"Disrespect of the Rhodes"

22 September 2016

This year, Wrestlemania hit its 32nd annual event while the Royal Rumble and Summerslam their 28th. However 2017 will mark another special landmark event-the 30th year of disrespecting the Rhodes family. That’s right, thirty years of insulting, disrespecting and undermining the legacy of one of the greatest wrestling families of the past few generations. For some reason the powers that be in WWE enjoyed taking pot shots at the legendary Dusty Rhodes for large parts of his career and for some reason continued to do the same to his sons. Now what I’ve said so far isn’t exactly new information for most fans, in fact, most fans would tend to agree with the narrative I’m painting but I’m aiming to not change that picture-I’m aiming to highlight just how outrageous things have been and how the WWE on many occasions has done nothing short of bullying.

It all begins in 1987. Dusty Rhodes would not only have an incredible feud with The Four Horsemen but also be PWI’s most popular wrestler of the year for a third time. Dusty at this stage had been both a wrestler and booker for Jim Crockett Promotions which was under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. Rhodes was experiencing highs like no other following his famous “hard times” promo from two years prior and had been a firm fan favourite as a blue collar hero. Despite being involved with booking and wrestling, Dusty didn’t always push himself as the focal point during this period. Naturally in the height of his popularity in 85 he was booked in the main event of that years Starrcade but in both 86 and now in 87 he stepped out of the main event and instead allowed others that spotlight (that’s not saying he didn’t have a pivotal role still). JCP and the NWA were competitors to Vince McMahon’s WWF at this time and Dusty was one of the big faces opposing him, so how does 1987 mark the start of the disrespect?

Dusty Rhodes on his way out in 1987

Well, 1987’s WWF saw the emergence of not only a manager and valet but a “wrestling superstar” in Virgil. It was Bobby Heenan who suggested that the valet of Ted DiBiase be called Virgil as a shot at Dusty Rhodes (whose real name was Virgil Runnels). This provided those at stamford with a laugh amongst themselves and a delusion that in their world, one of the crown jewels of the NWA was only good enough to carry the bags of the WWF’s Million Dollar Man (or that no matter how popular Dusty was, he was always second place to Ted Turner). I’m aware of how ridiculous all that sounds (believe me it’s even odder writing that down), but the fact of the matter is that to certain high up officials in the company this was a hilarious jab. While there were accusations that TL Hopper’s run in 1996 was another shot at Dusty Rhodes it seems far more certain that the drastic transformation of One Man Gang in 1988 into Akeem was a sure fire jab. With Rhodes unavailable to the WWF Akeem stepped into the fold parodying Dusty’s mannerisms and exaggerating them to the point of absurdity. Presented as a brawler who can go in the ring but was a bit of a babbling idiot-it hardly painted a positive picture...which makes Dusty’s decision to join the World Wrestling Federation in 1989 even more unbelievable.

Dusty Rhodes in his infamous WWF attire

The debut of Dusty in WWF is bizarrely memorable. When you think of Rhodes you can’t help but hear “He’s just a common man” and the rest of the American Dream’s theme song, but this is a piece of music that was used for only 2 years of his entire career. That theme comes to mind but the humiliating plumbing vignettes where he fixed toilets or the fact that he was made come out in giant yellow polka dots often get brushed aside. It’s part of a revisionist narrative WWE has created over the past few years but I’m getting ahead of myself.In 89 arguably the most charismatic wrestlers and progressive bookers finally joined the WWF, Rhodes’ reward was to be stripped of what made him so popular, stick him in some embarrassing gear andgive him a valet to distract some focus. Sapphire would accompany Rhodes to the ring and be the "common

woman” to his “common man”. This would usually just mean she’d walk down and look a bit awkward before joining him in a dance post match. In his two year stint Dusty really only had two feuds, one with Randy “Macho King” Savage and the other with the parody of his former employer-Ted DiBiase. Both are largely forgettable in terms of quality programming but there’s some interesting tidbits with these two feuds. Rhodes and Savage would feud into Wrestlemania VI where they would face off...in a mixed tag match. Here we have Randy Savage, who one year prior was in the main event of Wrestlemania V as a result of being WWF champion for over a year and Dusty Rhodes, who had been one of the biggest players of the NWA for the past few years, meeting in a throwaway mixed tag match with their valets. It’s hard to work out who really got the worse deal here, perhaps there was too much a fear of the two men outshining the rest of the roster (though interestingly Akeem and Virgil were both in higher marquee matches on this card).

Match promo photo

the 1991 Royal Rumble

match

As for Rhodes and DiBiase’s feud, well it marked the end of Sapphire’s association with Dusty in 1990 (at Summerslam, where Savage and Rhodes were booked to have a 2 minute singles match) and resulted in a tag match at the Royal Rumble in 91 where DiBiase and Virgil would face Dusty and the debuting Dustin Rhodes-later to be known as Goldust. Now aside from those little bits of information...there really isn’t much to say about Dusty in WWF. If you look at all the great footage they show of his careers retrospective, it’s mostly stuff from his NWA/WCW days with the exception of him dancing in some hideous polka dots. The truth of the matter is that he was brought in to hurt NWA/WCW and it certainly seems that if he could be discredited a bit at the same time then that would be a plus. During the 18 months he was at the WWF, WCW did experience some problems at the top and come January 91, he was in a position to come back in at the top of the booking committee. Dusty was aware of how beneficial that position could be (not just for him but perhaps for his son entering the business now too), and jumped ship back to WCW without hesitation. Perhaps if he hadn’t experienced 18 months of misuse he might have been convinced to stay (though even then, I can’t possibly see how he could save Wrestlemania VII’s card). Even when he was gone from the company though the old jokes would come back and when the WWF couldn’t humiliate Dusty themselves, they’d dig out new “clever” ways to make fun of him by having Bruce Prichard for example portray “Reo Rodgers” a few times on television and completely rip of Dusty.

For the time being, this is where Dusty’s abuse comes to a halt but this is purely because with his son Dustin-there was an entirely new kid on the playground to pick on.

A still from the "King of the Road" match at Uncensored 1995

Following his very brief stint in WWF, Dustin returned to WCW for a four year period and was treated respectfully by entering a feud with Larry Zbyszko shortly on his arrival. “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes would then team up with Barry Windham and later Ricky Steamboat before capturing the Tag Titles. In 93 Dustin would would face his former partner Steamboat for the United States championship and capture his first major singles title. He would go on to drop and recapture the title before eventually losing it to Steve Austin at Starrcade 93. Admittedly, 94 wasn’t as strong a year for Dustin with 95 being very rough.During a match at Uncensored 95 between himself and The Blacktop Bully (Demolition Smash), both men bladed during their their infamously awkward “King of the Road” match. At the

time, WCW had a strict policy of no blood on events and as such, both men were released by the company following this match. Probably the most confusing part of this story is that the match itself was taped days in advance to airing on the PPV, so if the issue had been so strong surely they could have reshot it? Either way, this left the 26 year old Dustin in a difficult position. He knew that for at least two years WCW would want nothing to do with him and as such, his options of working in a major promotion in North America had suffered a large blow. Vince McMahon smells opportunity and more importantly, recognized the advantage he had.

Goldust and then wife Terri

For some perspective, Dustin had married Terri in 1993 and together they had a daughter in 1994. In 1995, the idea of becoming a wrestler overseas in a time before Skype or even mobile phones being common place was absurd, in many ways it’s a different world. It’s understandable then that when Dustin received the call from Vince to come back to the WWF that he would jump at the opportunity, Vince however has always been one to deliver payback-in this case, for walking out on him 4 years prior. During their phone conversation Dustin agreed to the character of Goldust in principle, though has admitted that it had only been described as “an androgynous” character, a term Dustin did not understand. His relationship with his father was going through hardship and wanted to get out of the Atlanta area, had a newborn child to provide for but most of all...had no other option. Whatever Vince McMahon offered, he simply had to take it. The result as we all know now is that “The Natural”, became “The Bizarre One”. The career of Goldust is well documented, it’s one of the most famous characters of the 90s by now but there’s no denying that at this time, it was an insulting character to play. From Jerry Lawler actually calling him a “faggot” on Monday Night Raw (something that the company has done a fantastic job of sweeping under the rug in recent years), to suggesting Dustin get actual breast implants to get across the “bizarre”

nature of the character-this is hardly the gimmick befitting of somebody you have respect for as a wrestler or even an employee.

"The artist formally known as Goldust"

Things only became more troublesome when Goldust’s wife came to tv as his manager. During their real life divorce, Terri would be put in the group Pretty Mean Sisters (an all female faction that “cleverly” spelled PMS) before being paired on-screen with other men. As if insulting Dustin with the gimmick of Goldust wasn’t enough, his wife being dragged into things seemed to be needed too. Moving down the years the character would develop tourette’s, become obsessed with Booker T and leading to the tag team “Bookdust” (an angle which was just reused in 2016 for his team with R-Truth-”The Golden Truth”). He may have held Intercontinental gold and been a 3 time tag champion in the company...but the fact of the matter is that Dustin went from accolades such as Wrestling Observer’s Rookie of the Year in 89, Most Improved in 91 and having a 5 star rated match in 92 to Worst Gimmick in 95 and 97, and winning the award for Most Embarrassing Wrestler in 1997. Once again, a Rhodes had been turned from a serious and well liked wrestler into a sideshow joke. Yes, Goldust has been an iconic character through the years-but if it had simply been just the face-paint without the many years of degrading and humiliating moments then perhaps he could have been so much more. It goes without saying that if you can get such an awful character and gimmick over to any extent, one can only wonder what he could have done given an actual opportunity.

Speaking of potential being wasted...we move onto the third family member who always seemed to have the brass ring lifted away from them right before they were about to grab it.

Cody holding gold in OVW

Cody Rhodes began wrestling in June 2006 for Ohio Valley Wrestling. During his year long run there the 21 year old accomplished much in the famous promotion which at this point had transitioned to a WWE developmental centre. In one year Cody became only the fourth Triple Crown Champion (behind the likes of CM Punk and Idol Stevens/Damien Sandow/Aaron Rex). An impressive start to a career to say the least, it seemed as though Cody Rhodes was a star in the making-sadly he ended as the star nobody wanted but I’m getting ahead of myself. Cody would make his debut against Randy Orton on Monday Night Raw in July of 2007 with his father Dusty in his corner. While the match itself was short it was highly functional, presenting Cody as a babyface and getting the crowd behind him. Despite losing, Cody got some good offence in and teased the shock upset victory with a top rope missile dropkick. He would spend the majority of the rest of the year along side Hardcore Holly in a mentor-mentee tag team before ultimately closing the year by picking up the World Tag Team Championships. Always seeming a mismatch though, Rhodes would turn his back on Hardcore and align himself instead with newcomer Ted DiBiase Jr and form the tag team “Priceless” before quickly becoming the faction “Legacy” with Randy Orton.

During the run of Legacy from 2008-Wrestlemania XXVI in 2010, Cody was treated as a bit of an afterthought. While the core faction members consisted of Orton, Cody and Ted, others would come and go with it being clear that the plan was always for Ted to be the breakout star of the faction. To be fair, at this period of his career, Ted was the right choice for this. He certainly appeared to be the complete package in the making but Cody would often be booked as the weaker link of the faction to protect him. Despite two long years of forging Cody and Ted as breakout stars from this faction however, the stable broke up at Wrestlemania XXVI with Randy Orton picking up the win by punting Rhodes and hitting the RKO on DiBiase before pinning him. Just like that, the image of them being no more as lackeys was burned into a lot of people's minds and for Ted Jr, it would be something he could never escape sadly. As for Cody, well he would be subjected to being a pick in the supplemental draft of 2010 meaning he

From left to right, Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton and Ted DiBiase Jr, The Legacy

wasn’t deemed interesting enough to be announced to a brand show on television.

Now an afterthought, Cody reinvented himself twice on Smackdown during the next few years. “Dashing” Cody Rhodes was a modern take on a narcissist gimmick with many promos and vignettes about grooming advice, while “Undashing” Cody Rhodes was almost a phantom of the opera/doctor doom style look for Cody. After Rey Mysterio broke Cody’s nose, Cody took to wearing a protective mask and deemed himself “Undashing”. With more venom in his offence, Cody quickly climbed the ladder of WWE and shortly after defeating Mysterio at Wrestlemania XXVII, he won his first Intercontinental championship in August of 2011. As Intercontinental Champion, Rhodes was booked largely well. As a heel, he’d cheat to win where needed but still had a semi-flashy offence that got him a lot of attention from fans. He reigned as champion for nearly 240 days before dropping the title to Big Show at Wrestlemania XXVIII only to win it back again on the next PPV...then drop it again at the following PPV to Christian. A strange summer for Rhodes, he came off his Intercontinental reigns and quickly began fading into obscurity during 2012. Luckily for Rhodes though, he found himself a saviour.

"Undashing" Cody Rhodes, the original "Broken" one

Team Rhodes Scholars

When he was “Dashing”, Cody had a short spell in a tag team with Drew McIntyre (Galloway) as champions which didn’t really do much to further either man’s career. However, what was lacking in that partnership absolutely was not with the team of Rhodes and Damien Sandow. “Team Rhodes Scholars” (which honestly is just a great name), a year long run together and gelled perfectly with one another. The arrogant Rhodes with the intellectually superior Sandow made not only for entertaining segments but great tag team wrestling too. Despite never winning the gold, they remained focal points of programming for over a year before arriving at Money in the Bank 2013. Cody was the favourite to win the World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank contract match that year with many people, myself included, thinking that there were no more dues left for him to pay and that he was finally going to be given a ball to run

with after 7 years in the company. Shockingly, it would be Sandow who would win the match by turning on Rhodes to win the briefcase. The reaction to this was perfect, Sandow was established as a bonafide heel and Cody sky rocketed to an upper midcard babyface. The two feuded and everyone eagerly awaited both men to have their moments of glory. Moments that would never come. Sandow would fail to cash in his briefcase against John Cena and never look a serious threat again and as for Rhodes...well…

To take a moment and add some further context to all this I’d just like to inject a few personal points here. The insults to Dusty and Dustin had been clear to anyone. On air jabs, embarrassing clothing and gimmicks-it was plain to see. For this generation of fans with Cody, they had seen him as a rookie, as a tag champion, as an intercontinental champion and in this moment in time he was a prime candidate for something big. Cody has himself admitted that after his IC loss at Wrestlemania XXVIII that his father told him to leave the company but Cody stayed out of loyalty.

“I know he would have supported it because he told me to ask for my release after WrestleMania 28… I waited until WrestleMania 32 to take his advice. At 28, I recalled particularly, he was unhappy with the direction things were going with me and Big Show, and he just thought that I was so close to the keys to the kingdom, and they were slipping away, that maybe leaving would wake them to the idea that this is somebody who wanted to captain your ship and the way you guys are treating him has pushed him out. But it seemed at the time like kind of a leopard’s play, so it just didn’t interest me. I wanted to stick it out, and I always tried to not take Pop’s advice, because he’s my dad, so the advice always came from that part of his heart, not the businessman part of his mind, but his heart, and actually at the end of my WWE career, he was right that I should have made that decision maybe a little sooner.”

Dusty and Stephanie having a heated, unscripted, moment on Raw

September 2013, Cody on screen loses his job after a match with Randy Orton. The real life reason for this was due to him actually getting married to his wife Brandi Rhodes but onscreen it was used as a storyline powermove by HHH to showcase his authority. During this period, on the 30/9/13 edition of Raw, Dusty was chewed out backstage after cutting accross Stephanie McMahon live on television. He cut her off by holding has hand over her mouth to “shush” her which was deemed crossing a line. Now I understand that Dusty was brought in to do a simple job, but this is a man who spent his entire career building heated rivalries on family and on pride. It also got a huge reaction from the crowd so honestly I can’t see what this man really did wrong. It would later emerge, according to Dave Meltzer, that

“Stephanie was supposed to bury Dusty during his segmenton RAW a couple of weeks ago, but Dusty kept interrupting and talking when he was supposed to be quiet”. Trying to keep your character alive and strong apparently is just reason to get chewed out by management these days.

Regardless of this, an angle emerges out with the return of Goldust alongside Dusty, all fighting for the Rhodes name and led to a match between The Rhodes family (Cody and Goldust) vs Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins of The Shield, to win their jobs back. After the win on PPV and with momentum riding high, the two would capture the titles from The Shield in October. They would hold the belts for only 2 months before dropping them to The New Age Outlaws at the Royal Rumble (for anyone who’s tried to forget this, yes, the Outlaws won gold in 2014), with Goldust accidentally eliminating his brother from the Rumble match itself on the same night. The stage was set for a fantastic brother vs brother match at Wrestlemania that year, so naturally we got nothing like it. Instead of the logical booking of a split between the two and a match on the “grandest stage of them all” when they were both white hot, the company decided it was best for them to put them in the inaugural André the Giant memorial battle royal after having a losing streak. Interest was dwindling and about to disappear entirely.

Emotional scenes as the Rhodes family are reinstated

In June of 2014, Cody Rhodes would end their losing streak by coming to the ring as Stardust. There’s really not much to say, it was a character nobody asked for, nobody wanted (Cody included) and undermined now 8 years of Cody Rhodes fighting his way up the card. Demoted to throwaway tag matches, the two would continue to pair up until February of 2015 when Cody would turn on his brother leading to a throwaway match at Fastlane-ending their feud weeks before Wrestlemania. Stardust would feature in that years ladder match match for the Intercontinental championship but would never be taken as a serious threat and spent the majority of his remaining days floating around doing nothing. He did manage to rope in Arrow’s Steven Amell for a match on PPV but other than that it was a low point for the once promising career of Cody Rhodes. After years of hard work he was demoted to being a knock off of his brother. The man himself can put it better than anyone.

“Listen, I didn’t like the idea of Stardust but once it’s handed to you, that’s your job. That was my job and I wanted to create something, I did not want to get roped into being Goldust-lite. I thought I had my own nice dichotomy between the personality of my brother and myself, so I wanted to make it something different and we kind of lurched towards the super-villain route.” He may have tried to be different but it was an unavoidable comparison. Cody would eventually ask for his release in 2016 after having months of ideas turned down repeatedly.

Despite his best efforts, the Stardust gimmick just never gained steam and woudn up being a killer for Cody's run in WWE.

Fastforward to today, 22/9/16, and the disrespect of the Rhodes family continues. Goldust is still present on WWE programming in a horrible angle with R-Truth as the tag team “The Golden Truth”. Though at his age Goldust is probably just happy to be still in a ring and getting a nice paycheck to retire on, I can’t hold it against him but he’s in a horrible situation. Cody’s wife has this week signed for TNA under the name Brandi Rhodes, but Cody (who may be about to debut on TNA himself) is legally still not cleared to use the Rhodes name. His father’s legacy is denied to him due to WWE having a copyright on “Cody Rhodes”. It’s a sad state of affairs but I do just want to touch on one final disrespectful thing the company has done in their time and I want to end on it because I’m sure it’s a rather controversial opinion.

Above: Cody's wife Brandi continuing the Rhodes name and pushing it into the world of women's wreslting

Below: Scenes at the Dusty Tag Team Classic

Posthumously, WWE aired a touching tribute package to Dusty Rhodes and honoured his life nicely. The footage, mostly from NWA/WCW, highlighted the in ring work he was capable of while throwing in a few shots of his stint in WWE. Many people from the roster came out in tribute to him as Dusty spent a lot of time with a large amount of them in the developmental ground of NXT, some refer to themselves to this day as “Dusty’s kids”. It was touching and it was a fitting tribute to a man who deserved to be acknowledged for all his work. However, the WWE in my mind completely threw all that good work out the window when 4 months later they held the “Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic” (something which has not been brought back this year). The claim was that it was a tribute to him and his work with his sons making a speech and awarding

a trophy to the winners, but personally, I’ve felt like it was no more than a cash in, an angle, a way to make viewers want to tune in and watch the product. Perhaps if this had been an annual event then it wouldn’t been so bad but here we are, 11 months on and it’s been dropped. Dusty got the recognition he deserved for his career only at the very end of it and once he had passed he was presented as somebody who had always meant so much to the company who treated him and his family so poorly.

I do hate to end this on a down note but factually that’s how it goes. The Rhodes name has been bullied and abused for decades now across generations. One of the great wrestling families but no matter how hard they work and impress, they always seem to get the raw end of the deal. It’s bittersweet to have these people come into our homes through our tv sets only to see them be underutilized, underappreciated and ultimately discarded when nobody knows what to do with their talent. The only upside to this story is that Cody is finally free to fulfil his desires and accomplish his bucket list of wrestling while he’s still young, healthy and free to do so with his wife by his side. One can only hope that somewhere, Dusty is smiling down on his son now accomplishing his own dream.