TCWNN #39: Golden

Columns, Top Story

I’ve been having a hard time getting psyched up to purchase WWE dvd’s lately. Part of it of course is my aching wallet and bank account, but the other part is that while a lot of them have sounded good on paper, I just haven’t been all that interested in the final product. The Chris Jericho dvd was naturally a sure thing purchase (as will be the Bobby Heenan dvd), and while at some point I’ll get the Ricky Steamboat dvd, everything else they’ve put out in the past year or so hasn’t really snagged my interest.

Part of this is that past releases have set such a high bar in terms of documentary and match quality. A big selling point of purchasing the dvds for me is the documentary, and a lot of the recent ones I found to be either lacking or towing the company line too much for me to find them honest (or at least as honest you can get in a WWE dvd). And in many other cases, the matches advertised do nothing for me. The High Flyers dvd match list, for example, to me reads like a missed opportunity, and while the rumors of a Best of Monday Nitro set pique my interest, I would wager that will end up the same way, with many matches we’ve gotten on sets before, and matches that no one was really clamoring to see again. But hey, I don’t have to buy them, and I’m sure for someone else out even the weaker sets are a joy. Still, a couple weeks ago, I heard about an upcoming dvd that does in fact snag my interest: according to the Wrestling Observer (and going past that, to a tweet from Goldust himself in August), the WWE is doing a dvd on Goldust. I think that’s awesome.

I know a lot of people are mildly mind boggled by this. After all, Goldust has been the very definition of a mid-carder for his entire career. Even as Dustin Rhodes, he never rose above a certain level, and he was often slapped with a beneficiary of nepotism label that really was never fair. And as with any long career, there were peaks and valleys. But on the whole, we are talking about a guy who has been consistently entertaining for over two decades. A performer who certainly has enough matches and moments to fill a couple dvd discs, and that’s without even touching on the possibilities for a documentary feature that come from having had such an interesting career and personal life.

As a bigger fan of the documentary features than the matches (not that I don’t love the matches, though even I will admit that in this case, Dustin’s best were when he was wrestling AS Dustin Rhodes and working with the likes of Arn Anderson and Steve Austin in WCW), that would be the real selling point of a Goldust dvd for me. The well-known tumultuous relationship with his father the American Dream Dusty Rhodes was barely touched on in the Dream’s own dvd, and since one has to assume that relationship is a major part of Goldust’s upcoming autobiography, it’s a natural tie in that would create a story arc for a large chunk of a documentary feature. Add in the fact that Goldust is one of the few members left on the active WWE rosters with a career that stems back into the active days of WCW, and you have a dvd that could actually hold my interest for its running time. One of the reasons I don’t get all fired up over the possibilities for things like a Randy Orton or Seamus dvd is because pretty much from day one, these are guys who have been in the arms of the WWE. There’s really not much of a rich historical wrestling back story there.

The character of Goldust by its very nature lends itself to a dvd. A Hollywood obsessed superstar getting his due on film without a doubt opens the door for creative pre-match and dvd menu introductions. And as his younger brother and current WWE superstar Cody Rhodes said during their father’s introduction into the WWE Hall of Fame (and believe me, I wish I could find the exact quote right now), but Goldust helped make the Attitude era in the WWE possible, as his was arguably the first “adult” gimmick in an era of children’s cartoons and wrestling garbage men. In fact, given that the likes of Koko B Ware are in the WWE Hall of Fame, I think Goldust himself deserves a spot someday. Maybe not in the A wing, but a prime spot in the B wing, if you will.

One with a golden spotlight.