[1991-02-09-WCW-Saturday Night] Interview: Dusty Rhodes

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Gordon Solie interviews Dusty in an empty Omni. They show a clip of Dusty vs Tully at Starrcade '86, and talk about Dusty's transition to announcing, with Solie even comparing him to John Madden. They talk about Dustin Rhodes heading into the company as well. They talk about an official retirement coming over summer at the Great American Bash. Nice feature.

[shoe]

I thought this was a really cool segment that showed some class.

[PeteF3]

Interesting they show clips of a Starrcade match that Dusty lost. Dusty explains how his body has worn out and talks about a desire to get into broadcasting. Rhodes and Solie put over WCW and the arrival of Dustin Rhodes. Yeah, you can definitely tell from Gordon's asskissing tone that Dusty's in charge again, but this is a nice low-key segment nonetheless.

[Kevin Ridge]

Dusty and Solie hanging out in an empty Omni. Gordon talks about Dusty’s recent announcement of retiring from wrestling. Dusty is looking forward to his new career as announcer.

[soup23]

I loved this segment being real sentimental to the Omni. The retrospective and prospective Dusty gave on todays wrestler was well done.

[ajtroma]

Of course, this being WCW, they show a Starrcade match that took place in Greensboro.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

"He was born into this business, he was bred for this business, and he comes from the loins of the American Dream." Only Dusty.

[garretta]

Not only did they show a clip from Greensboro, they dated Starrcade '86 wrong (it was November 27, not November 26), and they didn't mention Tully by name, either.

 

This wasn't bad, but it didn't say much. Dusty didn't really answer the question about the differences between the generations (not that I could blame him; he probably didn't want to be seen as criticizing guys whose matches he not only had to call, but book), and the only other wrestlers he mentioned were Murdoch and Dustin.

 

Gordon compares him to Frank Gifford, Pat Summerall, and John Madden, but WCW never really used Dusty as their flagship color man in the same way that Vince used Jesse (and later Heenan). They didn't really have a main color man at this time, and when they got one, first it was Jesse, then Heenan. I know Dusty did his share of pay-per-views, but it seemed to me like he took a back seat to almost every other commentator in the company, including guys like Mike Tenay and Mark Madden later on.

 

Dustin gets his share of hype too, of course, and most of it well deserved. I can't wait to see him debut in WCW.

 

Did they ever do the formal retirement ceremony for Dusty? If so, it certainly wasn't at the Bash pay-per-view as Gordon promised.

[dawho5]

I like that they are hyping up the element of tradition they have going for them. It's the one thing they have that can trump anything the WWF can do.