Lets get this out of the way: the eldest son of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes is a hell of a worker, a great promo guy and one of the most underrated stars of the Attitude Era. And hes been saddled with some of the weirdest gimmicks of all time. Youre all familiar with Goldust, of course although you may not remember the psychosexual excesses that the character indulged in twenty-odd years ago, now that hes in a PG-era promotion. Goldie was a weird, uncomfortable mish-mash of drag queen, creepy stalker, fetish icon and sexual predator, the combination varying depending on what role he was playing in the company at the time. Nowadays, hes one of the companys best and most dependable workers, with a few odd gasps and head tilts and a gold and black jumpsuit but back in the day, it was a different story. The character hit every hot button of risqué sexuality there was, playing a ramped up, amped up version of Adrian Streets Exotic gimmick. Runnels got Goldust over through sheer persistence and commitment to the role. Ironically, he initially embraced The Bizarre One as a way to bring his own name out from under his legendary fathers shadow: however, his occasional efforts to rebrand under variations of his own name have utterly tanked (we quite liked the American Nightmare Dustin Rhodes, though). An attempt to create an eerie WCW version of The Undertaker in 1999 failed when promotional vignettes for Seven a supposedly supernatural boogeyman were considered to make him seem more like a child molester. Runnels was given the choice between going ahead or axing Seven before hed really begun, and chose to make Sevens dramatic debut regardless only to then deliver a blistering worked shoot promo ripping the character to pieces along with gimmick characters in general, and declare himself just Dustin Rhodes. A further exploration of his split personality was presented in his forgettable TNA run, as Black Reign: however, this was during Runnels period of substance abuse and, overweight and sluggish, he was eventually let go for consistently no-showing events. In 2015, Runnels is clean and sober, in the best wrestling shape of his life and seemingly quite content to play out his in-ring career as a sugar-free version of Goldust, before putting his younger brother Cody over and disappearing into a backstage role. Good for him.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
