17 Wrestlers Who Took Forever To Get To WrestleMania (and Why)

17. Dustin Runnels

The son of a son of a plumber made his debut in the WWF in late April 1990, but you’d never know it unless you went to house shows. As Dustin Rhodes, Runnels wouldn’t wrestle a televised match with the company until the Royal Rumble the following year, teaming with his polka-dotted father in a losing effort to Ted DiBiase & Virgil. It would be both Rhodes’s last match with the company until Dustin’s return in 1995.

Now known as Goldust, with no reference made to his family history or previous experience in the ring, Goldust preyed upon the “homophobic fears of most men,” as Vince McMahon put it, including Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon, whom Runnels dethroned two months before Wrestlemania 12.

Dust’s Mania debut in a rematch hit a snag when Razor was suspended from the company, but Roddy Piper filled in to battle Goldust in a Hollywood Backlot Brawl. It would be the first of seven Mania matches for the Bizarre One (though he has yet to win one).