicely, while Bischoff was winging it on the uppercard... the divide was eventually the impetus for guys like Jericho, Big Show, and the Radicalz to jump to the WWF.

But I digress. After the initial nWo boom subsided, and WCW was once again in shambles, they decided to go after Vince Russo as their next creative savior. In the turnover around this time, Dusty decided to get out of dodge, and finally began the final phase of his influential career: getting the next generation of talents ready.

He started by making a run in ECW, doing his damnedest to "make" Steve Corino, by putting him over in a series of matches.

He took that role to a whole new level when he left TNA and opened up Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, in Georgia. A combo wrestling school/indy promotion, TCW trained a whole new crop of wrestlers, and gave them a chance to work small shows a couple times per month alongside bigger names with connections to Dusty. A lot of guys who were training at the WCW Power Plant moved over to Dusty's TCW, and the combination of young guys and visiting legends resulted in a 2 year run of successful major house shows and a weekly TV show.

In 2004, however, WWE set up a developmental program of its own, based in Georgia (Deep South Wrestling), and Dusty didn't believe he could compete. He wound up accepting a job with TNA Wrestling, very early in its existence, and in addition to an onscreen figurehead role, he had a hand in picking and grooming the young talents who would form the foundation of that promotion. But TNA struggled to pick an identity and stick with it, so in one of the shake-ups meant to make TNA "less southern," Dusty was squeezed out of power, and quietly sat out the rest of his contract.

As soon as allowed, he joined WWE on a legends contract so that production of a DVD about his career could be produced (that's the DVD I mentioned above)... but in addition to that, Dusty began sitting in to provide comments for other DVDs, and quickly made an impression on the front office: his knack for wrestling and explaining the importance of the past were as keen as ever, and he was moved from the Legends Contract to a role as Creative Consultant.

He had input on the creative team any time he was in Stamford to shoot DVD footage, or do a new Legends Roundtable special (I also highly recommend those, on-demand from the WWE Network, if you haven't watched them), or whatever, and started taking a more hands-on role with WWE's developmental system, which had started floundering under Johnny Ace, but which started getting back on track once Triple H began overseeing things in 2011.

Once NXT finally evolved into what it is today, Dusty was a regular fixture at the Performance Center in Orlando, helping WWE's up and comers when it came to matters of character and ring psychology. The outpouring of support from the NXT guys and gals really illustrates how much Dusty had stepped up and embraced his role as a mentor over the past few years.

On screen, Dusty kept showing up, like other Legends do, for various anniversary or Old School events... but his last major performance in a storyline was a really good one, as he was at ringside for an awesome and red hot match in which his sons, Dustin and Cody, beat the Shield in a handicap match in order to save all of their jobs (including Dusty's job at NXT). It was just a little 2-3 week story arc in late 2013, but it was a truly compelling feelgood moment.

Dusty's last little cameo was 4 months ago, when he briefly implored Cody and Dustin to stick together (it didn't work). Fittingly, WWE's last major event before Dusty's death featured his fingerprints in a big time way: the Elimination Chamber event climaxed with a proverbial "Dusty Finish." One of Dusty's favorite tricks during his 80s run as booker, the idea is to give fans the rush of thinking the babyface won a big match, only to have the decision reversed in controversial manner. Done correctly, it can help ease the babyface's move up into a bigger spot while generating nuclear heat on the heel.

Needless to say, OO thought the Dusty Finish with Ambrose and Rollins was done VERY well, which is as fitting a way I can think of to wrap things up here.

Countless fans are no doubt missing The Dream on this dark day, but surely not as much as his friends and family (including Cody and Dustin). OO's thoughts are with all of them, and here's hoping that by the time Monday rolls around, we'll be past the worst of the sadness, and maybe even be ready to get funky like a monkey, babay... Dusty Rhodes and Good Times went hand in hand, and I'm pretty sure he'd be pissed if we didn't have a big ol' party to remember him.

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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH. He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.