Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream

by Dusty Rhodes

  The ring of fire

  The ring of fire”

  —Johnny Cash “Ring of Fire

  I made sure everyone was all right; I climbed back up on Johnny’s back and headed for Oklahoma City! All I can remember was thinking, “How many of those haul working cotton pickers realized that ‘The American Dream,’ Dusty Rhodes, just visited their work site?”

  I know you’ve walked through the light, Johnny. So long, my old friend.

  When I think back on the business, I always go back to the road because that’s where I’ve spent most of my life. Even now, when driving in my car, sometimes I’ll listen to Johnny, but most of the time I’ll listen to Willie Nelson or if it’s in the morning, I’ll listen to one of my favorite radio personalities, Don Imus. I spent a lot of time on the road listening to Don and he’s a great thinker, when you get past all the crap and silliness. If they ever asked me who I would want as a manager in the wrestling business, I’d have to say that it would be Imus, but back in the era of Woodstock, when he would be in a stupor, because that was my era too.

  But, of all the places I’ve been, and I’ve said this a lot to you fans and to the people who covered me through the years, Florida is that place that brought me to the dance. So when I think back on my career, I reflect back on that era in Tampa, because that is where the majority of the people were, who’ve touched me and touched our industry back then. You have to remember, back then there were no Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or Tampa Bay Devil Rays, wrestling was the only game in town, produced by the Godfather of the region, Eddie Graham and Championship Wrestling from Florida.

  Tuesday nights were when I held court and I held it at the Imperial Lounge Room where Yolie and Doc Castellano were the owners. That was the happening place. It was after the matches at the Armory on Tuesday nights and the old country stars would come in there … the country boys. Captain Lewis, my bro, my posse, led the house band and we would go there and we’d hold court. A lot of really great stories came out of there like the attack by Terry Funk that I talked about earlier, but I remember Doc and his wife so fondly as we would eat Sunday dinner over their house—Cuban beans and rice. As a matter of fact, Michelle’s and my first meeting came at the Imperial Lounge after the matches.

  It’s a lot of great memories, and when I talk about Tampa, I can’t help reflecting back about how the legendary newspaperman Tom McEwen of the Tampa Tribune, an icon of his own industry, covered the sport of wrestling for Eddie there like it was a real sport; because that’s what it was to us! Andy Hardy, another Bay-area icon at Channel 13, covered us on the local news, and then there was “Salty” Saul Fleischmann, the local sportscaster way back then, who’d give the results from the matches at the Armory on TV … the Armory back then was as I called it, the Madison Square Garden of the south.

  Everybody who was anybody in our industry wrestled at the Fort Homer W. Hesterly Armory on Howard Avenue in Tampa except for the ultimate sports entertainer of our era, yellow finger himself, Hulk Hogan. That was one of his dreams, to wrestle there. But he sure as shit saw plenty of matches there involving me, Sullivan, Matsuda, Eddie … he saw us all … and he took it all in. The Macho Man, Randy Savage was there too, as a frequent visitor who watched the matches. So those were great times.

  I had my posse as we talked about, but my leaders were the old statesmen of the industry who, just like the Mafia consigliore—who you would go to confide with and seek their wisdom and advice—Henry Gonzalez, still my attorney today, was one of the most famous attorneys in the entire world.

  Somebody who is really dear to me in some of things he said about me, George Steinbrenner, is a guy who is, to me, the greatest sports figure in the history of sports, even more than the figures of the NFL like Pete Rozelle and those guys. George is also the most powerful owner of the most recognizable property in all of sports, my favorite team, of course as you know, the New York Yankees. He was a guy who came to the Armory, came to the Sun Dome, and despite his larger-than-life persona, would always be inconspicuous. He would sit and watch the matches and he loved it. And I always respected that about him because he could have easily overshadowed us, but he didn’t, because he supported me so much, and the times that we’d talk, it was an unbelievable experience for me. I always called him “the Boss” as he was and is just that, “the Boss” … not a bigger sports figure in our era, and I’m talking about every aspect of sports. The fact that I can call him a friend is really cool.

  The fact Steinbrenner was friends with many of my friends was also cool. One of those friends was Father Laurence Higgins, who later received the title of Monsignor. When he became Monsignor Higgins, it was like he had gotten this award, and I didn’t know where he got it from. I still don’t know what they do to go from being a father to a monsignor, how they go from being at a Willie Nelson concert with me drinking the wine that goes to the church out of the back of a car. I don’t know where they get that from, but when he became a monsignor, that was a big deal, because he got pictures of him and the Pope together.

  I think about him every day, not a day goes by where he doesn’t come into my thoughts. I remember one time asking him for a favor, when he was going to Rome to visit the Pope, and I think he and the Pope were on like an “I’ll call you on the cell phone”–type basis. He had the Pope’s number on speed dial. I guess he would say, “Hey Pope, it’s me, Monsignor Higgins, what’s going on?” Well, we had this big picnic called the “Rhodes Picnic,” which he was a part of; he came out. I knew he was going to Rome and I wanted him to take the Pope a T-shirt, one of my Dusty Rhodes T-shirts! In my head, I was imagining this scene—as egotistical as I am—where the Pope comes out on the balcony in Vatican City, looking over the vast sea of people … thousands standing below like they usually do, and he has his white robe on … and he just rips open the robe and there it is … he’s wearing a black “Rhodes Picnic” T-shirt that Monsignor Higgins gave him from me. So when I knew that wasn’t gonna fly, I asked Monsignor Higgins to wear it underneath his deal and then bring it back to me … this way it’d be close to me and God and all of those things. I don’t know who gave him that award, but I know God gave it to him, so it’s really cool with me. I don’t think anybody is as close to God as Monsignor Higgins, and I think that’s why he’s continuously on my mind, in my thoughts. Reflecting back on him was so important.

  And when I talk about my posse and everybody else who was involved in it, I’ve got to talk about the guys who were just part of that whole experience. Dick Slater to me was one of the great performers in our industry, and he was a big bud of mine back then and he was part of everything that was going on and that Imperial Lounge. I think about Miami too, not just Tampa, and I think about “Peanut” and Judy; they were two of my biggest fans, still to this day two of my biggest fans … and they were fans when fans were fans, man! They were just cool about everything.

  I reflect back to Bobby Jack—big Black Jack Mulligan—who’s one of my closest friends and somebody I love so dearly. Watching that big bastard do things was unbelievable, and I remember back on some of those times and smile.

  I remember the times when the Bucs first played in the NFL and won their first game. Chelle and I were sitting in the owners box with Hugh Culverhouse when they won their first game ever! Doug Williams was the fucking quarterback.

  All of those things that happened in Yeehaw Junction, like the time I pulled into this gas station and there was Arlo Guthrie’s tour bus and I saw two legs sticking out from underneath and I said, “Arlo?” and he said, “Dream?” and I said, “Where the fuck is your bus driver?” and he said, “You’re looking at him. I’m the bus driver, the mechanic, and the singer. …”

  It was just a great time.

  So really everything kind of came out of Florida, came out of that area, came out of that time. The Willie Nelson and Boxcar Willie concerts, David Allan Coe and Hank Williams Jr., being on the road and crossing paths with these guys, like Dickie Betts. Michelle used to say
nobody played a guitar like Dickie and it was the coolest thing to see him play his guitar with the cigarette he was smoking, sucking the top of it while he’s playing on stage.

  And of course Chelle’s family and the party that Henry Gonzalez threw for our wedding at that Columbia restaurant in Ybor City, it was right out of The Godfather movie. If you had the same music, it was the same thing, it was phenomenal.

  Art Wiggins, who later passed away, was the president of the bank and he took Lee Roy Selmon, who was one of the Tampa Bay Bucs, who became a bank executive, under his wing. Hell, the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway is one of the city’s major thoroughfares, and in 2000, he partnered with Outback Steakhouse to open Lee Roy Selman’s, a restaurant that claims “Soul Satisfying Southern Cooking.” I think about that a lot, what it meant just to drive around Tampa and have everybody be a fan of yours. All of those guys and all of those people I mentioned, that’s really what made Dusty Rhodes “The American Dream,” and what means the most to me.

  I think about Michelle’s family and our current family, and Bobbi Ann, Bobby Rodriguez’s daughter. I call Bobby “Notorious” and “Black Robert,” names that you would only read in magazines that you probably shouldn’t be reading. But Bobby is a cool guy. And Michelle’s dad, Ralph Rubio, is the greatest Domino player of all time. When I think about it, he was in Cuba when Che Guevara came down the street and they were taking over Havana. He was still the manager of the hotel and the big casino at the time, before Cuba fell to Fidel Castro and communism.

  Great stories, great times and an era that can’t be matched or duplicated, and so it’s our memories that we tend to savor and sometimes you just had to think back and see what you really remember. I always say that you have to give credit to the guys who brought you to where you are, they really brought “The American Dream,” Dusty Rhodes, to the dance. They were great times, great posse members and great senior members.

  When you think about Tampa Bay, it’s always the Armory. It’s unbelievable, you just think of all the things that went down in there, angles, feuds, all the emotion that was in that place, the old dressing rooms, history, just great times.

  But now, it’s an empty house.

  The kids—Teil and Cody—have gone to California to be movie stars. Dustin is in Florida and Kristin is in our home of Austin, Texas. Michelle and I and Cody’s dog Goober are in what Cody calls our ancestral home in Marietta, Georgia.

  I am still on the road with promoters. Bert Prentice and Bob Ryder were with me when my mom died two years ago; they are two of her angels because they watched over me.

  My best buddies, Greg Troupe, David Qualls, Captain Lewis, Banny Rooster, Dallas Page, Senator Green and J.D. Douthit stay close too, along with my new posse, Big Tillie, Smoothie Kane, Ray Lloyd (aka Glacier), and Red River Pete (Keith Mitchell). They are good people, as are Peanut, Judy and Janie Engle.

  I am working every weekend, writing on Smackdown. Mike O’Brien keeps me working; he is a good agent and we are friends.

  The business has really changed. I can’t complain, because the new boys and girls have only learned one way to go at it in the ring. Every once in a while one of them will surprise me and it gives me hope for our business. They are the future. They need to find a leader out of the pack or they will stay lost. I like them all. They are my kids, just like they are Hogan’s, Flair’s, and the Funks’, all of our kids!

  Wrestling in the future will go on as I’ve said before. I won’t retire until Terry Funk hangs them up. He has semi-retired something like ten times. Oh well, the road is still my life and it always has been. Michelle has been with me the whole time. She is my strength, my drive, my best friend, and the thing I love along with my kids and grandbabies, more than life itself.

  My dream is to go back in time to the old West, cowboy days, living on the vast land of Texas, riding the wide-open spaces.

  God gave me the greatest gift of all, my children, and then let me make a living in the greatest business ever thought up by man. If I truly am a star, it’s all because of the people who made me—you, the fans! Without that roar, that sound of walking into the arena, that chant of your name, that knowledge that you did your best to entertain everyone there, it would never be worth it all. So to all of you I say, “Thanks for making my dream come true! I love you.”

  To all wrestlers and wrestling fans reading this, just remember that the future is the past.

  And finally to my co-author Howard Brody, thanks for working on this with me.

  “L.A. Dream Land”

  Morning breaks a new day

  Providing us with chance

  But only doers and dream makers

  Will have the chance to dance

  Break away from the smoggy morning

  Clear the sky to blue

  For in this L.A. dream land

  Your dreams they wait for you

  Leave nothing here to chance

  For your trip down stardust lane

  Make sure nothing is overlooked

  That could keep you from your fame

  Break away from the smoggy morning

  Clear the sky to blue

  For in this L.A. dream land

  Your dreams they wait for you

  —Dusty Rhodes, Los Angeles, 1994

  EPILOGUE

  Many of you are probably saying to yourselves, “Okay, Dream, that was great. But, what about tits and ass in this book?”

  Well, for those of you who really want tits and ass, I came up with this story. …

  It was a hot Austin, Texas summer. I was 16 years old and me and my boys were sitting around talking on a Wednesday night after running the streets all day. We were in the backyard under the big and bright star filled-night, when one of us, I don’t remember which one said, “Let’s go to Mexico this weekend.”

  Well, due to the fact that they were all of Mexican heritage and spoke Spanish, I thought, “What the hell … why not?”

  The plan was to tell our parents that we would be spending the weekend over at Ronnie Angle’s house, who was one of our friends. Ronnie, however, was out of town and we would actually leave on Friday after we pooled our money. We’d head to San Antonio, go down through Uvalde—the home of the infamous Uvalde Slim—and on over to the border. We’d cross at a border town and finally go to some bar and bordello. The word for years was that there was a show with a dog or donkey fucking a “lady of the night” on a stage and we were determined to see that. Holy shit! What a vision of grandeur and utter perversion.

  The four of us headed out early Friday morning to see the dog and pony show in Mexico. I ended up getting sick after about four hot Pearl beers. To me Pearl beer always tasted like panther piss, whatever panther piss tastes like. The first day was fun, even though the front of my T-shirt, which read “Baseball All-American,” was now caked with vomit. The smell would start a riot in Waxahachie, Texas. We took turns driving and by morning we were close to the border.

  We stopped to sleep it off at an old Texas off road. At about noon the smell in the car woke us up and all of a sudden it didn’t seem to be as much fun anymore. The heat had hit the car like a fucking oven that had been left on for eight hours. You can imagine what it was like. We put some money together and bought something to eat, then washed our faces. I washed my shirt too, because I knew it would dry in about 30 seconds, which it did.

  We reached the border around four o’clock Saturday afternoon and the plan was we were going to leave for home Sunday morning. Getting over the border was easy. As we drove through the dirty streets of old Mexico, we thought, “Hell, this ain’t much,” although our ‘55 Chevy fit right in with the ambiance.

  We stopped and asked about this dog or donkey fucking show and everyone said it would be at the Texania Club that night. I saw federales everywhere. We killed about four hours drinking a beer or two in some real dive bars, but the party was about to pick up. We were feeling good again and ready to see this wild thing.

  The time came a
nd we got to the club. When we walked inside, it was like a scene right out of the Robert Rodriguez movie Desperado, it was dark until the neon lights came on. I had butterflies in my stomach as if I was playing in the seventh game of the World Series and batter cleanup for my beloved Yankees.

  We took a table and all of the working girls came over and said something about me in Spanish. My boys would point at me and laugh. Shit, I was brutally handsome, white, and they knew I was a virgin.

  Then the best-looking whore in the entire place came over and sat on my lap. By now we were roaring like the Wild Bunch. The whore said something in Spanish and one of my boys told me she wanted to take me to a room and do the deed with me. I asked, “Is it free?”

  “Fuck no,” he said. “It’s going to cost about two dollars.”

  Shit, I had ten dollars, so with wobbly legs and being half drunk, she took my hand and led me to a room.

  The room had lit candles all around it, but it was still dark. The only furniture was a bed and a table that had a big washbowl sitting on it. I fell onto the bed.

  She undressed.

  The next thing that happened has to go down in history as the most unbelievable shit a 16-year-old boy could even imagine.

  All at once, like an Olympic gymnast, she leapt on the table like a monkey leaping on the cage at the San Antonio Zoo. She straddled the bowl and began to splash water on her private parts.

  “Holy shit!” I was so excited by the show that I shot the whole thing without ever taking off my jeans. I guess you could say it was the original “Dusty Finish.”

  Next, the shit hit the fan.

  Seeing what was happening, she began to curse at me in Spanish as she splashed the water faster. All at once she picked up the bowl and threw it on me … I guess to fucking cool me off. She quickly dressed, helped me up and led me back in the club.

  As we walked in, the crowd was going crazy. My boys were standing on the table yelling, “Ole, Ole!” At this point I saw them leading a donkey off the floor. I had missed the donkey show.