Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (30 page)

“This is so gross, but Dusty picks his nose and wipes the boogers under the car seat! So don’t ever stick your hand under the passenger seat of a rental car. You never know what you will find there!

Anyway, we traveled together for many miles during the WCW years. He would sing silly songs that would crack me up, or we would both be singing to Willie and Waylon songs and drinking a beer. I loved to hear all of the stories about him and Dick Murdoch and Black Jack Mulligan. One time I was traveling with Dusty, Dustin and [former WCW security chief] Doug Dellinger to a TV taping, PPV or something … I think we were headed to Augusta, Georgia. At the time Doug was a heavy chain smoker and would choke the rest of us in the car to death with all of the secondhand smoke. I had bought some cigarette loads to set Doug up on this trip. A cigarette load will blow up when it is lit. Dusty and Dustin were in on the joke with me. Doug was driving the car, so this was really a stupid prank to pull on him, but we did it, anyway. We tried over and over to get Doug to stop and get out of the car so we could get his cigarettes from over the visor where he kept them. Well, he would stop each time we wanted to, but he wouldn’t get out of the car! I bet we stopped about five times before Dustin finally got him to go into the store with him. So, Dusty and I loaded two of his cigarettes, but I put two loads instead of one in each, just to make sure there was a nice impact! When he got back in the car, Dusty, Dustin and I kept giggling, waiting for him to light the darn thing … and of course it seemed like it took forever. He kept asking us what was so funny, but we wouldn’t tell him. Finally, he got his cigarettes down and Dusty, who was riding in the front with him, started to lean away from him. When Doug lit that cigarette, it blew completely up all the way back to the filter! He just sat there with the filter still in his mouth and tobacco all over him. He looked at us and said, ‘Fuck every one of ya’ll!’ We were cracking up! I’m sure he paid us back somehow … and I’m sure this was Dusty’s idea and not mine!”

“Superstar” Billy Graham

“Dusty was a free spirit. One time, while working the Minneapolis territory, we were at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and he took my bag with my wrestling gear and threw it out in front of a Greyhound Bus. Everything was crushed. It was a spur-of-the-moment rib.”

Mike Graham

“I have a few favorite Dusty stories. When he first came to Florida, being from Texas, he was not a big boating guy. I’d say, ‘Hey Dream, come out on the boat,’ he’d say no, and finally I got him to go out on the boat with us. He’d never been out in the water or anything, he’d been out on a mud bank in Texas, so he was used to seeing the bottom, so he didn’t know how deep the water was or anything. Anyway, I noticed the boat up on the beach, and when I noticed it, I told him earlier, ‘I’ll pull the boat right up on the beach, just hop off the side and walk the anchor up on the beach and set it down.’ That’s all, in case the waves come or whatever, it’ll keep the boat from going back out into the water. Well, where the water came off the beach, it came out about two feet and then it dropped to about ten feet. When I pulled the boat up on the beach, I knew he was smart enough to back off the bow of the boat, that when he hopped off the boat, he was just going to go straight down. He had his ball cap on, a cigar in his mouth, and he was playing big shooter out for riding the boat. He had the anchor in his arms and when he hopped off the boat, he just disappeared. He went right off, completely underwater! I started laughing real hard and as I was getting myself back up, I looked … and when he hit the bottom, he hit the bottom standing up. I guess he realized which was the way out. He walked, with the anchor in his arms, up the bank, coming up to the beach. As he was walking, his head came out of the water, cigar came out of the water, he slowly walked right up out of the water, walked up on the beach, put the anchor down in the sand and he said, ‘Goddamn it! Is this what you wanted me to do?’ His cigar’s hanging out of his mouth, and his hat rim is all hanging down. We were laughing hysterically.

One of my other favorite Dusty stories is when we were coming back from Jacksonville. Steve Keirn, Dusty and I were in my dad’s airplane. We used to always stop at an ABC liquor store to get beer, wine; whatever we’re gonna drink coming home. Dusty bought a bottle of Penn-Rose sausages, like the little Vienna sausages, but they got hot peppers in them. So we got in the airplane and took off and cracked a beer … for some reason Dusty was always trying to be Mr. ‘The American Dream’ better than everybody. So Keirn took a sausage, I took a sausage and Dusty reached in and pulled out one of these little jalapenos or whatever kind of peppers they used to season these sausages … he took one out and just—’These ain’t from Texas, I’m tough. We boys from Texas eat this hot stuff’ —and he threw the pepper in his mouth. Keirn and I didn’t think anything about it because we guessed that was what he did. Well, I was sitting right in front of him and Keirn was sitting next to him and the cooler was on the floor between all three of us. I looked at Dusty and his face went pale, starting at his chin … and as the color went out of his face, over his lips, up his cheeks, and when it got to his nose … literally his cheeks and nose turned white. Fluid started running from his nose, his mouth … he started coughing and hacking and just making all kinds of noises and crying and snifflin’ … and Steve and I were laughing—he grabbed the cooler and blew all the stuff into the cooler. It took him about ten minutes to get his shit together; he couldn’t even talk! Finally, when he could talk, he looked at Keirn and I and said, ‘Well boys, I guess the American Dream ain’t as tough as he says he is.’”

Georgia Senator Richard Green

“When you travel on the road with Dusty, he’s the type of guy who has to have breakfast at the Waffle House. Well, one day we were in Conyers, Georgia, and we were sitting at the counter. This real skinny cook came over … tall, about six-one, six-two, maybe 175 pounds, tattoos, sleeveless T-shirt … he came over and asked, ‘You Dusty Rhodes? Is that true?’ Dusty had just signed an autograph. Then he asked, ‘Is this wrestling really true?’ Well, Dusty looked at the guy and flexed his arm and clinched his fists together in front of his chest and replied, ‘If you don’t think so, why don’t you come get some of this!’ The guy’s expression was priceless. He sauntered away, never saying a word.”

“Playboy” Gary Hart

“Dusty had this long, white Cadillac with stars on the side of it. Dusty, Haystacks Calhoun, and Danny Hodge were riding in it, while Humpy [Sir Oliver Humperdink], Pak Song, the Hollywood Blonds, and I were riding in a van behind them. As we pulled up alongside them at a roadside rest area, Dusty and Danny were outside the car doing the stroll, dancing, and singing along with the song ‘Working at the Car Wash Blues’ by Jim Croce, which was playing on the radio. Dusty kept trying to get Haystacks out of the car, and Danny finally got so mad, saying to Dusty, ‘Leave the fat man alone!’ Dusty turned to Danny and smacked him in the face … in a long way. They stopped, looked at each other and started to laugh, then started dancing again. It just went too far.”

Monsignor Laurence Higgins

“One of my fondest memories was when Dusty couldn’t come to my 25th anniversary to the priesthood, so he did a video wishing me all the best. In it, he did a skit making up stories about me … some were true.

I also remember doing a radio interview together, and I brought back an Irish flag from Ireland and gave it to him because he had won the world title. He showed me the tag on the flag … ‘Made in China.’”

Nikita Koloff

“We were in Hamilton, Ontario, and we jumped on the private plane to go see the Big Apple. I’m not a big partier, but I hadn’t been there before, so I was game. It was Dusty, Jim Crockett, Barry Windham, the Horsemen, and me. When we landed in the Apple, there were two limos waiting for us. The Horsemen went in one limo and went one way, and we got in the other limo and did our thing. Windham had contacts in the
city from when he worked for the WWF, so he came up with the idea to go to a gay club, the Palladium, as a rib. We pulled up to this joint, we went inside, and sure enough, it was a bunch of gays in there. I didn’t even want to touch anything. … It must have been a staggering thing to witness, as I’m sure we were sticking out like sore thumbs. I was getting looks and stares that I wasn’t real receptive to. One of the high spots, however, was that I was up on the second level, looking down, and I saw Dusty and it looked like he was up to something. The next thing I saw is he was at the edge of this jammed dance floor. Then out of nowhere he did the John Wayne swagger across the dance floor. It was hilarious to watch. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea … as he walked, people parted in front of him, and as he passed them, the crowd closed in behind him. He was just Dusty being Dusty. We ended up at this little café. … ‘You’ve got to try this pate,’ he said. It was steak tartare! I about wanted to gag! I ordered normal food and passed the steak tartare along to him.”

Black Jack Mulligan

“Dusty liked to rib me. He ribbed me the first time I had a payoff. He had a stack of ones, but I didn’t know they were ones and he said, ‘How would you like one of these?’

Well, that was nothing compared to what Dusty and Dickie did to me one time. In Texas they have these big, six-foot rattlesnakes. We were going from Austin to Corpus Christi and they put a dead rattlesnake on my car. It scared the shit out of me and I never forgot that. Years later, Dusty and I stopped in Ocala [Florida] for some chili dogs. He had this brand-new Dodge that was kept immaculately clean. We start driving again and I started talking about how I think there are bigger rattlesnakes in Florida than in Texas. Well, he started lisping and as soon as he does, you know he’s bullshitting. Anyway, I had bought this plastic snake and I popped it out while he’s driving and … he starts screaming like a woman … chili all over the place. There were tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. He said, ‘Bobby, sometimes you go way down too far with shit.’ What fun it was … I enjoyed it all the way.”

Harley Race

“Dusty won the NWA World Heavyweight title in Tampa, and the following night we were in Key West for Fantasyfest. I booked a charter flight … Dusty rented a Lear Jet. I got there just in time to see the big parade, and Dusty was in it. Three beautiful women jumped on the float with him, and Dusty grabbed one and kissed her and then the second one kissed him. At this point he realized he had just swapped spit with two guys who were dressed in drag. The third looked at him and said, ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me, too?’”

Jim Ross

“The Dream used to like to get ready, well, almost ready, for his matches early in the evening in the locker room. By that I mean he would get undressed, put on his Austin Hall cowboy-styled wrestling boots and, well, that’s it. So here you have a 300-pound man standing around a locker room full of male wrestlers wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of boots. I remember one time in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the old Dorton Arena on a hot summer’s night that the Dream’s pre-match locker room attire sent the late Jim Barnett running for the hills when James E. saw The Dream in all his glory.”

So that’s a little bit of what it was like on the road or interacting with some of the boys and all the crazy shit that went on; stuff that always puts a smile on my face when I think back because we had so much fun. Sometimes we were like little kids in this crazy business we call pro wrestling.

As we get a little closer to the end of the book, I remind myself that our business is not all fun and games, but it sure is easy to remember the good times, like the time Eddie took me fishing for the first time.

We were on his boat right near the Howard Frankland Bridge and when I cast my reel I accidentally cast it up on the highway, snagging a passing truck. Well, there went my rod and reel … flying out of my hands. Eddie looked at me and just shook his head.

Funny shit. As unbelievable as they sound, these things really did happen … and I wouldn’t give up any of them for any price!

C
HAPTER
14

I
was driving back home from an independent show in Lenoir, North Carolina, where it was another sellout for “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes—1,500 fans—as I teamed with the Rock-n-Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, to defeat the Midnight Express, Dennis Condrey, Bobby Eaton, and Stan Lane, and it just struck me how quickly 20 years had passed … just like that—
snap!
—In the blink of an eye.

On the card this particular December night were not only the guys I just mentioned, but Nikita Koloff was there as the special guest referee. “Sensational” Sherri Martel, Gary Royal, David Isley, and George South were also on the card, as was “The Ugandan Giant” Kamala. Wonderful Willie himself, Bill Apter, was there, too. And to top it all off, to culminate the night of
déjà vu
for me, up on the wall doing a promo to challenge me for a card the next month was a video projection of Tully Blanchard.