Paul Heyman Remembers Dusty Rhodes

Paul Heyman Remembers Dusty Rhodes

I can remember him from the old AWA days when he was teamed up with Dick Murdoch to form The Texas Outlaws, a rule-flouting tag team. Damn, that was more than 40 years ago.

From seeing him up close, the one thing I remember best about Dusty is the scarring on his forehead. He came from the old lunch-pail school of wrestlers, in the days before they became rock stars. Back then, they would routinely give themselves slight cuts on the forehead to create a lot of bleeding, which added an extra layer of reality to their performances. Wrestling was a tough, blue-collar job in those days, and it wasn't as lucrative as it has become today, but Dusty always did what he needed to do.

Dusty's generation of wrestlers also had a different type of body. Guys like The Rock and The Ultimate Warrior spent most of their lives in the kind of gyms that include protein shake bars. If Dusty ever went to a gym, it must have been one with a Dunkin' Donuts.

Reader comment:

Last night on Twitter, illegalforeignobject.com asked if Dusty Rhodes was the most important person in the history of professional wrestling. While what's "important" can be a matter of opinion, there's no doubt Dusty would make a very short list of the most influential in the business. As both a performer and a booker/producer in the heyday of the 1970s and '80s, and as a teacher of new talent throughout his entire career right up to the time of his death, the branches of The American Dream's learning tree spread quite wide. The number of stars past, present, and soon-to-be who have stories similar to Heyman's is mind-boggling. In terms of shaping the genre both in front of and behind the camera, the only other person in Virgil Runnel's company would probably be the also recently deceased Verne Gagne.