Fightful recently interviewed Dustin Rhodes, where he discussed his initial days of portraying Goldust in WWE and how he eventually grasped the concept of the character. Below are some key points from the conversation.
On when he figured out the Goldust character:
“It happened in Madison Square Garden, and it happened in 1996, I think. I was wrestling Savio Vega, and we’ve been making house show loops for weeks or months. I am getting my bearings trying to figure out the heel work, the character, and stuff like that. Every night he would want me to do certain things, and I would say no, I can’t, I can’t do that because I was scared to cross the line. This is back when Vince [McMahon] used to go to the house shows and be a fan at the curtains. He watched the shows to see who was getting reactions from the crowd and things like that. I was like, oh God, and we’re in the Garden. I mean, this is Puerto Rico; he’s Puerto Rican. The Puerto Rican population in New York is very high, and in 1996 it was crazy. It was as simple as, okay, I’m going to do this tonight. I go out there, and I’m scared to death. We get to the point of the match where I’m going to do this, basically going behind him and rubbing up and down his chest. He turns around, he charges me, and I bail out of the ring, that simple. The rubbing up of the chest part is what really pissed off the fans.”
On realizing how to get heat with Goldust:
“I was scared to death because I didn’t want to portray something I am not, but that’s show business. That’s what brings out characters. It makes them really good or really, really shitty. Then as soon as I heard that response from the New York crowd, they’re ruthless, it was like, holy shit. I just tapped into something. I thought I couldn’t do it, and I stepped over the line, and it worked. I’m just looking, and they’re yelling every kind of obscene thing to me that’s possible. They’re throwing stuff, they had to make an announcement to stop, or you’ll be ejected. They’re still throwing shit, and I’m dodging [things]; I roll back in the ring, and Savio was in the corner, just laughing, and I’m like, what the fuck are you laughing at? We locked back up, and I said, what are you laughing at? He said, see how easy that was. Now, watch. I’m going to make you do one more thing. I pushed him back to the corner, and he said, turn around and rub your ass in my crotch area. So, I did it right. I turned around and made these facial expressions. These weird-ass facial expressions, and he charged at me again, and I rode out again. The rest was history from that point on in. Goldust became Goldust, and I found the character that night, and it was freaking cool. I had a nice run for a while.”
