In Memoriam: Dusty Rhodes

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: June 12, 2015

Maybe he didn’t look like the athlete of his day was supposed to look. His belly was just a little big. His hiney was just a little big. But he was bad. And we knew he was bad. He was the American Dream, the greatest babyface of the 1980s, and yes, that includes Hulk Hogan.

Watch one Hulk Hogan match and you’ve pretty much seen them all, at least until 1996, when he turned heel and joined the nWo, after which there wasn’t a whole lot he did in the ring worth revisiting. Watch one Hulk Hogan promo and you’ve pretty much seen them all. At the end of the day, Hogan, and the WWF, was a cartoon.

But Dusty Rhodes was real.

Watch one of his promos. Listen to the passion and emotion in his voice. Watch his famous “Hard Times” promo, then find me a babyface promo better than it. You won’t be able to, because, even now, nearly thirty years later, there isn’t one. Now go watch the match the promo was building towards: Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade ’85. The price of the WWE Network is worth it just for this match alone. It is a phenomenal piece of storytelling; a true work of art. It doesn’t matter that Dusty’s win was later changed to a disqualification win due to interference by Arn Anderson on Flair’s behalf, the match was amazing, and the celebration that ensued after Dusty won the match and the title was a true “moment” in professional wrestling. Hulk Hogan was a Real American, but Dusty Rhodes was real America. The son of a plumber, the blue collar common man.

There were two bad men. One was John Wayne, and he’s dead. The other was Dusty Rhodes, who unfortunately, is now gone as well, thirty-six years to the day after the passing of the former. His legacy lives on, though, through his sons Dustin, better known as Goldust, and Cody, currently known as Stardust, as well as countless talents in Florida Championship Wrestling and then NXT, who would not be where they are today without a Dream to help them realize theirs.