10 Wrestling Feuds Where The Bad Guy Won
6. Ted DiBiase Vs. Dusty Rhodes
Dusty Rhodes did a phenomenal job of selling show-long heartbreak at SummerSlam 1990 as the grim reality of his situation became all the clearer.
For months, 'The American Dream' had been concerned by the gifts randomly being showered upon his manager and confidant Sweet Sapphire, but the show-long angle revealing her betrayal via Ted Dibiase's millions was portrayed with magnificent pathos. Scouring the building for her all evening before his match with Randy Savage, Rhodes was rendered broken by her absence despite the pair being makeshift at best for the first several months of their union.
Rhodes created stakes in Sapphire selling out then suffered the consequences after the distraction caused defeat at the hands of the Macho King, but Dibaise never got his comeuppance.
Real life interfered with the real-feeling storyline. Rhodes was set to head back to WCW in early-1990, so shifted gears to trying to get his son Dustin some exposure in what limited time he had remaining. The pair were programmed against Dibiase and Virgil to tee up the latter's babyface turn but that was understandably prioritised. The Rhodes Family lost and lost and lost all the way back to Atlanta, with Virgil - ironically named as a rib at Dusty's expense - being the one to take revenge.