“I Was Really Scared To Do That” – Dustin Rhodes On Crowd Reactions To Goldust

Dustin Rhodes has opened up about what it was like for him in the early days of Goldust in WWE and how the fans reacted to him.

When Dustin Rhodes debuted in WWE in 1995, he was already a household name since he worked for WCW for several years and was the son of a wrestling legend, Dusty Rhodes. However, when he got to WWE he was another character all together because instead of using the Rhodes name, he would become Goldust.

The character of Goldust really pushed the envelope a lot because of the way he looked as a guy wearing a full-body suit with paint on his face and quoting movies. In addition to that, Goldust also got a lot of attention as a guy that would touch the bodies of his opponents and rub his body against his opponents in a way that made them uncomfortable. It was all about mind games with Goldust, who was one of the edgiest characters in WWE history. It was a character that led to a lot of success for Dustin.

During a recent episode of Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast where Dustin Rhodes talked about 35 years in pro wrestling, Dustin spoke about working with Savio Vega at a live event and trying different things to get reactions from the fans.

“I liked it when he [Vince] was on the road. It wasn’t a TV setting, right? It was just a house show. You’d show up and it was like he was at the curtain and I’m like Vince is here. What if I do this? Am I gonna get fired or whatever. And so he [Savio Vega] was like no man, come on, let’s do this. And it was just a simple go behind him, rub up his chest and down his legs, kind of not grazing, as you know.”

“And he turned around and he charged me and me taking a powder and they went nuts. And they called me every name in the book, and that’s the first giant reaction that I’ve gotten. I was like, okay, that worked.”

In his initial run as Goldust, Dustin Rhodes won the Intercontinental Title twice in 1996 and again in 1999 as well. Dustin went on to say that some of the things he did as Goldust were things he was scared of doing at first, but then he got used to it and it worked.

“I need to stay away from these rails because they are reaching hard at me, man, it was so before its time, and I was like, inside, I look at Savio back in the ring. And he’s laughing. And I’m like Goddammit man, I roll in there. I’m like, we lock up and he takes me back at the corner.”

So we’re gonna do it again. Turn me around. I’m like, What are we doing, man? Turn it around. And he said, to turn around, stick your ass in my crotch and rub it back, you know, just kind of rub it around. And I did it. And he pushed me away. And I took another powder. And they came again. And I was just like, it was set. Yeah. And it was easy. But I was really scared to do that. That was something that like was way out of my wheelhouse.”

Elsewhere during Dustin’s talk with Jericho, he spoke about how his father Dusty didn’t like Goldust and it led to problems between them, but they would eventually resolve them.

If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit Talk Is Jericho and link back to this article with a H/T to TJRWrestling.