10 Wrestling Gimmicks Probably Made Out Of Spite
8. 'Common Man' Dusty Rhodes
He may not have been the Dusty Rhodes of years gone by when he arrived in WWF in 1989, but the American Dream still had major name value and still carried the unique charisma that made him such a star attraction. Still, Dusty had spent years in direct opposition to Vince McMahon, be that as a wrestler, a booker or as the righthand man for Jim Crockett.
In a d**k-measuring move designed to show his dominance, McMahon dressed Rhodes up in polka dots and played into his Common Man mantra in frankly ludicrous ways.
While Dusty had long been a man of the people, Vince went hard to show just how much the icon was like the blue-collar people who supported him. As such, Rhodes' WWF debut was accompanied by vignettes of him fixing toilets, changing tires, pumping gas, collecting garbage, and working as an apprentice butcher.
Added to this, the Dream's previous promos of pretty young women chasing him were replaced by the presence of 54-year-old Sapphire. Likewise, you had Akeem the African Dream mimicking some of Dusty's mannerisms, plus Ted DiBiase's assistant named Virgil - as a shot at Dusty Rhodes' real name of Virgil Runnels.
All of this was largely done just so Vince McMahon could show how even the biggest of NWA names would bend to his almighty wrath.