Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream

by Dusty Rhodes

  Florida Championship Wrestling is where he really learned his skills and was where he’d begin to claim his piece of wrestling history. Then he went to go to work for Bill Watts and the UWF in Oklahoma, the old Mid-South promotion. That’s where he became a star, but they knew it was my job to make him a bigger star. We at JCP were getting ready to get on an unbelievable roll and he was to be the centerpiece.

  But in the blink of an eye all that shit didn’t matter, because it all came crashing down. Plans had to change literally overnight because business was still business, but it ate me inside to see a young lion like Magnum in that condition.

  “Dusty pushed me harder than I’d ever been pushed before. We watched the thing grow from 2,000 and 3,000 people a night in small towns to 10,000 people jamming those same arenas … we were on a rocket ride. We went from flying on commercial airlines to flying on private jets… it was right there on the teeter-totter edge just before pay-per-views. The week of Starrcarde 1985 I made the most money I had ever made in a week—$13,000. My future was just getting ready to take off. But that all changed on October 14, 1986, when I had the accident. They took care of me while I was in the hospital and I made about $185,000 that year. I probably would have made $225,000 if I hadn’t been injured. Who knows how much I would have made with pay-per-views. I watched the landscape of wrestling change from a hospital bed.”

  —”MAGNUM T.A.” TERRY ALLEN

  I remember standing with the doctor, his wife, and his mom and dad when the doctors told him he would have a million-to-one chance to ever move from the head down—Fuck it I thought. … Fuck it! His story of strength and will is a book in and of itself. Magnum walked out of that hospital and is walking today.

  Shit happens, they say, but some of it is shittier than others.

  “When Magnum got hurt and we used to go visit him, I thought it was great Dusty stood by the guy like that. Dusty told him, ‘You’ll always have a place with us’ when Magnum was worried about how he was going to pay his bills and make ends meet.”

  —DAVID ALLAN COE

  These days the posse consists more of refined and established businessmen than wild outlaws and wrestling people, although there will always be people in the business as part of my gang.

  A couple of the new generation posse members down in Florida include Smoothie Kane and “Big Tilly” James Tilquist. Many moons ago Tilly worked as an enhancement talent for WCW. He also worked in Florida on the independent circuit as part of a tag team called Phi Delta Slam. Two super nice guys who take care of me when I’m down in the Orlando area, but two guys who never really made it in the business and they’re okay with that which is really a cool attitude for them to have because as I said earlier, not everyone can be the star of the show.

  Then there’s David Qualls. Not only is he a member of my posse, but David is one of my business partners with Turnbuckle Entertainment, Black and Blue division. David is a high-level executive in the casino resort industry as a property developer and manager. We met over the telephone when he just picked up the phone and called me one day and have been friends ever since.

  “Dusty was my idol growing up because he didn’t have the body of a Greek god, but rather a Hindu one … Buddha. His euphemisms and body language were hilarious without making him into a buffoon. But the thing that most impressed me about him, was when we had a show in Miami, Oklahoma. He sat everybody down and said, ‘We’re going to give the fans a show tonight … no extreme crap.’ He told everybody to have a good time, but to give the people what they’re looking for.”

  —DAVID QUALLS

  Another member of my posse is Jerry “J.D.” Douthit. I’ve known J.D. for about eight years and I met him when he started coaching my daughter Teil’s softball team when she was about 14. A couple of years later he and I were assistant coaches together at the school where my son Cody played football along with his son Jeremy and we just remained friends.

  When Turnbuckle was getting off the ground, he helped out with some sponsorships, but that’s not why we remained friends … it was the bond through our kids and after they finished school, we just remained friends.

  “He’s a real man. You’ve got to look beyond the celebrity to see he’s a real person. I helped him when he needed it and he helped me when I needed it. When I lost my father in October 2003, Dusty was right there for me. He came by to see if I needed anything and it was quite a blessing for him to be there.”

  —J.D. DOUTHIT

  And finally there’s former Georgia Senator Richard Green. Senator Green and I have been next-door neighbors for the better part of 18 years, and like J.D., he and I became friends through our children, when Teil went to his daughter Stephanie’s Halloween party many years ago. But that friendship isn’t like one of those “Can I borrow your lawnmower?” friendships. This was one of those friendships that stuck and these days the senator is my main hunting buddy, especially for deer and turkey.

  “Dusty’s idea of hunting and my idea of hunting are much different. He’s a gentlemen’s hunter. I take it more seriously. This one time I shot an eight-point buck and I said to Dusty, ‘Let me get your picture with it.’ The next thing I know, Dusty put the picture up and claimed it as his own.”

  —RICHARD GREEN, GEORGIA STATE SENATOR

  But our friendship goes even beyond that. Through the years, the good times and bad times, he was right there for me. And when I lost my mom, he was right there for me again; one of those unselfish people who would do anything that needed to be done. I’m grateful for that type of friendship, because someone like that doesn’t walk into your life every day.

  “Dusty is one of the nicest, kindest, gentlest people I’ve ever known. People who don’t know him don’t realize how caring he is. When I went through the loss of my mother in August 2004 and my father-in-law six months earlier, Dusty would call just to see if I was okay. You don’t have many friends who genuinely care. Dusty genuinely cared.”

  —RICHARD GREEN, GEORGIA STATE SENATOR

  CHAPTER 8

  Without a doubt, pro wrestling is the greatest business in the world to be working in. Like I’ve said before, it has given me everything I have, and for that I am forever grateful. But for every bright spot in our business, for every positive thing that happens, there is the dark side to it too, and there have been far too many prices that had to be paid along the way.

  It is within this one aspect of the business that the Mafia blueprint comes into crystal-clear focus. It is here where people jockey for positions of power, say one thing to your face and something else behind your back, make you promises they cannot or do not intend to keep, and congratulate you with one hand while stabbing you in the back with the other. Welcome to the cutthroat world of pro wrestling politics.

  The politics of the business were here long before I was born, and will most likely continue long after I am in a field somewhere in Texas pushing up daisies. But in my 30-plus years of being in the business, I have seen more shit go down than one can imagine. Sometimes I was played like Nero’s fiddle and just kept doing what I was doing while Rome burned around me. At other times it was I who had to play the political game just to keep my position.

  Before I go any further, I want to be perfectly clear here about something. Despite what you may read in other wrestling books and biographies, do not expect me to sit here and bury people who I feel have done me wrong or who I may not like personally. If that’s what you’re expecting to read because someone else said something bad about me in their book, then you’re wasting your time and you might as well close the book now and stop reading because it’s not going to happen.

  Coming into this thing I made a decision that I was going to tell my story the way I saw and lived it. I was not going to grind any axes. I was not going to come across like some bitter old man. I made the decision to tell my story like it is, and if some people are soiled in the process, well then, that’s an unfortunate side effect of the story.

  It is my d
eep belief that the people who live in a glass-house industry like ours should not throw stones. Believe me, I can sit here and fill ten books with all the dirt I know on people, but too much of it would be inappropriate— does it really matter who was sleeping with who, or cheating on their wives? Does it really matter which wrestlers were gay? Only when it directly affected business did it ever matter. Otherwise, a lot of that shit is personal between the people who lived it … stories like that can ruin people’s lives even after so many years and I’m not about to do that. I have too much respect for this business and myself to stoop to that level.

  That said, on to business.

  Jim Barnett, Eddie Graham, and Vince McMahon Sr. were the men who, in my opinion, ran the world of professional wrestling in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

  Eddie, being my mentor, was always in constant contact with the other two. As I explained in a previous chapter, TBS had helped make me the first Golden Boy of Cable TV and the Florida show was on TV in New York City, so I was an instant draw. The Dream and Gordon … Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell … take your pick as our careers ran parallel to each other.

  Jim Barnett ran Georgia Championship Wrestling and like I also explained previously, he was my booker when I would be lent to other territories. Vince Sr. did the same with Andre, which is why the Giant and I were on the road many times together.

  But Barnett was more than just my booker or the guy who ran Georgia. He was a flamboyant, creative businessman with a master’s degree in business. He often dressed to match his personality, wearing flashy three-piece suits. When he talked to you, there was no mistaking that nasal Midwestern drawl, “Dusty, my booooy …” he would say. A lot of people thought he was a character, and in many ways he was, but he was a great, great friend.

  Barnett got started in the business with the old Chicago territory, helping its promoter, Fred Kohler, get on the old Dumont Television Network. In the mid-’50s he helped revolutionize our business by creating studio wrestling, something regional promoters in the country benefited from, as it was now affordable for them to do television and reach more fans. In the early ‘60s, while still promoting here in the States, he opened up the virgin Australian territory. Like many of the great ones in our business, he had a vision and an amazing sense of our industry.

  A lot of people knocked Barnett or didn’t like him because of his personal lifestyle or the way he did business, but he was successful, and because of cable and TBS, he became Ted Turner’s closest confidante in wrestling … and one of the most powerful promoters in the NWA (if not the most powerful) at one point.

  Even though he was in the wrestling business, Barnett also had a lot of Hollywood contacts throughout the years … people who were considered the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry back then and that was crucial, because when Vince Jr. decided to make his big move, Jim Barnett would end up playing an important role in that whole scenario.

  It meant nothing to the other promoters at the time, but “Junior” wanted to be the only one in charge. He was very much into his dad’s business … the family business. Behind the scenes, however, he was in the process of taking over the wrestling world, which he eventually did. The NWA … we thought the territories were too strong and it would never happen.

  To me, Vince Sr. was the classiest guy in our industry I had ever met. When I talked about how Lou Thesz was perceived to be when he walked into a territory’s dressing room you knew he was the World Champion.

  Vince Sr. was the promoter of promoters and he ran the empire of empires. He was the Godfather of the East as Eddie was the Godfather down South. Vince Sr. was a classy guy, and you could tell from your first meeting with him that he took care of the people around him. He had a little entourage and he was always really pleasant and respectful, but he was the type of person who demanded respect.

  The first time I actually got the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with him was at one of the old NWA conventions. Even though he was the owner of the WWWF at that time and he ran New York City and had his whole thing going, he still made sure to attend the meetings as he was still part of that group of promoters from around the world that I talked about earlier. Anyway, I had cocktails with him and just being around him … he just had that presence about him.

  Once I became a so-called star and became somebody who drew a lot of money and became more and more involved with him, I understood Vince Sr. a little more. Even in the Garden he had a way about him. I used to watch him … and I think if you want to be a student of the game, you should watch everything that happens … and on the night of the Garden shows, Vince Sr. would run all his old cronies in—all the old promoters who worked for him—and all these old guys would come there for their payoffs. They wouldn’t get paid off like with an envelope or anything, Vince Sr. would walk down the hall and every time he shook hands with one of these guys, he would give them money. He took care of them; gave them their payoff, whatever it was. I thought it was the coolest thing that he not only ran New York City while living down in Palm Beach, but he took care of all these guys … in many ways these were his lieutenants. This was something that you would read about in a book or see in a movie. But anyway, you knew he had a really good sense of loyalty and respect about him.

  The best example I can think of that illustrates Vince Sr.’s loyalty had to be around the time we had the second “Superstar” Billy Graham-Dusty Rhodes match at the Garden. Vince told me that he had given his word to Bob Backlund that for a certain amount of time he would have a title run. Eddie Graham was once again involved in this as Bob started down in Florida with us and we had some great times with him—and I like the shit out of Bob—but anyway, Vince knew that if Bob was going to carry the WWWF title, he was going to need charisma, he was going to need someone around who was a hard-working guy to work with him.

  Me and “Superstar” were in a very hot feud, and Vince and I flew from Tampa to Philadelphia to go do this television shoot in Hamburg. We sat next to each other on the plane, and then we caught a cab to go to the town. This was right before one of his TV tapings, and Vince asked me, systematically, “Man, how do you get this guy charisma?”

  I said, “Vince, you can’t! You’re either born with it or you have it … or you got to put stuff around him and whatever it is until he gets over. It might take a long time.”

  Eddie understood that and I’m pretty sure Vince did too, but I guess he wanted someone to give him confirmation.

  “Well, I gave my word,” he said. “So it’s not going to change.”

  If Vince Sr. said that, it meant to me if the guy was drawing 5,000 people in a 21,000-seat building it was going to be like that for the next few years … 5,000 people in a 21,000-seat building … because he gave his word and that’s the way he was.

  But he was obviously also smart enough to know that a “Prince” in his first ever title defense match at the Garden had to be protected. So he put Billy Graham on the show so when Backlund defended his title for the first time, he insured himself of a sell out and the perception of Backlund looking great; the perception of “this is my champion, champion of the world, and he drew a sell-out crowd.”

  The reality, however, is that it was “Superstar” generating the house, but that was just an old tool that promoters used when they wanted to get somebody over or to drive them to bigger things.

  Bottom line is he was a classy guy and his wife was a classy lady and it was a great era to me, because all those territorial guys, all those regional Godfathers, ran together. They would call each other, counsel each other and there was just an unbreakable bond … or at least we thought it was unbreakable.

  While Vince Sr. demanded respect by the way he walked around, at the time Junior—Vincent Kennedy McMahon—was the guy who did the television interviews and whatever else he did behind the scenes.

  So when you talk about Junior, he came from that era when if you wanted respect you had to earn it, and because of who he was, he even
tually did.

  The second-generation guys in the industry are all alike in that they’re the most talented people. You wonder why they are the most talented or why they know the industry like they do, it’s because they grew up in the family-run business.

  Anyway, I remember how VKM was so energetic. We were around the same age … him, me and “Superstar” … and he was into body building and would read “Superstar” parts of this health book about eating right and all these things. He would always have his TV and so there was a special closeness with him and “Superstar” Billy Graham and a different kind of closeness with me. We had some great interviews and I know he enjoyed doing them—I could see that—but I could also see he had a real eye for power.

  At the time Vince Jr. was involved in a lot of stuff at the Garden and a lot we didn’t know of that was going on behind the scenes. I was a little bit aware that Vince Sr. was not feeling well and Eddie had talked to me about that. We talked about it and discussed if it was going to be one of those black and white situations if Junior took over or if it was going to be one of those gray areas … if it’s gonna be a positive thing or not. I think in the back of our minds we knew what was coming, but we were too caught up in the old ways to think anything would really change.

  Since I was already going up to New York, I figured I could keep an eye on things. But I wasn’t looking too closely, as I was living the life of limousines and enjoying it, even though back then we paid for those things ourselves because that was the perception of headlining the Garden. If I was the main event, it didn’t matter to me that I was gonna pay four, five, six hundred dollars a night for a limo because I wanted the perception of who I was to be seen, which like I explained earlier, is what I learned from Lou Thesz.