Dusty Rhodes Shoot Interview Page 2
-Onto
Dory Funk, who was a great wrestler, but wasn’t so great as a booker. Dusty notes he always seemed to get the booking jobs to clean
up Dory’s mess. Apparently
everything Dory said or did was a work.
-Starrcade
’83 came about because Jim Crockett came to Dusty one day looking for a
“special” aura to his big show. Dusty
rejected early name suggestions from Barry Windham like “Autumn Bomb” and
settled for a play-on-words for “Decade” instead – Starrcade. Eddie Graham let him go from his Florida obligations so he
could book the NWA. Jim Crockett
offered Dusty crazy money to name his big shows and book.
No word on whether Dusty actually set up the rings and sold all the
tickets door-to-door by himself, too, but it wouldn’t shock me to hear about
that from him one day.
-His
first experiment in sports entertainment was the Boogie Woogie Man video that
led to the Valiant-Jones haircut angle. He
regrets not copyrighting his event names, because when Eric Bischoff came along
he took all of Dusty’s and added some lame ones of his own. Dusty named all of WCW’s PPVs from 1983 until 1993.
That actually makes sense, since Bischoff’s contributions were
“Uncensored” and “World War III”.
-
Wargames was thought up on a car trip to a house show, and is his
favorite gimmick match. He
describes the party atmosphere of the 80s.
-He
continues to make friends, talking about what a crappy booker George Scott is.
Dusty actually hates “the b word” and prefers “executive
producer”. The buck always
stopped with Dusty. Piper &
Steamboat apparently couldn’t deal with that and left for the WWF in 1984.
That’s a unique interpretation of their reasons for leaving.
-He
was ready to pass the torch to Magnum before he accident killed his career.
Dusty claims Magnum had more charisma than Hogan, and that he got way
more chicks. Magnum got 40,000
letters a day from fans after the car accident.
-Talks
about the Andersons cage match that turned Nikita babyface and we get a clip of
that.
-
Barry Windham, who once had tons of potential as a wrestler and booker,
just prefers to stay home these days. Barry
was Dusty’s #1 guy backstage and a protégé.
-Onto
the Midnights/RnR stuff and how Dusty came up with videos to get them over.
Says the RnR were like the Beatles in terms of crowds and money.
Says they could go 30-60 with ease, but it wasn’t believable for Ricky
Morton to get beat up that long, so he didn’t book them longer than 20.
-A
bit on managers, with Paul E & Jim Cornette being his favorites.
Thinks Cornette had the edge in talent.
-Knew
Steve Austin would be a superstar right from the start.
Yeah, that’s why he booked him to bump like a pinball for Dustin,
because he knew he’d be a superstar.
-Talks
about warring with Vince in the 80s. Takes
credit for selling out the building in a match against Bubba Rogers and thinks
they’d still be around (presumably on the strength of those Bubba-Dusty
matches) had Crockett not gotten greedy. Yeah,
THAT’S why the NWA died, because Crockett got greedy. Dusty’s booking had NOTHING to do with it.
-Thinks
Hogan beat him because he had Hollywood Connections and Dusty didn’t.
-Tully:
Good worker, bit of a crybaby. Thinks
he was a spinoff of Flair. Onto
Flair, who’s the “ultimate flim-flam man” and doesn’t give a shit about
anyone but himself. Dusty takes
credit for creating the Ric Flair character, and naming him as such.
See, Flair wanted to called “Ricky Rhodes”, and Dusty told him
“Ricky, you gotta find your own way, if you will” and Flair was so inspired
by these words from the Dream that he went on to draw millions of fans around
the world, all for Dusty. Dusty
doesn’t think Flair is God, but then he’s kinda biased.
-Clip
of Dusty calling out Flair on an episode of Worldwide, as David Crockett has
heart failure.
-Dusty
Rhodes v. Ric Flair. Stalling to
start. Hiptoss & elbow and
Flair begs off. Rhodes wins a
slugfest and Flair bails. Back in,
Flair pounds him in the corner and drops the knee for two.
Dusty comes back with a press slam and a lariat for two.
Flair goes up and gets slammed off, cue the Horsemen run-in.
4-on-1 beatdown follows, and the usual suspects save.
*1/2
-On
another episode, Dusty calls out Tully, resulting in another beatdown.
-Back
to the interview…
-Talks
about the early days of Ric Flair. Doesn’t
think Ric’s a good booker, but notes he has a rabid following of people who
don’t know anything about the business.
-
Onto the UWF and the wasted interpromotional war.
Dusty actually ADMITS A MISTAKE, as he notes he was too focused on Vince
and didn’t see the potential in the UWF guys.
-The
Bunkhouse Stampede: Well, he took a
lot of heat from the boys on this one. It
was a basically a throwaway PPV. When
the boys questioned him going over in his own match, his response involved a
naughty word. Ah, Dusty, truly a
wrestler’s booker.
-Onto
Sting and his trials and tribulations, and Luger’s. Funny story about a Luger-Wahoo
match in Florida gets thrown in, but he admits to not knowing the details on the
Bruiser Brody incident.
-The
Turner buyout and Dusty’s departure come next, as Jim Herd fired him as booker
and wanted to turn him heel. So he
told Herd where to stick it and went back to Florida to book until Vince called
him. Funny how he skipped over the
whole Road Warrior incident there, where Herd specifically told him not to blade
on TV anymore and he did a five-alarm bladejob on TBS shortly after and got
fired.
-
Dusty wanted Pat Patterson’s job in the WWF and made no secret about
it. The polka dots were NOT to
humiliate him, apparently, but rather a test to see if he could it over, which
he did. His original choice for
Sapphire was not Juanita, but rather a black hooker off the street. Vince wanted a family image, and by gum he was right in this
case. This interview is becoming
more surreal by the moment.
-Went
back to WCW in 1991 to finish unfinished business and try to forge the new WCW
out of the dogcrap given to him. He
did his best for two years and fought kicking and screaming when Bischoff came
in 1993, but finally gave way for Hulkamania.
-Talks
about Dustin and missing his childhood. He
knows a bad father for not being there. Loved
the Goldust gimmick and thinks they didn’t even scrape the surface of it.
-On
the WWF War: Thinks they could have
won if three things happened. 1) They needed a PR company to promote the shit out of Magnum
& Flair and get them on talk shows. They
needed to make “NWA” the same kind of brand name that the WWF had.
2) Contracts suck, period,
and guys needed to work for their money. 3)
TBS had to change their image as a hick station.
That’s actually the most astute thing Dusty’s said in this entire
interview.
-History
pieces piss him off because they leave out the 70s and act like wrestling died
in 1964 and reawakened in 1984 when the WWF went national.
-The
Dusty Finish? He liked it. Veers off onto the Shockmaster and how funny it was, and Jeff
Jarrett’s guitarshot on Moolah in 1999. He’s
proud to be associated with a finish forever, when most bookers aren’t even
remembered.
-On
today’s product: Times dictate
T&A and storylines, so Vince delivers.
Thinks three hours of Nitro is way too much, and thinks that ECW kids
should slow down all the highspots. Most
astuteness from Dusty.
-Talks
about the origins of his name.
-Thinks
Jerry Lawler is a flim-flam man in the Flair mold.
Big fan of JR, but knew from Day One that Ross wanted his job.
-Talks
about WCW’s big run. Doesn’t
think it’ll happen again because Vince adapts so fast and wouldn’t let
Turner beat him again.
-Talks
about his TCW and aspirations to write & direct a movie.
Plus the Dusty Rhodes Fantasy Camp, where you get to book yourself to the
World title whether or not you deserve it.
Okay, just kidding. He wants
a piece of the ECW action with Paul Heyman.
-Dusty
Rhodes & Tommy Dreamer v. Steve Corino & Jack Victory. Dreamer & Corino brawl into the crowd, and Tommy garbage
cans Corino and tosses him into a ticket window.
Back to ringside, Dusty beats on poor Steve. Dusty & Tommy double-team Victory, but Corino superkicks
Dreamer. He refuses to use a
ladder, and Tommy plays face-in-peril. Victory
stomps away and Corino makes lewd gestures at Dusty. Corino goes up, but gets planted into a ladder facefirst.
Hot tag Dusty, usual follows. Stereo
DDTs on the heels and double bionic elbows finish at 8:40.
Rhyno attacks, Sandman saves. *1/4
-
He talks a bit about Japan and how he wasn’t a big fan of Giant Baba
(now there’s an understatement), and so he got caught up in the NJ-AJ wars
when he worked a New Japan show and defended the NWA title there.
Backstory: All Japan was an
NWA member at the time, but Baba HATED Dusty, and in fact his booking of himself
to the World title in 1986 caused a major PR problem between Crockett and Baba.
-We
wrap things up.
-Classic
footage time:
-From
86, the Horsemen trail Dusty’s car with a video camera in an angle stolen
nearly shot-for-shot in 1997 for an Outsiders/Steiners angle.
They follow him to Jim Crockett’s office, then jump out of the car and
tie Dusty to a glass repair truck and break his arm with a baseball bat.
Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff.
-From
NWA TV: The James Boys, a pair of
masked outlaws who just didn’t care about nothin’, attack the Midnight
Express and kidnap Jim Cornette, then drag him outside and try to hang him from
the back of a moving truck. The
James Boys then cut a promo, sounding suspiciously like Magnum TA & Dusty
Rhodes.
-From
88, Magnum & Tully mouth off at each other about the “I Quit” match from
85, as Tully gripes that no matter where he goes all he hears from the fans is
“I Quit”. Tully cuts an awesome
heel promo running down Magnum, then when Magnum won’t back down Tully attacks
the crippled TA. Dusty saves with a
baseball bat and just brutalizes Tully, nailing Jim Crockett on the backswing.
This leads to Dusty getting suspended for 120 days, and we see the
“board meeting” where this occurs, where of course Dusty cuts a tough-guy
promo to declare his forthcoming vengeance on JJ Dillon for orchestrating the
whole thing.
-The
next week, the mysterious Midnight Rider comes into town and demolishes a jobber
with a DDT and bionic elbow. The
angle never ended up drawing a dime and was dropped very soon after.
-Barry
Windham explains his heel turn, but gets confronted by the Dream. The new Horsemen beat Dusty down until Luger saves him and
takes his own licks.
-Back
in the dressing room, Dusty and pals head out to the ring and Dusty calls out
Windham. Dusty kicks his ass as
wrestlers surround the ring. Barry
keeps running and the boys keeps throwing him in.
Dusty DDTs him twice as the clip ends.
-Dusty
Rhodes & The Rock N Roll Express v. The Midnight Express & Bubba Rogers.
Same match that I covered on the Cornette shoot tape.
-From
NWA TV: Ivan Koloff kills Dusty and
goes after Nikita, but gets nailed. Vladimir
Petrov gets Nikita, but Dusty comes back to clean house…and then gets killed
again. Petrov & Nikita have a
Bald Russian Staredown.
-The
Four Horsemen v. The Road Warriors & The Superpowers.
This is from Worldwide in 1987, just prior to Ole’s forced departure
from the group. Mega-brawl to
start, faces clean house. The
Horsemen sacrifice Ole and let him take the initial beating, until he bails.
Flair tries with Hawk, who totally no-sells the chops.
Flair regroups and tries again as we go to commercial and return with a
bunch of Horsemen down from the Sickle. Nikita
chokes Tully down, same for Ole. Flair
wants a piece of Animal, so they go. Flair
chops the shit out of him, no effect. Press
slam for Flair and he bails. Back
in, Animal gets caught in the Horsemen corner, but he shoulderblocks out and
Hawk comes in. He slams everyone as
TV time runs out at 6:26. No finish
shown, so no point rating it.
The
Bottom Line: Another interesting
shoot interview from RF Video, as Dusty interprets history in his own unique
manner. I was a little disappointed
that stuff like the Midnight Rider flop and his later booking days for WCW
weren’t addressed, and the Dusty Finish question was TOTALLY dodged, but the
footage of Dusty getting his ass kicked is classic and Dusty certainly has the
charisma to make for an interesting interview no matter what the subject.
Recommended, but with reservations. Check it out at RFVideo.com.