Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream

by Dusty Rhodes

  —DUSTIN RUNNELS

  I don’t know why, but I knew, I just knew he was coming because this meeting had to happen. I had those same knots in my stomach that I’d get when I traveled, thinking I would bump into him. Anticipation, trepidation, whatever you want to call it, and I walked outside and I saw my son. It was a very cool moment with a lot of love there and just like loads of love on my shoulder. The emotion was unbelievable. The guilt was always there and will always be there, it will be my guilt forever. But that was the real moment I waited for and there was nothing better at that particular moment in time; just him and me locked in that love hug.

  “… and he grabbed me and put his arms around me, I put my arms around him and … whew … it was fucking intense … an intense moment, man. It was so intense … I just can’t explain it. It was coming out of my eyes and I was just shaking. It was one of those moments. I’m holding him and he’s holding me and I don’t even remember the conversation. It was so good to be in his arms, and for me to be putting my arms around him. Standing up three, four inches taller than him, I had gone and stepped off and did Goldust and done this and that and stepped out of his shadow a little bit. But right then and there, that’s one of those moments that I will never, ever, ever forget.”

  —DUSTIN RUNNELS

  Not long after that magical moment, I was driving back home and Chelle was in the house and there was Dustin’s truck in the driveway. Right out of the blue he came to visit and stay the night and we talked over things, so I barely slept and that was okay, because we had a lot of catching up to do. And so it would go on like that every time we’d get together.

  “I don’t think my dad understood at the time what Dustin was going through. He understands today, but he had to listen to Dustin. He had to make up for a lot of lost time.”

  —KRISTIN RUNNELS

  And so Chelle and Dakota got to be pretty close, and all my kids are closer now because everybody’s talking and they’re getting closer each time they see each other, which does my heart good. So I’m a very lucky guy that I’ve been given another chance to try to understand what was going on in their life while I wasn’t there.

  And now I think I understand just how hard Dustin had it, because no matter what I think, being my son in the same profession comes with a price, because he is the son of a very famous father. I think when you meet a lot of folks who talk about their fathers being great athletes or famous people, they have the same hurdles and obstacles to overcome when they are in the same profession. I can’t go back and erase that, I can only support him in whatever he wants to do. I can’t go back and change that he’s my son and wants to be whatever he wanted back then. But like I said, I never felt he did not love me. I felt that I did not understand him and he wanted me to know what he went through, and my God, he showed me what he went through and he put me through some shit to get me to that point. There were times he was defiant and he’d call me a motherfucker and said I deserved it, and I’d say, “You’re right, I do deserve it.”

  Right after that period of time Dustin and Terri got a divorce and then later on she was let go by WWE, so they had something else in common aside from Dakota; they both knew what it was like to be fired by the WWE.

  “When we touched, it was big … big, big … because people knew. They knew we had our falling out. I made it apparent during that five-year stint that I hated him for what he had done to me, which I regret … and Pops, I’m so sorry … and I know he’s forgiven me and we’ve tied our ties and stuff, but I was wrong and I regret it, and if you got your dad, you hold on to him tight man, for the rest of your life, no matter how bad or good he is. Your dad’s your dad and you have to take care of him and he has to take care of you. You have your differences, you set them aside, you talk tomorrow. I don’t look to the past now, I don’t look to the future, I look to right now, today, and what’s going on in my life today.”

  —DUSTIN RUNNELS

  In looking back on all that, it seems like it happened in another time. Dustin is still a young man and I think he’s going to make great strides in the wrestling industry and do a lot of other great things. So that’s the story there. There’s nothing else in between and nothing else pulled over it.

  “Dusty is a loyal person. He is very devoted to his family—to the kids and me. Even as mad as he gets sometimes, he never admits we have any faults.”

  —MICHELLE RUNNELS

  I thank God that Chelle has been by my side for all these years and I want my four children to know that whatever they’re doing, I want to be part of that ride they take, because I took them on a ride at times that wasn’t worth a shit except financially. It’s a really great place to be right now mentally and emotionally with being able to worry about them all as parents.

  “I’d like to see my father do more movies, move away from Marietta and go to Texas or Florida and coach high school football. I’ve had trouble watching him get in the ring without breaking down. It’s time for us kids to start paying him back.”

  —CODY RUNNELS

  It makes me proud to say, “Man, I got the greatest gift of all and the greatest children of all.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Man, that last chapter was an emotional one for me, talking about my family and all that. So I think it’d be a good idea to shift gears here and just have a little fun, because I know this is the area that all you readers really want to know about and hopefully I won’t disappoint you.

  Every wrestler who has ever laced up a pair of boots for more than a few months has them. From the main-event guy you see at WrestleMania to the opening-match guy you watch at the high school show near your house. For some, they are simple. For others, they are more elaborate. And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not talking about boots or trunks or arena rats (groupies) or injuries. I’m talking about those little glimpses of our life, those quick snapshots, those Polaroid minutes if you will, that make us who we are when we sit in dressing rooms and tell our war stories, our conquests, our stories from the road to our fellow workers.

  Willie Nelson probably says it best and even though he’s talking about music, it really relates to our business too. So come on, and sing this little part along with me, because I know you know it!

  “On the road again,

  Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

  The life I love is makin’ music with my friends,

  And I can’t wait to get on the road again.”

  —WILLIE NELSON, “ON THE ROAD AGAIN”

  Up and down the highways, town to town, rain, heat, snow, sleet … for us guys in the business, sometimes I think we’re the only people who’ve done more miles behind the wheel than truck drivers or been to more zip codes than postmen.

  But even with all the traveling, all the hotels, all the fast food or greasy spoon restaurants, there’s nothing quite like being on the road with the boys. The camaraderie is unbelievable. But the experiences we have are sometimes even more unbelievable. I’m sure some of the stories I’ve already told here will be met with their fair share of “He’s full of shit,” but if I didn’t live these things myself, even I would question some of them.

  Like the time Terry Funk and I were driving in the Southwest with two midgets in the back seat. The two of us were dog tired and we had to get from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas, but we had already done a little recreational drinking and were in no condition to drive. So we asked Little Crusher—I think that’s who it was—if he could drive. He said, “Sure,” but his feet couldn’t reach the pedals. So Terry took one of my boots and he taped it to the midget’s foot, wrapped it right around his fucking foot, so he could reach the gas pedal. Well, we get into the back to sleep it off and the midget was driving down the highway, looking like a little kid behind the wheel. The next thing that happened is we were in Truth or Consequences and we heard police sirens, which woke us up. The cops pulled the midget over, and now we were laughing our asses off in the back seat. The sher
iff looked in the car, saw the midget with his foot taped to the boot and couldn’t believe his eyes. He said something like, “I have never seen anything like this in my life. One of you get up here and don’t ever let me see you in my county like this again!” He wouldn’t even write us up because it was so crazy. He just wanted us to get the fuck out of his county! You can’t make up shit like that, buddy!

  Being on the road with Terry was always a trip, but sometimes just going to his house was an adventure, even if he wasn’t with you.

  This one particular time Nick Bockwinkle was with me. Nick reminds me of when you go to the dentist and you sit there getting ready to have your teeth drilled or your mouth wired up and they are playing this music— Muzak—that you can’t stand, the kind they wouldn’t even play in an elevator to get you in the mood. To me Nick was always like elevator music. He would just kind of move on through, never getting excited, never getting pissed off. I’ve seen him have some great matches. He was the complete opposite of Ray Stevens, when they were partners, my God, they were like the odd couple.

  But I would say Bockwinkle was one of the classiest guys besides Thesz. When I’d seen him, he was the second or third classiest guy in our business for the way he dressed, the way he carried himself; demanding that respect, and that’s what it’s all about! Nick was just a mediocre hand, but he never got out of character from being Nick Bockwinkle, the elevator music or the dentist’s office. It’s just like you bought a new Cadillac and after you got in, there is this tape from the manufacturer. Well, just like in the fucking dentist’s office, you wanted to scream … and they would listen to this tape going down the road. He would have a new Cadillac, but not buy any new tapes or anything. He would still have the tape that Cadillac would give him and it would be like … ugh!

  You’d be drinking beer and going along and he would try to be like an outlaw or something when he was with me. Anyway, we came from Amarillo and it was about 3:30 in the morning and he said, “Let’s go by Terry’s house down in the canyon.”

  Terry Funk literally lived in the canyon outside of Canyon, Texas. This is a motherfucker of a ride, so Nick was driving the whole way and it was 195 degrees outside. I was sweating to death and he still had that fucking shooter sport coat on that all the old guys wore, that had the shoulder pads in them that made them stick out a lot more, and they all wore them. Every time you would see a picture of those guys, they had the shooter shoulder pads. He had this coat on and we drank about 20 beers, and I like Nick! He’s right there with me drinking beers, but he’s immaculate. He didn’t spill any on his shirt, unlike me. I was shooting guns off and shit in the night, being loud and obnoxious as we were driving down the road, and he’s calm and cool. We drove and we got down there and he said, “What are you going to do?”

  My plan was to sneak around to the back because at the ranch house Terry had a screened-in deal, and knowing he probably had the windows up because it was so hot, I was going to take the water hose, stick it through the window into the bedroom where he and Vicky were, and turn the son of a bitch on full blast at 3:30 in the morning!

  Nick says, “My boy…” talking like Jim Barnett, “that sounds like fun.”

  I said, “All right, motherfucker. …”

  We got there. Stopped the car. Turned the lights off … just like a jewel heist or something. We walked down into the canyon, Nick still immaculate; he didn’t even break a sweat. He was down there and he said, “Dusto,” he always called me Dusto—he said, “Dusto, what you want me to do?”

  “When I give you the signal, you turn that water hose on full blast.”

  I crawled around to the back and I ran the water hose through the window. Nick was standing by the faucet, shoulder pads sticking out in the moonlight. You could see this motherfucker—I turned around and standing right behind Nick was Terry holding a double-barreled shotgun.

  Nick was looking at me waiting for the signal, and I was just staring at him.

  Terry put the double-barreled shotgun behind Nick’s head, sticking straight up in the air of course, and he pulled both barrels!

  Brother, I’ve never seen a white man turn whiter than this motherfucker, and the sound that thing made in the still of the night was like a cannon went off right in my eardrum.

  Terry ran back around to the front of the house and locked himself in, while Nick was running around in a circle like a chicken that just had its head cut off and didn’t know which way to go or what the fuck happened. He was running around with his mouth open but nothing was coming out. It was like mwah… mwah…

  Nick turned out to be cool about everything, but those were the types of things we experienced on the road. Sometimes, some of the best stories didn’t happen in or around a car at all. Sometimes it was on a boat, or in an airplane, or at an airport.

  Like this one time we were coming back from the Bahamas. The Florida office would frequently run Nassau or Freeport, and on a dare from one of the guys, I walked with a few others from Eddie’s plane on the tarmac at Miami’s Opa-Locka Airport to the hangar, completely naked! Except for my cowboy hat and boots, I was naked as a jaybird.

  But that’s how we were back then. Crazy. Funny. Just out there, buddy, experiencing life and living this unbelievable dream.

  For those of you who may doubt me, even for just one minute … no matter what I say you’re going to think what you will, but before passing judgment, I suggest you ask some of the people who I traveled the roads with or who hung out with me and they’ll probably tell you their own favorite road story about us.

  Janie Engle, former assistant

  “This is so gross, but Dusty picks his nose and wipes the boogers under the car seat! So don’t ever stick your hand under the passenger seat of a rental car. You never know what you will find there!

  Anyway, we traveled together for many miles during the WCW years. He would sing silly songs that would crack me up, or we would both be singing to Willie and Waylon songs and drinking a beer. I loved to hear all of the stories about him and Dick Murdoch and Black Jack Mulligan. One time I was traveling with Dusty, Dustin and [former WCW security chief] Doug Dellinger to a TV taping, PPV or something … I think we were headed to Augusta, Georgia. At the time Doug was a heavy chain smoker and would choke the rest of us in the car to death with all of the secondhand smoke. I had bought some cigarette loads to set Doug up on this trip. A cigarette load will blow up when it is lit. Dusty and Dustin were in on the joke with me. Doug was driving the car, so this was really a stupid prank to pull on him, but we did it, anyway. We tried over and over to get Doug to stop and get out of the car so we could get his cigarettes from over the visor where he kept them. Well, he would stop each time we wanted to, but he wouldn’t get out of the car! I bet we stopped about five times before Dustin finally got him to go into the store with him. So, Dusty and I loaded two of his cigarettes, but I put two loads instead of one in each, just to make sure there was a nice impact! When he got back in the car, Dusty, Dustin and I kept giggling, waiting for him to light the darn thing … and of course it seemed like it took forever. He kept asking us what was so funny, but we wouldn’t tell him. Finally, he got his cigarettes down and Dusty, who was riding in the front with him, started to lean away from him. When Doug lit that cigarette, it blew completely up all the way back to the filter! He just sat there with the filter still in his mouth and tobacco all over him. He looked at us and said, ‘Fuck every one of ya’ll!’ We were cracking up! I’m sure he paid us back somehow … and I’m sure this was Dusty’s idea and not mine!”

  “Superstar” Billy Graham

  “Dusty was a free spirit. One time, while working the Minneapolis territory, we were at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and he took my bag with my wrestling gear and threw it out in front of a Greyhound Bus. Everything was crushed. It was a spur-of-the-moment rib.”

  Mike Graham

  “I have a few favorite Dusty stories. When he first came to Florida, being from Texas, he was not a big boating guy.
I’d say, ‘Hey Dream, come out on the boat,’ he’d say no, and finally I got him to go out on the boat with us. He’d never been out in the water or anything, he’d been out on a mud bank in Texas, so he was used to seeing the bottom, so he didn’t know how deep the water was or anything. Anyway, I noticed the boat up on the beach, and when I noticed it, I told him earlier, ‘I’ll pull the boat right up on the beach, just hop off the side and walk the anchor up on the beach and set it down.’ That’s all, in case the waves come or whatever, it’ll keep the boat from going back out into the water. Well, where the water came off the beach, it came out about two feet and then it dropped to about ten feet. When I pulled the boat up on the beach, I knew he was smart enough to back off the bow of the boat, that when he hopped off the boat, he was just going to go straight down. He had his ball cap on, a cigar in his mouth, and he was playing big shooter out for riding the boat. He had the anchor in his arms and when he hopped off the boat, he just disappeared. He went right off, completely underwater! I started laughing real hard and as I was getting myself back up, I looked … and when he hit the bottom, he hit the bottom standing up. I guess he realized which was the way out. He walked, with the anchor in his arms, up the bank, coming up to the beach. As he was walking, his head came out of the water, cigar came out of the water, he slowly walked right up out of the water, walked up on the beach, put the anchor down in the sand and he said, ‘Goddamn it! Is this what you wanted me to do?’ His cigar’s hanging out of his mouth, and his hat rim is all hanging down. We were laughing hysterically.