Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (20 page)

And up there, ribs like that were pretty common, and a lot of them were pointed at me. Ted DiBiase’s black chauffeur, Mike Jones, who they called “Virgil,” was meant as a rib, but that backfired because that’s how he got over. Later on when Mike came to WCW they called him “Vincent.” Another one was One Man Gang, who they called “The African Dream” Akeem, who I loved. While that character was meant as a rib, if it had been around when I was booking the old Florida territory, they’d still be standing in line at the Tampa Armory to see him and me go one on one. Then there was Ray Traylor, who had been a bodyguard character in the NWA called “Big Bubba Rogers” running around in a Cobb County prison guard outfit as a bad guy now called “Big Bossman.” Well, Cobb County, Georgia, was where I lived, and I was considered the bad guy “boss” of the opposition; a prison of sorts if you will. So there were a few ribs on me, but all of those characters got over.

Anyway, they were trying to decide what I would wear to the ring and they had me wearing every kind of outfit you could imagine. Well, a few years earlier the polka dot was big on the fashion scene, and it seemed every trendy magazine like
Vogue
and
Glamour
had featured them. It wasn’t just a crazy marketing scheme where they said, “You’ve got to wear this or you can’t work here.” It was never done that way. It was more Pat Patterson and me laughing about it one night out back.

Pat, who I love dearly, and his life partner, Louie—who has since passed away, rest his soul—were talking to me about it and Pat brought up the marketing aspect of it. Well, after listening to him, we had to fucking do it, because it just made sense. So then he says, let’s put a common woman with the common man and the idea was to have a hooker off the street; tall and skinny in a red dress who kind of looked like a female version of Slick, who was one of the WWF managers back then.

Terry Garvin, who was one of the road agents for Vince for many years, knew Juanita Wright as somebody who drove the wrestlers back and forth between the airport and the building in St. Louis. She was a big fan who loved the business and would do anything she could for the boys. I believe she was 50-something years old back then, and Vince agreed to bring her in and—this is the good side of Vince where he has a heart—it made her more money than she ever made in her whole fucking life. When she came in and I saw her, I said, “Oh my God!” because I just knew it would click.

In a way I kind of felt it was Vince saying that this guy—me—is getting old, so let’s make him this goofy, mediocre character. But when I was riding in the car one time with Pat and an African American clerk who said to me completely out of left field, “You are the only one who can pull it off for us black guys,” talking about Juanita and me, who would now have the character name Sapphire, I knew I got one step up on them. As soon as he said that I just knew, because even in this ridiculous fucking getup I was still connecting with the people and I thought it would be fun to turn that around on them. So it backfired on him when I got over, but he took full credit and it ended up with me being there a year and a half making one of my biggest years financially without the headache and stress of being the boss.

I had three great programs while there. The first one was with Bossman, and that was easy because I had given Ray, rest his soul, his first big break in the business. Then I had a program with “The Million-Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, which was interesting because he was the guy who along with Vince came up with the “Virgil” rib, but we were professionals and did good business together, plus he was a second-generation guy and knew how this business worked. And then there was the big program with “Macho Man” Randy Savage. “Mach” made me a lot of money when I was up there—I loved the guy. “Mach” and I also had that before-yellow finger respect because he was another second-generation guy, his dad being Angelo Poffo, so “Mach” respected the business roots. Looking back, I consider it like they asked me to be in this huge blockbuster movie and paid me a shit load of money to play this character.

Don’t get me wrong now. There were times that I wanted to go in and tell Vince to shove it up his ass, but Pat was always my voice of reason up there. He’d say to me, “Take a step back. Just relax here. Take it easy.” And really, he was right, as it was the most relaxing time for me in the business. For whatever the reason was, we all came out smelling like roses, and I remember putting my head in my hands and saying, “From here down, shoot me because from the neck up, that’s the real me. ‘The American Dream’ is still up here.” But deep down I was busting. I needed a creative outlet. I had the urge to get the hell out of there to settle some unfinished business.

“While we were in New York (WWF) together, he was upset about being in the polka dots. We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to talk to Vince.’ Well, all the boys used to line up to have their five minutes or so with Vince, and Dusty comes out about ten minutes after going in and says, ‘He got me. He’s the best … I sat down and told him my whole life … I told him how I felt. Vince said, ‘I know. But who else can pull it off except ‘The American Dream,’ Dusty Rhodes?’ I got up and left. What could I fucking say? I was the only man who can pull it off. I knew it was a bunch of bullshit, but how do you argue with that?’”

—J
IMMY
H
ART

I think one of the things that frustrated me the most at the WWF was that they had writers trying to put words in my mouth, saying things I would
never say. The first time there, Vince had me trying to read off of a teleprompter. Here I was, one of the greatest interviews in all of our industry and they were trying to put words in my mouth that I would never say. It took one of their writers nine times trying to write and rewrite what they wanted me to say until finally Vince had them just bullet point what they wanted so I could say it my way. I had noticed that when Hogan would cut his promos, they would have his bullet points and he would never use a teleprompter to read, so why was there a different standard for Dusty Rhodes?

When it came time for me to leave the “Evil Empire” and go back to being “The American Dream,” I remember Pat asking me if I was going to be okay. I told him, “Don’t worry about me. Just take care of Juanita.”