Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (31 page)

As I gave my rebuttal to the video, I not only realized I was talking to a wall, but I remembered that nearly every one of those guys on that card had worked for me at some point in their careers. It’s was like a one point twenty-one gigawatt lighting ride to 1985, but when the night was over and I was looking at the long road home in front of me, it was I who was back to the future of 2004 … 2005 … and it got me thinking of just how I got here … in this new and often treacherous world of independent wrestling.

After the fall of the small Roman Empire known as World Championship Wrestling in the late ‘90s, I found myself fucked over— first by my assistant for many years, James J. Dillon, and then by a real half-witted accountant who Turner properties put in charge of WCW, Bill Bush. Man, the business was shot to hell in a handbag. Anyway, out of work for about 20 minutes, I
formed my own companies, Turnbuckle Entertainment and Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, TCW.

Little did I know, however, that the independent wrestling business was more fucked up than WCW. What I mostly found, aside from the handful of legit guys out there who were really trying, was that the business was now made up of kids promoting shows, because they went on the internet and bought a promotion book or something, or they read the sheets from the guys who never promoted a show in their life and ran those shows off of what these guys thought was good … and then they made or bought a belt— champion of the world, of course—and made themselves champion. It was no longer a blueprint of the Mafia with regional Godfathers, but rather a blueprint of “Our Gang Comedy” and the local wrestlers were Alfalfa and Butch … with Spanky and Darla as the promoters.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, some of these guys who never drew a dime’s worth of business with anybody and couldn’t draw flies if they were covered with shit, were opening wrestling schools teaching other guys who knew even less than they did, all the stuff they knew … which could fit on the head of a pin and still have room left over for some of the other promoters who were doing the same thing. That’s why I said earlier Murdoch would fart on them.

I think you get the picture, and it ain’t really a pretty one.

So, when I got let go by General Bush, the IRS agent, accountant, or whatever he was there, I started TCW and went into that, but I also started working independents. I never really worked independents before, and Terry Funk warned me it’s really rough out there but I didn’t believe it, because he’d been doing it for so long, making a living. He said, “It’s a constant hustle … it’s just really a hustle to do it.” So I kind of started out on my own, making myself available for independents, and in the process, one day out of the blue, I got a call from Paul E. Dangerously.

Extreme Championship Wrestling at that time already had that cult niche going on around the country … around the world … and Paul E., Paul Heyman, called me to say they were going to be at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, a building that used to be the “House of Blues.” He and his partner at the time asked me, “Would you like to come to ECW?”

With ECW I knew that their unique fans were a group of loyal followers, kind of like the “Insane Clown Posse” followers, who were dedicated to the wrestling papers, the sheets, and the home of ECW of course, was in
Philadelphia at Viking Hall, a bingo parlor that the fans renamed the ECW Arena. I met with Paul at a time when I was really down business-wise, because the independents were not paying what I wanted. I figured my price was a certain amount, and I wasn’t going to come off of it.

Turnbuckle Entertainment did well the first year, but then it went on a downward spiral because we just didn’t do things right. While the people I had surrounding it and actually working for me, worked very hard, we just all didn’t do anything right. If I had to do it over again, I would, but you can’t go back. At that point I said to myself, “I’m going to have to go out and hustle some like Terry told me.”

As a result I went down there and made a deal with them, a very lucrative deal at the time, and I really thought it was payback from Paul E. from when I hired him at WCW to do the original Midnight Express angle with the new Midnight Express and Jim Cornette. Anyway, he picked me up and it was like he said, “Come on, I’m gonna give you this amount of money, no matter what you do.” At that point in time it was kind of a Godsend, because it was really rough. Because of that, I was always very appreciative, and I honestly didn’t know at the time what was going on with their innerworkings or anything like that. So I went to the Tabernacle in Atlanta and I did the spot with me hitting the ring on Steve Corino; the first time I’d ever seen him.

The guys I had been around on the independent circuit have all been so respectful, but never was there a group of guys, the ones Paul E. had, who were as respectful as these guys were to the old school and what I brought to the dance. They made me feel really at home, and it was really cool.

“I remember the day I met him like it was yesterday. It was December 2, 1999, in Atlanta, and I thought that ‘The Dream,’ who had just left WCW, was there to say hi to some people he knew who were working for ECW at the time. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I would be eye to eye with him in the ring less than three hours later!”

—”K
ING OF
O
LD
S
CHOOL
” S
TEVE
C
ORINO

There was a TV taping there and when I hit the ring, it was a phenomenal response. My debut was a surprise, but Corino and I went on to have a feud and I helped further his career when he beat me in a bull rope match at the ECW Arena. So we went on and made TV and I was still working, trying to make independents at the time on my own.

Paul E. brought me up to the ECW Arena for the first time. It was about 20 degrees outside, ice on the street, cold as shit. I had read different articles on the internet about how the fans in this place received certain wrestlers, and I wondered how they were going to receive me if I didn’t go there. Well, of course, the fans knew I was in Philly, but they didn’t know how I was going to have it, how I was going to make my entrance there. Paul E. had me go outside and wait for the right time to run in from the side door. Like I said, it was about 20 degrees outside and I stood there about 20 minutes, just about freezing my balls off, and then the time came, and I hadn’t received a reception like I did from those fans in quite a long time. Anyhow, I think it was more out of the respect for me in coming down to their building, because it really was the fans’ building, coming into their home, coming into that organization, and they really respected me for it. That spot really gave me a shot in the arm at that point in time. So we went on and just kept on with ECW and I wasn’t doing a lot, just showing up, but I was getting paid and doing a lot of things.

“I am sure most people would say that they admire Dream’s charisma or the way he sold for the heels or even his booking style. The thing I admire most about Dusty Rhodes is his heart. This is a guy who didn’t have to do what he did for a 27-year-old kid. Dusty was already a legend, he didn’t need to do a program with an unknown Steve Corino, but he did. Not only did he do it, but he made me look like a superstar and I became an instant success [with the ECW fans]. I was already claiming to be the ‘King of Old School,’ but Dusty made the nickname a reality, all for the purpose of ‘making’ someone. ECW didn’t have the money to pay Dusty what he deserved, he did it because that is the type of guy he is. In a few words, Dusty Rhodes made Steve Corino! There is no doubt about it. Before Dream came to ECW, I was a mid-level heel that had just prematurely finished a program with Taz and Tommy Dreamer. I had heat, but to the ECW fans Taz and Dreamer were not ‘Old School,’ they were ECW born. But when Dusty came to ECW, he legitimized my beliefs in old-school wrestling and put me at the top of the card almost right away. Steve Corino would never have been either the ECW World or NWA World champion without Dusty Rhodes.”

—”K
ING OF
O
LD
S
CHOOL
” S
TEVE CORINO

Tommy Dreamer was a cool guy. Not only did he show me a lot of respect when I was there, but I have a lot of respect for him as he really took his time to hone his craft. A lot of people don’t realize just how much of ECW was Tommy’s. He had his heart and soul in that thing, which is why I booked him a few times with TCW.

So anyway, I was still running Turnbuckle at the time, still trying to take independent bookings, and then shortly after ECW, Jerry Lawler’s booking agent, and that’s what he is—people say, “Aw, he’s just a guy you have,” and that shit—but booking agent Mike O’Brien came to me in Nashville when Lawler and I did an independent date for the first time where we had actually wrestled each other. “The King” introduced me to Mike and right away he said, “Let me handle this.”

Since that time, Mike’s been my agent and we’ve made a lot of money together. He’s a hardcore guy in that he knows how to negotiate, and because of that, everybody who does business with him doesn’t like him on most occasions. But the bottom line is he gets the job done. They don’t like it because they think it’s just the old school and they should be dealing directly with me, but I’ll deal with my heart instead of my wallet; Michael deals with the wallet. He’s been a great asset, and we’ve come to be good friends.

“Part of the problem some of these promoters have with me is they don’t understand that the fee can change depending on where the show is, what type of match it is and who Dusty’s wrestling. For example, a promoter in the Carolinas or Florida is going to pay more if he is working with Terry Funk or Tully Blanchard than let’s say a promoter in Wisconsin where Dusty would be working a local guy. Sometimes it depends on the economic situation of the area too, as typically they can pay a little more if their ticket prices are higher because they can afford to.”

—M
ICHAEL
O’
BRIEN

Meanwhile, time marched on for ECW, and they were getting ready to fold their camp. There were a lot of guys not getting paid, not getting checks, bitching and complaining, but Paul E. had that old-school promoter’s way of talking to his guys when they said, “I’m going to go in there tonight, I’m going to get my money, I’m going to tell that son of a bitch that I’m through and it’s all over. …” and they’d go in and have a meeting, and by the time they finished talking with Paul E. they were ready to knock down a wall—
and that’s the way the old promoters were. You’d get ready to quit: “I’m leaving … I hate this territory … the money ain’t right here…” they would be leaving, one foot out the door, but that old fucking mentality talks them into staying.

I have a lot of respect for Paul E. He was a guy who when I was in charge of Jim Crockett Promotions and TBS, he always came to the production meetings. I never ran him off because he was always there, involved, but he took mental notes. It was kind of like he went to school and got paid to go by WCW. And as we know, back then they threw money around like it was fucking chocolate bars at a Hershey convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania. ECW was a good time, and it was a time that helped me out a lot and made me appreciate how people really respected the industry. Of course the matches with Corino and me, and the matches with Funk and me—that’s just legendary shit that went down during that period of time.

The independents were a little bit different. We had some huge houses. The biggest one, besides Lawler and me in Butler, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh, where we did 6,800 people, was in Davie, Florida, at the Rodeo Arena when they had Abdullah and Kevin Sullivan and Terry Funk and me. I talked about this briefly earlier, but it was a tremendous night because it was the old Miami, the old Fort Lauderdale crowd. I believe it was like 4,000 paid and it was great.

So the independents were off and on. I never went to a place that Mike got a booking for me where I didn’t get my money. It was usually waiting for me when I get there. The only time was for this guy Norm Connors in Pittsburgh, where we did the 6,800 house just before that—the bastard still owes me $750. But I don’t want to come across like it’s all about money, because it ain’t. It’s not the money, because $750 is beer money. It’s the point of what was going on, and I took him at his word. As I write this, it’s been almost two years now.

“I get a lot of requests literally from all over the world to book Dusty, and the most difficult thing I have to deal with, especially if I never heard of the group making the request, is researching who the person is and what wrestling organization it’s for; it’s important that the person and group are reputable. There are a lot of good promoters out there like William Moody and Marvin Ward in Virginia, Tony Hunter in North Carolina, and Jonathan Gold among others. These are the type of promoters who are businessmen and try to make their promotions successful through hard work. Unfortunately, there are also promoters out there who are really just fans who’ve found money somewhere and want to wrestle, making themselves the star.”

—M
IKE
O’
BRIEN

Independents are tough, and Terry warned me, “There have been many nights I’ve seen guys go and not get their money; the houses being the shits.” I’ve often thought, “Here I am, ‘The American Dream.’ I’ve wrestled in front of 35,000 people or more, and now here I am in front of 35 people because this promoter doesn’t have a fucking clue.”