Dusty Rhodes's 10 Greatest Legacies

The term ‘legend’ is thrown around all too freely these days, but Dusty Rhodes was a bona fide legend. A three time world champion. The most successful wrestling ever in Florida in the era of territorial wrestling. A successful booker and a great creative wrestling mind. The father to two modern day superstars. A mentor to past and present developmental wrestlers in NXT. Dusty Rhodes was many things to many people. He crossed the generations, beloved by fans of all ages and his untimely passing has shocked the wrestling world, even making the mainstream news websites.

I was lucky enough to see Dusty Rhodes wrestle live just the once, in April 2000 at ECW Cyberslam 2000 when he lost clean to Steve Corino. Seeing the man up close and personal in the tiny ECW Arena was a huge learning experience for me. He made every single movement, every gesture, and everything he did mean something. He had a connection with people that, to paraphrase one of his NXT proteges, Enzo Amore, you can’t teach.

Within hours of his passing, it was clear just how many people and how many lives Dusty Rhodes touched. Here, we look at the top ten legacies that Dusty Rhodes has left with the wrestling business after his death.

While the WWF in the 1980s was veering into cartoon mode, sometimes literally, with a product based around Hulk Hogan, their main rival, the NWA, was the polar opposite. Ric Flair was the heel champion, with his title protected by The Four Horsemen, the most elite stable in the history of wrestling. The matches were much more hard hitting. Blood was often spilled.

On the opposite side of the field were the babyfaces, led by “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, along with Sting and The Road Warriors. Credited as a producer under his real name of Virgil Runnels, to maintain the kayfabe of the era, it was Dusty who brought all the stories together, often with a sympathic underdog babyface against a domineering heel. When the beloved Road Warriors turned heel on Dusty, the fans were outraged to a degree not seen until Hulk Hogan’s 1996 heel turn. He knew exactly how to draw on people’s emotions as a booker and the reactions that the babyfaces received, especially the teenage girls’ adulation of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, was testament to his skills as a booker.

He returned to the booking committee of WCW in 1991 during the time when Ric Flair was in the WWF. The headline program at this time was Sting vs Big Van Vader, an epic, hard-hitting feud which kept the promotion going before the return of Flair and the arrival in WCW of Hulk Hogan.