We showed up a few days before WrestleMania. I had been hanging around Hollywood thinking about what I could do to really take it all to another level, to make the ending of the Backlot Brawl as good as the beginning. I felt like I had to do something to make an impact.
“What can I do that would be outrageous? What can I do to really embarrass myself?” My mind was going as Terri and I walked past Frederick’s of Hollywood. Then it hit me. “What if I was wearing women’s lingerie with garter belts under my suit? When he beat me up at the end of the match, he could rip off my suit and I’d be standing there with this underwear on. Then you could cover me up and that would be the way it ends?” Terri didn’t hesitate. “That would be awesome,” she said.
We walked over to the fat girl section at Frederick’s and I started trying on lingerie, 10XXX or whatever, to see what we liked. It was just Terri and me, but this is Hollywood, no one raised an eyebrow. I picked out this black outfit and I didn’t tell anyone but Vince. He liked the idea, so we were good to go.
Begging for mercy at WrestleMania XII.
Kicking Roddy’s ass.
When WrestleMania rolled around, our cars were parked out behind the arena. As the show went on, the cameras kept going back to Roddy and me riding down a California freeway. The announcer said, “It looks like they’re heading this way.” Finally we got our cue. We drove down the ramp into the tunnel. I opened my door and Roddy clipped it off with the Bronco. I crawled through the car to the other side and headed into the arena.
Terri was waiting for me, dressed as Marlena. I crawled toward the entrance to the arena. The cameras were there as I crouched down. Then Roddy came walking toward me. We looked exactly the way we had two weeks earlier. We were all beat up, the blood was still on my suit. Marlena was standing there smoking her cigar, and the idea was that I backed myself into the arena not realizing we were at WrestleMania. Boom! Roddy’s music started blaring. The place went crazy. I was screaming, “No. What am I doing here? I can’t believe it, no!” Roddy walked in like he was fixing to stomp me. We made our way to the ring.
At one point, I started kicking him and the crowd was going wild. Roddy reached up and grabbed my crotch, and I yelled, “No, please. Don’t. Please don’t do that.” He bounced me around, then punched me. Bam, I went down. All the crowd wanted was for Roddy to whip me. Boom, boom, boom, and he finally ripped off my uniform, and there was the lingerie. I rolled out of the ring and Terri covered me up. We walked to the back and the place went wild. Roddy’s son climbed into the ring and they had their moment of glory as the fans erupted. It was unbelievable.
The big finish.
Later that night I gave Roddy’s son my Goldust suit.
That was the topper of all toppers right there. Just an incredible experience. Thank you, Roddy.
SEVEN
THE DARKNESS
Taking on Undertaker.
Getting booed was awesome, much better than being liked by the fans. Once I figured out how to do Goldust, I knew that if they were booing me, then I was doing something right. It was just so much more fun to get those fans to hate me compared to being a babyface. And it all came together at WrestleMania XII.
That event is what finally lifted me out of my father’s shadow and dropped me into my own shoes. For the first time I felt like I had an identity of my own that had nothing to do with my father. Shawn Michaels and Brett Hart did their Iron Man Match in the main event, but I was the semimain event and it was truly unbelievable.
I didn’t know what my dad thought about the whole Goldust character. In the beginning he probably was embarrassed and really upset about it. That was fine with me. My attitude was, “Bring it on. That’s great.” I really didn’t care. As I’ve said, I don’t know whether Vince got the idea of me playing a character like Goldust because he knew I was estranged from my dad, or he simply thought I was the right guy for the role. These days fans know what side of the bed we sleep on, so who knows? Vince is a very, very creative guy. Maybe he did see the benefit of me playing a character that was 180 degrees from my father, particularly when we weren’t talking to one another. Either way, I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Along the way I became okay friends with Shawn Michaels and Hunter (Triple H). Kevin Nash was kind of his own person, but we talked. Other than Razor, I didn’t hear a whole lot of talk from the other guys about having a problem with Goldust. Vince was going with me, and if you didn’t like it, then you weren’t around a whole lot. If I got insecure, or if I felt like things weren’t going in the right direction, I’d call Vince and he’d talk me through it. I knew I was doing something right and I trusted Vince.
Despite the success, or maybe because I thought I needed help to keep it all going, I was taking more and more painkillers. I started to get a little sluggish, a little slower in the ring. I complained more, but I had no idea that the drugs had anything to do with my state of mind. There were stressful things going on in my life. My marriage was troubled. I hadn’t spoken to my father in a long time, and there was very little reason to think I’d ever speak to him again. I was physically sore and beat up emotionally. That’s not a good combination when you have three hundred or more working days with every one of them in a different city. It seemed reasonable to me that I needed painkillers. Besides, these weren’t illegal drugs. Doctors gave them to me. At least that’s how I rationalized it all at the time. I just didn’t have any idea what was actually happening. I didn’t realize the descent was under way, or that the future was about to become a darker shade of gray.
In the months following WrestleMania, Goldust was at his height of popularity. My life might have been stressful and difficult outside the ring, but once I walked through that curtain it was magic. After Savio, I had a little bit of an angle with Shawn Michaels. We tore the house down every night because he was the Champion. Suddenly I was wrestling main events everywhere. We were having a great time. I had Goldust down to an art form. I knew exactly when to do something, when to say the perfect line to get the audience on their feet screaming things they didn’t even know they were capable of screaming in public. There were guys trying to jump the rail and get into the ring. They threw coins, paper, and all kinds of junk into the ring.
The catchphrase I had developed with Savio came in handy in other places, too. I’d do something to Shawn, then roll out of the ring. Finally, the fans were booing so much that I’d grab the mike and say, “If you don’t shut your mouths right now I will come out there and stick my tongue down each and every one of your throats.” In New York, they went insane, screaming in Spanish, cussing. So I did that in Detroit with Shawn. This time they started throwing things into the ring. I waved my arms, mouthing to the crowd, “Bring it on,” which turned out to be the wrong thing to do in Detroit. I had them so worked up that it almost got out of control. Shawn actually had to leave the ring because there was so much stuff flying in. I just stood there getting pinged with quarters and all the other junk. It was great.
At the end of the run with Shawn, I could see a change in the direction Goldust was heading. Maybe I was becoming a little more insecure, or maybe the drugs were starting to bend my mind.
I did a vignette aimed at Ahmed Johnson, a large African-American superstar. Goldust was naked on a couch. I had my Intercontinental belt lying over me and I was talking all this crazy stuff to Ahmed. Then I pulled out a Hershey’s chocolate bar. I start talking about how I just loved the way the chocolate melted in my mouth and stuff like that. It was sick. That led to a shoot we did in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Ahmed was knocked out during a match, and as they pushed him out of the arena on the gurney, I intervened. I pushed the EMS guys back and said, “Oh, I can help him.” I started rubbing his head. Then I picked up his face and started giving him mouth-to-mouth, which revived him. When Ahmed woke up, his eyes were wide open like he was freaking out. He got up off the gurney and I took off down the hall. Ahmed was furious, tearing doors off the wall, breaking everything. That
led right up to the match where he took my title. Goldust lost the gold to Ahmed Johnson at King of the Ring in 1996.
Things were changing. I could feel it. Vince was getting a lot of criticism from different groups. Parents were calling headquarters and complaining about Goldust. Some of them didn’t want their kids watching if Goldust was performing. An article in the New York Times came out saying gay rights activists were upset over the character. The ratings were good, and as far I was concerned it wasn’t my problem. I was having fun doing my job. I couldn’t see the larger picture and I’m not even sure how much I cared to see it.
Needless to say, my insecurities started to rise toward the surface. There were a couple times when Vince told me not to do something and I did it anyway. “Don’t rub up on anyone in the ring tonight,” he said before one match. I did it anyway and he was furious. He told he’d fire me right there on the spot if I ever did something like that again. I apologized, but I still slipped up a couple more times. In a way, I think I knew that it all was coming to an end. The roller coaster was gathering speed on the way down, and I was having a hard time hanging on.
There were highlights, but fewer of them. One of them was a Casket Match with the Undertaker. To this day I’m one of the only guys who ever beat him in a Casket Match. I had Mankind’s help that night. We were doing this routine where Mankind was my son and I was his mommy. Sick, no question about it. We built up to the Casket Match and Bruce Prichard wanted to play a joke on Under-taker. The idea was that when I had Undertaker down, and before he sat up, I would crawl between his legs and grab his crotch. It was all in good fun.
At the time, though, I was becoming more and more addicted to Vicodin. The pills helped with my stamina, but the more I took, the more real pain I felt in my body, which was backward.
Slowly the addiction started taking over, though I wasn’t conscious of what was happening. Subtle injuries, or aches and pains that I ignore now, led me to take more and more pills. I started drinking more to enhance the effect and cover the pain. I was getting louder in the bars, doing stupid things. Your head can get a little crazy when you suddenly have money and a little bit of power. In my mind, that’s all I was doing, no big deal. But looking back I can see how it was becoming a problem.
Once again, life began to imitate art and the walls started closing in a little, both inside and outside the ring. I worked this angle with Brian Pillman where he kidnapped Terri. Brian had dated her way back before we were married, which of course always made me insecure. I didn’t have a problem with him. We were friendly and I did my best to go with the flow, but I was very uncomfortable. I hated that they had a history together. We were working up to a Pay-Per-View, and along the way I was trying to win her back in the matches.
The night before the payoff, we had a live event in Bloomington, Minnesota. We had a pretty good angle going, but Brian was too messed up to work. I don’t know what he was taking, but he could barely walk. I remember thinking, “I’m going to have to protect him out there at the same time I’ve got to protect myself.”
We got through the match the best we could. The crowd responded really well and as far as anyone knew, everything was fine. Afterward I walked into the locker room and Brian was sitting in the corner looking like his dog had been shot. I kept asking him if he was okay. Finally, he said, “I don’t know, man. I’m just real depressed.”
I’d seen that before. There have been guys along the way who took a lot of pills. I’m one of them. I have helped guys to their hotel rooms. I’ve actually fed them because they were too out of it to put food into their mouths. That’s why I never did those kinds of drugs, the downers.
Brian Pillman.
The next morning we flew to St. Louis for the Pay-Per-View. The routine is pretty straightforward: We land, get something to eat, and head to the arena. It was an early call because of the Pay-Per-View, so we were probably scheduled to be at the arena at least five hours before the match. As the day went on, I realized that Brian wasn’t at the arena. Finally, I told somebody to call the hotel and check on him. He had looked bad the night before, and I didn’t have a good feeling when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, especially for such a big match. Ultimately, they found Brian dead in his hotel room.
It was shocking, but no one had much time to process the horror of it all. The show had to go on and I still had to get out there and perform. It was hard, a lot harder than it looked. All I could do was suck it up and try to tune out reality when that light went on.
A few weeks later, Terri and I did an infamous interview with Jim Ross at the corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. I was really nervous about the interview. My addiction was making me paranoid. I was drinking more, and things at home were deteriorating quickly. I was never physically violent, but I had become an angry person and verbally abusive to Terri. I thought my anger was justified, but of course it wasn’t. None of it was. The drugs and alcohol triggered every one of my insecurities and magnified every slight, whether real or imagined.
In the dressing room prior to the interview, I drank several shots of Crown Royal to calm my nerves. I was ready to unload and I wanted what came out to be real. We talked about my dad and how he was never there when I was younger, or later when I was having problems in my life. I knew they wanted it to go right up the line, but I wanted it to be as powerful as possible. I wasn’t drunk, but I was comfortable enough to say anything. The atmosphere was intense because of everything going on in my personal life, particularly with Terri.
Around that time I wanted to wrestle my father on television. Vince never commented one way or another. I didn’t actually want to beat my dad, but I thought maybe it would bring closure to our issues. I’m sure Vince thought I’d do something stupid if he gave me the opportunity. It didn’t matter, though, because my dad wasn’t going to have any part of it. Even after we reconciled, I tried to appeal to my dad’s business sense. He wouldn’t even consider wrestling me. I always thought Goldust wrestling Dusty Rhodes would have been huge.
The point of the interview with Ross was to get me some sympathy, to make me a good guy. I had burned the Goldust suit on stage with Vince screaming, “Dustin, what are you doing? I gave you this character and you’re throwing it away.” Everybody went nuts. The interview followed that bit on television where I threw the uniform into the garbage. I remember saying how tired I was of being led around like a little dog. I went off on everybody.
For a while following the interview, I was Dustin Runnels, the artist formerly known as Goldust. But here was my personal life playing out on stage and I didn’t see any of it. I didn’t see the connection at all because I felt so insecure about everything. If I hadn’t been so focused on all the bullshit and so heavy into drinking and painkillers, I would have been where I am right now, only better. Now I can see so clearly how things work, how the business really operates. Back then, I was a mess—and I was the only person who didn’t realize it.
After a few weeks as Dustin Runnels, I wanted to do something with Goldust. They weren’t doing a whole lot with me at the time, so Vince pulled me up to his office. Terri and Jim Ross were there, too. By then Terri was going off doing her own things as a Diva. Marlena was pretty much done, so she was going in another direction. I had an idea that would get Goldust back into the ring.
“Vince, I want to do something different with this character.” I had a person in mind to help Goldust become a crazy, bizarre type of bondage character. I had this picture of being led around on a dog leash with a collar and a ball gag in my mouth. Luna Vachon was the perfect fit for the role. Vince gave the go-ahead and it turned out to be awesome.
Luna was the perfect match for Goldust.
We started with me doing a lot of interviews. Luna would dress me up in these wild outfits. I felt okay about the direction we were going in because I was working again and Vince was giving me the opportunity to get this new version of Goldust over. Vader had been a big star at WCW and I loved work
ing with him there. He was physical as hell, but he knew how to get there. We did all kinds of interviews and they were funny.
One time Nurse Luna was pushing me in a wheelchair, only no one knew it was Luna. Vader said, “Get up out of that chair, punk, because I’m going to whip you.” I said, “I can’t, Vader, I’m an invalid. You killed me last week. I can’t do anything.” Vader pushed the wheelchair over, then Luna attacked. I jumped up out of the wheelchair and proceeded to massacre Vader in some goofy outfit. And on we went. It was really bizarre, twisted, sick. In some ways it fit where I was outside the ring. Life was very wacky.
I never had a hard time getting away from it all. When it was time to go to work, I became Goldust. But when the show was over and I pulled on my boots and jeans, I was back to Dustin. But the once-normal Dustin now was far from normal. He was getting rowdy, drinking too much, and taking too many pills. I was getting worse, but I still couldn’t see it. And really, I didn’t care. I’d go home and get into arguments with Terri. She saw how many pills I was taking. She knew—it would have been obvious to anyone close to me.
Vince Russo has quite the imagination and he helped me a lot. I had a very positive experience with him. All those interviews I did with movie references and the sexual double entendres, every one of them came out of his sick mind. I never had a problem with Vince, though. When they weren’t pushing me, I became mad at everybody. It’s incredible, but I didn’t realize that I was the problem. That’s what drugs do to you. You don’t know what you’re doing to yourself because you can’t see clearly. I became more paranoid and insecure about everything. The abuse was tearing a hole in my life.
I was on the road with Terri for some of the live events. I was working, doing fine, but I was getting lower and lower on the card. I was losing more often, which in and of itself wasn’t necessarily a big deal. When I had the Intercontinental Championship I lost a lot, but I had more heat than anybody else. This time, it felt different. I’m not sure that it actually was different, but it didn’t feel the same. We were on our way to Birmingham, Alabama, driving down from Nashville. I was pilled up and I called the office.
Cross Rhodes: Goldust, Out of the Darkness (WWE) Page 6