by Dusty Rhodes
Jack was the new era to me.
I was selling out these buildings with Jack and I couldn’t get out of the car, the paparazzi would follow me everywhere I’d go. He helped make Dusty Rhodes the American Dream, and I’ll get into that in a little bit. In the meantime, whether it was 30 minutes, 20 minutes, or whatever he would have, he would have a cigarette in his hand, have immaculate shoes just like Lou Thesz wore, and he would put on the Avis Rent-a-Car jacket—the little red and white one he usually wore—or if he didn’t wear the jacket that night, he would just do two deep knee bends, take a puff of the cigarette, and be ready to go.
I would say, “Wow, man, shit…” He never knew I watched him so closely on how to present himself, but to me Jack was like Lou, and when I wrestled Lou, it was strange, because I was in there with him; in the ring with my idol.
I think it’s important to know that when I stepped into the ring with Lou for the first time, it wasn’t the American Dream stepping into the ring with him, but rather it was a very young, still sowing his oats, “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes … and I think it’s important to understand the setup that allowed me to be in the ring with Thesz in the first place, because it came off a very hot angle.
I had literally just started, having the match with Reggie Parks, and Gary Hart was the hottest manager in Texas. He managed the Spoiler, who was Don Jardine, the Super Spoiler, and others. Gary was from Chicago and loved his wine. I called him “the wino from Chicago,” and we had a great run later on as one of the greatest feuds of all time with me against Gary Hart’s Army.
So I walked into the old Dallas Sportatorium for the first time and that place was hot—it was a hot territory doing great business—and there was Gary, like in The Godfather giving counsel to the Kentuckian, Grizzly Smith. Grizzly, or “Pops “as we called him, was over. He had been there five weeks and had beaten everybody within 40 seconds.
They did a little TV like they do nowadays, like at Wildside and other places, and there was a monitor on Fritz von Erich’s desk.
Anyway, Fritz had never met me before, and I had just come out of Hartford with the Continental Football League. I was ripped pretty good and I looked good at about 245 pounds and I was going up against Grizzly Smith to help build up this angle with him against the Spoiler— a big fucking angle—so he beat everybody’s ass, and there I was and they didn’t know me from shit.
“Bulldog” Danny Plechas was the referee. So they introduced “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes—that was my deal, “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes, Joe Blanchard would make me “The Austin, Texas, Wildman”—and I started walking down that aisle. Now, being as charismatic as I am—and it carries over to the fans—instantly as I was walking down that aisle to do my 30 seconds against Grizzly or try to go longer, the people started booing me for no reason. He was over as a babyface. But I thought, “Jesus Christ, there is no reason in the world they are booing me.” But it was really raw and I stopped, and that’s where I developed that great knack that I got from Johnny Valentine—and also where the Dusty spirit comes in—turning to all sorts of people and having the ability to make them yell, scream, or do whatever I want.
I would take another step in order to look at the people, so if they were booing, I would just stop and look and they would boo louder, and I realized that was the way to turn them up and down.
Charismatically I have that eye contact you need with the people and I knew it … and I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew Fritz was back there watching. I can picture him sitting back there with his Pall Mall cigarettes in his hand—he’d smoke a pack or a carton every minute—I get mad visualizing him sitting at his desk. I never crossed anyone who was more over with a hall like he said he was, and made you believe it.
Now I knew he was watching, and I got in the ring and the people were going crazy. The crowd was good and hot, and back then they had these screens so it was physically hot, and man, the atmosphere was great. So the bell rang and I went in and locked up with Tiny, and he took me and just threw me like a piece of rag and shot me off into the corner.
I was preparing myself for the son of a bitch to bear hug me … 45 seconds, grab a Lone Star beer, and I’d be out of here, buddy. I locked up again and nothing was said, and he took me and threw me again. So he threw me off again and picked me up, threw me in, threw me off the ropes, I hit the ropes, I came off, and he gave me a big foot. I said, “Fucker,” it was a big shit deal. He nearly knocked my nose off.
He picked me up. The crowd was loud, and I hadn’t touched this motherfucker except for getting my ass kicked. The crowd was screaming so loud, booing, I couldn’t hear, and I looked at ringside and there was Gary Hart, the manager of all managers, coming down.
Gary was standing there at ringside screaming at me. “Hey kid, come here. Come here. Come here.” Screaming … and finally the spoken word for somebody who never heard it in the ring was spoken.
Pop said, “Go see what he wants.” With that, Grizzly shoved me off and I took a big rolling bump, rolled off the ring onto the floor.
People could scream louder because of my association with him. Gary said, “Fritz is watching the monitor—he fucking loves you. I don’t know what it is, but go back in there and lock up and tell Grizzly …” Now he was telling me this and I’d never spoken in a ring in my life, “…tell Grizzly…” who I respected and thought he’d kill me any second, “…to keep going and you come back out here in about 20 seconds.”
So I rolled in and the action was going on and he was throwing me around and he had me in a headlock, backing me in a corner and I was trying to say, “Mr. Smith … Mr. Smith … Mr. Smith … we have to keep going.”
He said, “You don’t have to tell me, I know what’s going on …” and he shoved me into ropes and I rolled out.
Gary said to me, “Tell him to put you in a bear hug … he bear hugs you by the ropes, I’m going to reach through and trip him with you in the bear hug on top of him … and Danny’s going to count one, two, three and you’re gonna win.”
We were outside and the people were screaming, and I said to Gary, and this is the truth, “You fucking go tell him that.”
He knew … Pops knew … I rolled in, Pops threw me into the rope and put me in a bear hug. He was bear hugging, people were going crazy, and he’d been killing people for six weeks like this and he had a death grip on my ass. Then I felt him go out from under me, and bam, I felt myself go on top of him.
As Danny counted one, two, as he went on to three, I said, “No, no, no, no” … to the referee. I was saying this and he never let the bell go. So Danny was laying there and he counted one, two, three; Gary jumped in the ring and raised my hand.
God dang!
That’s why Pops, to this day what he did for me … anything that I ever did for him couldn’t even pay him back.
The crowd was throwing cups and beer and shit, and I’m saying, “Wow, man, this is great.”
“I said to Danny [Plechas], I’m not going to beat this kid. He asked me, ‘You see what I see, don’t you?’ I said, ‘I sure do!’ There was more there than just getting a win over Dusty. I didn’t need to beat him. We went about seven or eight minutes. It was like an electric current was going through him and I could feel him. Watching him and watching the crowd, I knew he had something. I knew he’d make it.”
—GRIZZLY SMITH
So I went to the back where Fritz was sitting, and sitting there he always had the claw intact. Fritz always had it up in the air in case you got close, he would put the motherfucking claw on you. He never relaxed. A pencil was never in his hand. He had the claw stationed right over his head. As I walked in, it looked like he was throwing a baseball at me, and when he talked, he talked with the claw. Fritz talked with the claw—he asked, “What’s your name?” He didn’t even know my name!
Danny came in and said, “This kid’s got it. Man, he’s got it.”
“I first met Dusty in Ft. Worth and I saw a sparkle in him. He was sitting in a corner with a pair
of granny glasses on reading a book of poetry. But he had that look. The look was important. He had it. He had it so much you had to not look, not to see it. I saw in Dusty this common guy that could electrify people. That first night with Grizzly, I found out what they originally planned to do and because I had his ear, I told Fritz my feelings on Dusty, to give him an opportunity. I’m proud I saw it in him. I don’t know if he was aware that I lobbied for him.”
—GARY HART
I believe Joe Blanchard planned it. I know that they talked, and I know that it just wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. They knew exactly what they were doing, because the very next week I was on the double main event, my second match in the history of the fucking business down in Dallas. In the second match I was in the main event against Grizzly and he just slaughtered me in 15 seconds with the bear hug. I was done.
But that set it up for the deal with Thesz and I didn’t even know.
I got my booking and I was driving into town, and I nearly shit a blue goose. The marquee said the Spoiler #1 managed by Gary Hart with “Dirty” Dusty Rhodes versus Duke Keomuka and Lou Thesz.
I said, “Whoaaaaa, fuuuuccck. …”
Thesz had a habit that everybody he didn’t like he would not only stretch them, but he would slap the shit out of them. He would back you into the ropes, he would cuff you, he would slap the shit out of you. If you were a rookie, he would slap the shit out of you.
At about this time, I don’t know shit, but I’m sitting there thinking, man, God. …
Gary and Spoiler and I went into the ring to this thunderous roar. Here came Duke Keomuka. Why he was a babyface, I’ll never know. Duke was out there in his Japanese stuff and there came Lou Thesz behind him… not with him, behind him.
Spoiler said they were in an angle that I knew nothing about, so he said, “I’ll stay in the ring and I’ll tag you. Just go ahead and do whatever you want to do until you get tired of it. Gary will tell you, you know what’s going on from there. Okay?”
About a minute into the match, I came into the ring with Lou. I said, buddy, I don’t know. I said in my mind—and your mind is going like a thousand miles a minute—this is my fucking hero standing here. I saw Duke on the apron and I saw everything in slow motion. The whole world so slow. …
I had a pretty good lock up, and when we locked up, it was stiff and like bam, he just tied me right into the ropes and I knew there wasn’t a thing I could do. He backed me in the ropes and he just reared back to slap me. I was thinking this was a setup, so he reared back to slap me and Plechas, the referee, grabbed his hand and released me. I scrambled like a mother and I tagged Spoiler, and the rest of the night I never touched him.
I got in the ring with Duke and everything, but I never touched Thesz, and I think he would always kind of remember that moment because when I got dressed with him in a lot of different dressing rooms as I was gaining my rise, he always had a kind of smirk on his face.
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 Vale
ntine, “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.
