Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (6 page)

But he was Lou. He was untouchable to the guys in the dressing room. The respect that is missing nowadays is crazy. When he walked in, you moved. If you were sitting close, you moved. He was the champion of the world and that’s the way you looked at it. There’s a little mystery there, and I can’t even imagine not doing that out of respect.

But all this ties together like I said earlier with paying your dues.

For example, Fritz heard that in San Antonio and Harlingen and the Mexican towns, I was over like a son of a bitch. There was a territorial system in place and he was the Godfather, just like Eddie was in Florida. Not only did Fritz have his own territory booked out of Dallas, but these were his guys. He owned the territory, and they gave booking fees back to Fritz.

My first big payoff came right after the deal with Thesz. It was right after Fritz decided, as the NWA America’s Champion, to make two to three trips a year to Houston for Paul Boesch. He’d also make two or three trips for Joe Blanchard and his TV down in San Antonio or Corpus Christi when Fritz wanted to go fishing or dove hunting with the guys. Fritz had a great time when he would come down there.

Anyway, I had only been in San Antonio a few weeks, and already I had almost been knifed … and one time Plechas pushed me out of the way of a whiskey bottle that was coming from the ceiling. “Bulldog” Danny Plechas was kind enough to take it upon himself to look after me in the business; he was a referee and an ex-wrestler and was one of Fritz’s lieutenants.

Bulldog had taken care of me on numerous occasions, and the word got back to the office in Dallas that I was really over there. Gary Hart and Grizzly saw me take the area through changes—they were doing the same thing in Dallas but in a little different way—and in San Antonio, Joe’s way was a leather strap match. On the card was Pops, Grizzly Smith, versus Gary Hart in what we called a lights-out match after the main event. The main event for the heavyweight title was “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes against Chris Markoff.

I guess I was cockier down there because in five or six weeks I said, “Shit, this is great.” I got bit by the ass. …

Fritz came in, and everything was two out of three falls for the title. I can remember trying to make a joke with him, he had his own room of course, and I was a charismatic son of a bitch, and I was just like I am now.

I knew within five weeks that I was the biggest thing. Whether I was or not, it didn’t matter. It’s what you believe and shall receive, being the biggest thing in the industry.

We sold out, and somebody came through the dressing room saying, “Go tell Fritz how it is,” and the guy said they were lined up around the auditorium … they were down the street! I said to myself, “They are down the street!”

Two minutes later Plechas came over and said, “Fritz wants to see you.”

“Sure, man.”

Going over there I had my boots on and my T-shirt on, but I forgot I had no underwear on. I walked into his office with my dick hanging out.

“What the fuck? Where are your fucking pants? You come in here with your fucking dick hanging out!”

“Ah, shit. I’m sorry. I’ll go and get a towel or something, man.”

I sat down with my bare ass on a cold seat—it probably had parasites all over it—and there I was with my mess hanging out.

In the match itself, obviously on the first fall Fritz kicked the shit out of me and beat me with the claw, and because they lined up around the building, on the second fall he kicked the shit out of me and beat me with the claw.

Driving to Austin to get back home, I was scared to look at the envelope, because in the envelope you got paid in hard cash, and it was really thick. When I got home, I put it up on the dresser. I was lying in bed, and the phone rang at 7:30 in the morning from Miami, and it was George Wilson who coached the Miami Dolphins, getting ready for football season.

“We got one of your tapes and we want you to come to the Miami Dolphins training camp with us,” he said. “We can’t offer you anything until you make the team, but if you make the team, then we can make you an offer. Come try out.”

During that time, I had never seen over a hundred dollars in my life until that moment. I never had that type of money in my pocket. I looked at the phone, I looked at the money, and I said, “I no longer play professional football,” and that was that. And that was my first big payoff.

But it got better.

Harlingen was on the Gulf Coast right down on the border of Mexico, and there was some of the best dove hunting and fishing in the area. The building there was about half the size of the Armory in Tampa, a little auditorium that held about 1,500 to 2,000. The surrounding towns were Kingsville and Raymondville, and Fritz came down there the same week we did the local television show. They also did a live radio hookup that night from Harlingen that was carried back over to Mexico.

They knew me in old Mexico by the description from the radio program and I was the main event there.

Houston also ran on Friday nights and was doing great business with all those guys, Harley Race (my “Dog”), Johnny Valentine, “Flying” Fred
Curry. I wanted to be there, too, because that’s where the money was. The money here was from 45 to probably 75 bucks, but the training that Joe Blanchard gave me there on top of the main event, well, you would just want to be there.

Plechas, Fritz’s first lieutenant, contacted Joe and said Fritz was coming to Harlingen. There was no air conditioning, it was 185 degrees, and I was sitting with my balls hanging out again because that had become a trademark now for me when I saw Fritz. I would put on my boots and T-shirt, and I would walk around naked.

He came in, and on the first fall I got hold of a chair and busted him with it and got disqualified, so he won that fall and I escaped the claw. The second fall I didn’t escape the claw, which he already had cocked and ready, so he took the match.

Afterward, Joe came in with the envelopes and threw one to me. Two hundred eighty dollars; wow! I got my envelope, and Joe put his envelope down, and he and Plechas started messing with a fishing pole and reel that they bought. Joe got up to leave and words were never spoken … he just walked by, kind of grinning, and threw me his envelope. He threw me his envelope! So I grabbed it but didn’t open it up until I got home the next morning. When I did it had five big ones in it—$500! I ended up with $780 … and that was my biggest payoff to date, but hardly my biggest ever. More would come.

It was just an amazing time. I respected the business, but I knew that I was going to be a star. Joe knew, Fritz knew … they knew it. They could smell it.

I can look at guys I’ve broken into the business and guys I brought in, and I can say I knew from the time they walked into the room if they were the deal. However, I cannot walk into a room anywhere in the country where there are independent wrestlers and see one person who tells me they’re the real deal. On the independent circuit, I’m walking around and seeing great stuntmen. But hey, independently you can’t walk in and just see something that’s great and special. There’s something missing out of the whole thing. Terry Funk and I talked about it one night on the telephone.

Anyway, I guess I was getting cockier with time, and about the second or third time I wrestled Nick Kozak, I was pretty stiff, very stiff. I went to my room at the Alamo Plaza Hotel in El Paso, and while Jerry Kozak and I were down in old Mexico, Nick and his dad bought a whole sack of potatoes and
spread them out in my bed and didn’t realize it until I laid down. Nick and Jerry were two brothers I really liked.

I made $17,000 in my rookie year, and it’s been a long, hard road since then. But all that would change soon enough. It wouldn’t happen for a couple of years yet, but there was going to be an explosion on the wrestling scene in the form of an American Dream.

By the way, remember that little gas station I talked about earlier? Well, later that year I went back to that same gas station and the same guy was there, the same attendant was working; the guy who gave me $9 worth of gas. Now, he didn’t remember who the fuck I was, but that didn’t matter because I remembered what he did for me. So I gave him $50.

C
HAPTER
4

“Dusty Rhodes … you make me want to puke! You’re an apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic, egg-sucking dog.”

—T
ERRY
F
UNK
, F
LORIDA
T
V
I
NTERVIEW
, C
IRCA
1977

D
usty Rhodes and the Funk family have a tattered history all their own. There was the old man, Dory Funk Sr. and the great technician, Dory Funk Jr. But in my mind, none was better than the consummate athlete, Terry Funk.

For more than 30 years it’s been “The American Dream,” Dusty Rhodes versus that Texas rattlesnake, Terry Funk; two warriors who are still going strong but grew up together in an industry that kicked lesser men to the curb.

Some people have asked me why that feud continues to be talked about today after so many years. Why has it endured … survived the test of time when other feuds have long been forgotten?

While others may have their opinions, their ideas, and their take on it, if you will, I have mine. Believability and respect for the business.

Believability and respect are two of the main ingredients in professional wrestling that are sorely missing today.

Believability and respect.

Their whole family was tough. I was 19 years old doing one of my first tours of the Amarillo promotion and I was to meet Dory Funk Sr. for the Western States Heavyweight title on a Thursday night. Holy shit, that was big!

I went out and cut what I thought was a hell of a promo about me kicking his ass and I called him “Old Man Funk.” As I passed him in the
hallway afterward expecting to hear him say, “Great promo,” he said, “Kid, be careful who you call old man, ‘cause how are you going to look Thursday night when this old man kicks your ass?”

Well, Thursday night rolled around and sure enough the old man beat “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes in two straight falls. That’s promotion!

Dory Jr. was a bit different than either his old man or his brother. His dad and brother were known more as kick-ass wrestlers, brawlers if you will, but guys who could bring it. “Junior,” however, was a great NWA World Champion by working the mat. He drew a lot of money working that old-school style with those uppercut forearms and the dreaded spinning toe hold.

Dory and I aren’t close these days, but I have all the respect in the world for him. He knows the industry, and if you have a kid who wants to learn about the business, I would make sure that in some way, shape, or form, he passes through Dory’s door, because of the knowledge he has.

A lot of people in the business sometimes thought Dory was stupid because of the way he would carry himself or he was softspoken. That’s not the case. He is far more intelligent about the business and about life than they gave him credit for. Now if he wants to appear stupid to some people and have someone else do the talking for him, then that’s okay … that’s his business. But me knowing him, it’s not so. I think that he’s just one of those who still lives in the world of believability and respect. And when you have that, it’s the real deal, buddy … you want to be in the business? You will have to battle, claw, scream, holler, and scratch … whatever it is, it becomes the real deal.

As far as matches between Dory and me, there are not any significant ones that I could pick out. Okay, so a match goes 60 or 90 minutes in Fort Lauderdale, or Miami, or wherever. … Terry and I got it done in 10 minutes.

Not a knock, because those kind of matches have a place in our business every once in a while. Something like that is more suited for Dory and Jack Brisco.

But that’s why Terry was a different story than his brother or even the old man, to me, anyway. And it’s not like I’m pulling numbers out of my ass. Dory and I really did 60 minutes in Miami, and the very next night Terry and I did 10 in West Palm Beach.

I honestly cannot tell you what happened in the match with Dory that was different than any other time I wrestled Dory, but I do remember vividly the one with Terry being near riotous.

Terry went and took a handful of wooden coffee stirrers from the concession stand and hid them in his trunks. Throughout the match he would use them, and eventually I was opened up to where my face was a crimson mask from the blood. The people were going crazy as he kept hiding them from the referee. Finally the ref caught him, and the wooden sticks went flying everywhere, up in the air, everywhere. While the referee was distracted picking them up and kicking them out of the ring, Terry had one left on the other side of his trunks and used it on me. It was great psychology.

But still I think that Dory belongs on a list of those who deserve respect and honor … and while I always kidded him, I never defamed him because of who he is and what he’s done in the pre-yellow finger era.

Yellow finger?

Before talking more about Terry, let me explain what the yellow finger is.

I always thought there was an invisible line drawn in our business that I refer to as the yellow finger. This line, if you will, divided the pre-merchandise era and the time when they started selling these big number-one foam fingers at the arenas. And who was the biggest yellow finger of them all? Hulk Hogan.

We all set there?

Getting back to Terry, I always looked up to him because he played football at West Texas State and so did I. He and his family ran the wrestling in town that I would go watch; kind of like how yellow finger looked up to me—although he may not admit it—when he would go to the Tampa Armory to see and learn from me before he got into the business. Later on when I was established as “The American Dream,” Terry would come to Florida and talk some shit about me quitting the team because I was behind him, but that was just part of the fun.