Prior to joining the WWE, Dustin Runnels was a rather vanilla wrestler whos main selling point was that he was the son of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. He looked and dressed like a normal human being, and his storylines reflected the more simply side of storytelling in wrestling. However, his direction in WWF/E was anything but simple. Dustin Runnels played the Goldust character, which to this day remains one of the most infamous gimmicks in wrestling history. It crossed certain boundaries, and made plenty of people uncomfortable. As a perverted wrestler trying to do his best impression of an Oscar statuette, Goldust played up on peoples discomfort around homosexuality and androgyny, and it worked to great effect, despite the fact that some people mightve been offended by the characters antics. Then, of course, theres the long-standing rumor that Vince wanted Goldust to get breast implants to really amplify the characters weirdness. The mere notion that Goldust may have been considering accepting the idea speaks volumes to his commitment to the character and the WWF. Only a true company man would to the weird things, make people so uncomfortable, and accept as much embarrassment as Goldust did. So while he might not have been the most loyal employee, as demonstrated by his numerous departures from and returns to WWE, when it comes to gimmicks, Runnels certainly did what was best for WWE, which may not have been what was best for Dustin.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
