Dustin Runnels

Virgil Riley Runnels III (born April 11, 1969; often called Dustin Runnels) is an American professional wrestler who has competed in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He is probably best-known for his WWE character Goldust, a sexually ambiguous movie star. He has also wrestled as Dustin Rhodes in WWE, WCW, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). He is the son of Dusty Rhodes, and one of the best-known wrestlers of the 1990s.

World Wrestling Federation (Early 1990)
Dustin Rhodes received his first National exposure in The World Wrestling Federation in the later part of 1990. In December of 1990, Dustin Rhodes defeated Ted DiBiase in a 10-minute challenge match on WWF television. Then at the Royal Rumble on January 19, 1991 Dustin Rhodes and his father, Dusty Rhodes were defeated by Ted DiBiase and his kayfabe bodyguard, Virgil in a tag-team match.

World Championship Wrestling 1991-1995
In February 1991, Runnels went to World Championship Wrestling, where he feuded with Larry Zbysko at the mid-card level. In April, Alexandra York offered him to join her heel York Foundation stable, but he turned her down. This started a feud with Foundation member Terrence Taylor that lasted several months. York, in reality, was Runnels' first wife, Terri.

At different times, he had Barry Windham, Sting, Ricky Steamboat and Nikita Koloff as his tag partners.

October 1992 saw him reform his team with Windham to again win the Tag Team Titles. In November, Windham turned on him and started a brief feud.

In January 1993, he won the United States Title and also began a feud with Rick Rude that would run through August. In October, he started feuding with Paul Orndorff and Steve Austin over the title, eventually losing it to Austin in December.

He became involved in a feud with Bunkhouse Buck and Col. Robert Parker in March 1994. Parker eventually brought in Terry Funk and Arn Anderson to feud with Dustin. Dustin brought in his father, Dusty, who had a previous long lasting feud with Funk, to help him. This feud lasted until December when Parker brought in The Blacktop Bully to feud with Dustin. Dustin and the Bully were both fired in March 1995 when they both "bladed" (cut themselves) during the King of the Road Match at the Uncensored 1995 PPV after they were told not to.

World Wrestling Federation 1995-1999
In September 1995, Runnels made his debut in the WWF as Goldust. He would wear a gold colored jumpsuit and face paint along with a platinum blonde wig (over his short platinum blond hair) and play "mind games" with opponents. His primary psychological tactic was to make opponents think he was homosexual, usually by groping them and expressing affection. At the same time a major rift had grown between him and his father, supposedly over his marriage to Terri.

Goldust started a feud with Razor Ramon, where through late 1995 he would appear to be stalking Razor and sending him lewd messages. The feud culminated at the Royal Rumble in January 1996, where Goldust won the Intercontinental Title from Razor. Goldust surprised everybody by bringing his real life wife, Terri, in as his valet Marlena. Her gimmick was to act as a director, including sitting in a director's chair and giving him advice through his matches while smoking cuban cigars.

Goldust and Razor Ramon were originally scheduled to have a rematch at WrestleMania XII, but these plans were dashed when Ramon was suspended by the WWF weeks prior due to drug abuse. Scott Hall would not be seen until that April for an In Your house event where he jobbed to Vader. Goldust then engaged in a feud with replacement opponent Roddy Piper, which ended in a "Hollywood Backlot Brawl" at WrestleMania. Goldust lost the match, but not his Intercontinental Championship.

His time as champion included feuds with Savio Vega, The Ultimate Warrior and Ahmed Johnson, who finally won the title from Runnels.

In August 1996, he briefly had mind control over Mankind and feuded with The Undertaker. His attention soon turned to Marc Mero and his wife Sable. Goldust and Marlena attempted to get Sable to join their team but Mero won the feud and kept her by his side.

In May 1997, Goldust revealed his identity as Dustin Runnels, son of Dusty Rhodes. He started painting his face half as Goldust, and left the other side as Dustin and began a feud with Brian Pillman which saw Pillman win the services of Marlena for 30 days. When Pillman died in October, Marlena came back to Dustin. In November, Dustin dumped Marlena and got a new valet, Luna Vachon. He started dressing up as different people, (Shaftdust, Dustydust, Mansondust, Baby New Year, etc.). He feuded with Mero and Sable again this time with Luna by his side. During this period of time, he was billed as The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust.

In May 1998, he split with Luna, burned his Goldust suit on TV, and feuded with Val Venis who claimed to have impregnated Terri. Later that year he began acting like a preacher and would cut promos about "His return" (the "he" in this case being Goldust). In October, Goldust returned and feuded with Jeff Jarrett over the attentions of his Manager Debra. Early 1999 also saw him feud with Al Snow briefly after stealing Head (Al Snow's "mascot"), The Blue Meanie, who had recently renamed himself "Bluedust" and adopted many of Goldust's mannerisms. After defeating Bluedust at the St. Valentines Day Massacre pay-per-view, Goldust would relent and accept Bluedust as a sort of apprentice. He would also bring in Ryan Shamrock and the two would begin to fight for Goldust's attention. During this time he would win the Intercontinental Title from The Road Dogg and lose it two weeks later.

During this period, mysterious taped vingettes appeared on Raw, supposedly from hidden cameras, showing wrestlers backstage flirting with valets, gossiping about other wrestlers, and other actions the victims certainly didn't want seeing the light of day. Originally named GDTV (standing for Goldust Television), it was renamed GTV when Runnels requested and was granted a release from his WWF contract. Had the angle played out as planned, it would have been revealed that Goldust was the "G/GD" in "GTV/GDTV", secretly filming people supposedly being another part of his mania. The WWF kept the GTV angle running for quite some time after releasing Runnels, however the person behind it was never revealed. Even had Runnels stayed with the company it is doubtful that Goldust would have ever been revealed as the man behind GTV as the USA Network claimed the character was "a bit too controversial" for them. When this was revealed, one possibility to replace him that was mentioned was Tom Green: "At the time, Tom Green was very hot on MTV, and we were trying to see if we could bring him in to stir up a bit of more mainstream publicity." However, this never happened and the gimmick was eventually dropped. .

Back to WCW 1999-2001
When Runnels left WWF he took some time off, patched up his differences with his father (the two had not spoken for years) and rejoined WCW, starring in several vignettes (in August 1999) as a strange, white face painted dream villain, Seven. After seeing several of the promos that aired for the Seven character, Turner Standards and Practices thought that people would mistake his gimmick for that of a child predator, so they dropped the gimmick before he even wrestled. When he actually debuted in the ring, he took the Seven suit off and cut a promo on stupid gimmicks, thus burying the gimmick on the spot. He became known as Dustin Rhodes again and feuded with Jeff Jarrett. During this time he referred to himself as "The American Nightmare", a play on his father's "American Dream" nickname.

He feuded with Terry Funk in early 2000 after turning on him and was given time off due to differences with Vince Russo. He had gotten himself into trouble with Russo while appearing on the Internet radio program, WCW Live! when he made many disparaging remarks towards the WCW Creative team and Russo in particular, calling him a "sawed-off midget" and an "asshole". He came back in February 2001 to help his father feud with Ric Flair and Jeff Jarrett. When Vince McMahon bought WCW a month later, he did not acquire Dustin's contract.

In July 2001, he went to work for his father's new promotion, Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling.

World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment 2002-2003
January of 2002, Runnels, now back under his old WWF name Goldust returned along with, Val Venis, Mr. Perfect and The Godfather at the 2002 WWF Royal Rumble. Perfect, Godfather, and Goldust were under contract for a one night only return at the Royal Rumble, however, all three wrestlers gave impressive performances and where immediately signed to long term contracts. He returned as a heel to the RAW brand and attacked Rob Van Dam the night after the Royal Rumble. He won the Hardcore Title 7 times. He formed an unlikely team with Booker T. At first, it did not seem like the two would stick because before their first match together, Goldust dressed up as Darth Vader and Booker T thought Goldust would not be serious, but Booker T soon changed his mind and called him "father" (in reference to the Star Wars movies). The two afterwards did comic backstage vignettes. One of these comedy scenes was "Booker T and Goldust at the Movies" where they reviewed The Scorpion King, starring The Rock (since Goldust was wearing a black wig, it is speculated that he was mocking Kelly Hu's character Cassandra). The duo was also involved in a vignette involving the WWE's current promotion with 7-Eleven with Goldust humorously quoting the chain's food staples to bother Booker T ("If you give me a lick of your Slurpee, I'll let you have a bite of my wiener.") The team turned out to be surprisingly popular amongst fans and helped propel both men during that time. Goldust pleaded to join the reformed nWo in July after Booker joined, even appearing painted up in the black and white nWo colors at one appearance, but they didn't want him. He rejoined with Booker when Booker was kicked out of the nWo literally by Shawn Michaels (Sweet Chin Music). During that time they both turned face. He had several feuds with other wrestlers while Booker was his partner after this. Among them were Lance Storm & Christian, Christian & Chris Jericho and Lance Storm & William Regal. Booker and Goldust eventally won the World Tag Team Championship at Armageddon and held the belts for about three weeks.

In January 2003, he split with Booker and was largely taken off TV. It was during this period that a new gimmick for Goldust was introduced; he was jumped backstage by Evolution members Randy Orton and Batista in a worked assault, and accidentally hurled into an electrical junction box. Naturally, the resulting shock gave Goldust a form of coprolalia, causing him to stutter, grunt inappropriately and yell random insults at people. To this day, these stuttered grunts remain one of the most popular and frequently played sound bites on The Howard Stern Show. On some occasions, his new affliction prevented Goldust from censoring himself; one memorable example had Goldust asking Eric Bischoff, "Eric, why are you such a Dic... Dic... Dic... Dictator, Dictator?"; another was (referring to Triple H) asking him to look "down there.... in the cock..... cock..... cockles of your heart!". He then formed a tag team with Lance Storm, whom he tried to teach to be a more fun person, with humorous results. He continued to make occasional appearances until his contract ran out in June.

Japan, Independents, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling 2004-2005
Runnels went to Japan to work for Zero One as Dusty Rhodes Jr. (he had been billed as such in All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1990), but quickly left. He also worked a few independent dates under the name of Lonestar. He debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), under the name Dustin Rhodes, along with his father, Dusty Rhodes, who was TNA's "Director of Authority". He feuded with Raven, Kid Kash, and Bobby Roode during his time there.

On April 24, 2005, Runnels was arrested and detained by Orange County, Florida authorities following a domestic dispute with his girlfriend (he and Terri had divorced in 1999) at a hotel. He was later bonded and subsequently released, but the negative publicity generated by the incident, coupled with his father's subsequent (unrelated) departure from TNA, seemed to spell an end to his time with the promotion.

Return to WWE 2005-2006
On October 31 2005, Runnels donned the Goldust costume again and made a shocking return to WWE on RAW, along with Vader as a heel. Initially he was supposed to protect Jonathan Coachman from Steve Austin, who was later replaced Batista he had to deal with. Despite Vader and Goldust's assistance, Batista defeated Coachman at Taboo Tuesday 2005.

Goldust returned to the WWE again during the 2006 Royal Rumble as a surprise entrant at number 29 on January 29, 2006. He was eliminated shortly after by Rob Van Dam but Goldust would go on to return to the RAW roster.

Goldust would soon find himself on RAW's sister-show Heat and after finding little success in the singles division, he was soon paired up with Snitsky as an "odd ball" tag team often known as "The Odd Squad"; in reference to the perverted Goldust and the toe sucking Snitsky. They ended feuding against Trevor Murdoch and Lance Cade. The team would come to a sudden end after Runnels was released from WWE due to missing a scheduled WWE appearance to deal with a personal court case between Runnels and his ex-wife without first informing WWE officials. Goldust was recently added to the WWE alumni page.

All Japan Pro Wrestling
On January 28 2007, it was announced that "Gold Dustin" would tag alongside Hakushi to face Tajiri and The Great Muta on the February 17 Sumo Hall show. Dustin Rhodes appeared on the February 15 AJPW show and observed Keiji Mutoh in his match. This encounter resulted in a brawl.

On the February 17 Sumo Hall show, the Great Muta and Tajiri defeated Gold Dustin and Hakushi after Great Muta pinned Gold Dustin following 2 Asian Mists (one of which was from Tajiri) and a Shining Wizard.

Dustin and his half-brother Cody Rhodes inducted their father into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31, 2007. Dustin got a huge "Goldust" chant and some "Thank you Goldust!" chants and even some "We want Goldust" chants. Also, his half-brother mentioned that Dustin deserves better credit for what he's done as Goldust. He was also interviewed on RingSide Radio.

Return to the WWE 2007
On May 28 2007, a commercial aired during Raw advertising that Dustin under his Goldust persona, would be appearing in a match at Saturday Nights Main Event on June 2nd. Before the taping, Dustin informed WWE that he would not be able to perform so the match he was supposed to compete in was changed.

1 Pro Wrestling
He also occasionally worked for UK based promotion 1PW including a match where he (as GoldDustin) would face Christopher Daniels who was clad in his Curry Man persona much to the delight of the crowd at the Doncaster Dome.

Wrestling facts

 * Finishing and signature moves
 * Curtain Call (Lifting reverse DDT, suplex slam or a scoop lift dropped into a hangman's neckbreaker)
 * Shattered Dreams / Golden Globes (Cornered running kick to opponent's groin)
 * Shock Treatment / Director's Cut (Snap scoop powerslam pin)
 * Oscar Treatment (Mat slam)
 * Jumping one-handed bulldog
 * Inverted atomic drop
 * Butt Bump (Hip thump)
 * Bronco buster
 * Uppercut


 * Managers
 * Terri Runnels
 * Luna Vachon
 * Ryan Shamrock
 * Bluedust
 * Johnny Glitter
 * Dusty Rhodes


 * Nicknames
 * The American Nightmare
 * The Bizarre One
 * The Penetrating Prince Of Darkness
 * The Natural
 * The Prince of Perversion
 * The Prince of Perversia
 * The Artist Formally Known as 'Goldust'

Championships and accomplishments

 * American Combat Wrestling
 * ACW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)


 * Championship Wrestling from Florida
 * FCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * FCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Mike Graham


 * '''Coastal Championship Wrestling
 * CCW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time, Current)


 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * PWI Most Improved Wrestler of the Year award in 1991
 * PWI ranked him # 126 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003.
 * PWI ranked him # 87 of the best tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Barry Windham.


 * Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling
 * TCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)


 * World Championship Wrestling
 * NWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Barry Windham1
 * WCW United States Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
 * WCW World Six-Man Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Big Josh and Tom Zenk
 * WCW World Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Barry Windham (1) and Ricky Steamboat (1)


 * World Wrestling Entertainment | World Wrestling Federation
 * WWF Hardcore Championship (7 times)
 * WWF Intercontinental Championship (3 times)
 * World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Booker T


 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * Rookie of the Year award in 1989
 * Most Improved Wrestler award in 1991

1 Won when the NWA and WCW World Tag Team Championships were briefly unified just prior to WCW's withdrawl from the NWA.