Cross Rhodes: Goldust, Out of the Darkness (WWE) - Softcover

Rhodes, Dustin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439195161 ISBN 13: 9781439195161

Verlag: Gallery Books, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

A compelling portrait of one of the most famous families in the history of the WWE as told by Dustin Rhodes, the first son of legendary figure Dusty Rhodes and the older brother of emerging star, Cody Rhodes.

He first burst onto the scene in the nineties, covered in gold face paint and exhibiting a one-of-a- kind flamboyant style that bewildered his foes and thrilled his fans. Inside the ring, Goldust is as tough as they come, known for using outrageous mind games and taking down his opponents with unparalleled ruthlessness. It’s no surprise, then, that wrestling is in his blood; Goldust is the son of Dusty Rhodes, “The American Dream.”

What is it like to be the son of a wrestling icon and follow him into the same profession? In this no-holds-barred account, Dustin Rhodes speaks frankly and openly about his journey. He talks about being a young boy who desperately missed his dad. A young man who only wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and threw aside a football scholarship to eke out a meager existence in regional wrestling. A green wrestler struggling to prove to his peers that his work, not his name, had gotten him to where he was. Rhodes describes how, in the midst of a painful five-year estrangement with his father, he finally made a name for himself as Goldust and then let it all go, tumbling into a descent of self-medication that led him away from a red-hot career as a WWE Superstar and nearly cost him his life.

When he finally hit bottom, Rhodes knew where to look for help from the family he always had: his father and World Wrestling Entertainment. When he got clean and sober and was offered the chance to wrestle for WWE, he snapped up the offer. The everyday existence of life on the road, working with and watching the new Superstars— like his brother Cody Rhodes—has reminded Rhodes of why he loves being a wrestler.

Cross Rhodes is an intimate portrait of one man’s road to redemption and a unique glimpse into one of the most famous families in WWE.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mark Vancil is president of Rare Air Media, a publishing and communications company based in Winnetka, Illinois, that has produced dozens of award-winning books and custom publishing programs for sports, publishing and entertainment clients.

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ONE
THE FEVER

I got the fever as a young boy growing up in the long shadows of a big man in Austin, Texas.

The American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, is my dad. As a young boy, all I knew was that my dad was gone all the time. For the most part, my mother, my sister Kristin, and I were left to fend for ourselves. I can remember being five or six years old and seeing my dad come home after a long trip. I was like any other small boy. I wanted to crawl all over my dad when he finally walked through the front door. But he was too tired and his body too sore.

Back then, wrestlers worked territories, and they were gone for months at a time. He might spend two or three weeks in one place, come home, then head off to Japan for a month or more. He would take us places and we would get time with him, but it was always cut short by his schedule. My dad was naturally charismatic and very smart. I certainly didn’t understand how smart he was about his career then, but as a little boy all I wanted was more time with him. He was larger than life to me.

Then, one day, he was gone for good. My parents divorced right around the time I entered first grade at a private Christian school in Austin. I didn’t get the chance to know him the way a young boy wants to know his father. I was seven years old when my parents divorced. I remember crying for hours at a time during the days, weeks, and months that followed his departure. Even though he was gone a lot before the divorce, I always knew he’d come walking into the house in his cowboy boots and hat. Divorce meant the exact opposite. My father was gone and he wasn’t ever coming back. In those days, his life was rolling along at one hundred miles an hour, and being home with family was the slowest part of his existence.

As his stature grew in the business, the shadow became larger and more difficult for me. I don’t know if I have ever wanted anything as much as I wanted to leave Austin and go live with my dad. My mother married three times over the next eight years. Like everyone else, she made some bad decisions. The first two stepfathers beat the hell out of my mother. Kristin and I would crouch in the hallway just off the living room. I wasn’t old enough to do anything to them physically. We’d just sit there with our backs against the wall listening to the violence. No child should have to live through that. We watched one man after another come into her life, and each one of them did the same thing.

My mother protected herself as best she could. Incredibly, she took care of us and made sure we never endured what she did. In every other way, my mom took care of us and never complained. She worked as many as three jobs and held together what little we had. She was a great mom, but sometimes stuff happens. Everybody makes bad decisions here and there. That’s life. My mom was a hairdresser and she’d put in as many hours as possible, sometimes working at two different salons. When she wasn’t doing hair, my mom cleaned houses and did whatever it took to make ends meet.

I’m sure all those men beating up my mother contributed to my desire to leave, but all I remember is crying a lot. It was just one incident after another. I don’t know how we became so dysfunctional that we allowed bad people into our lives. Maybe we attracted them in some way we didn’t realize. Maybe my mother had so much guilt about one thing or another that she felt like she didn’t deserve anything better. I remember one time, my mom and second stepdad came home, and both of them were getting out of the truck fighting. Jack and my mother were screaming and yelling at each other. She swung at him and he was shoving my mother into the cab of the truck. She got out and took a swing at him and he grabbed her hand and yanked it backward and broke her finger. Her wedding ring flew off her finger out into the grass near the front of the house. She came inside the house crying. Her finger was bent to one side. It’s hard for a child to process that kind of scene. But as soon as he left I went outside. I must have spent four or five hours combing through the grass looking for that ring. Finally around nine or ten o’clock at night, I found the ring. I walked back inside and gave it to her. I was probably eight or nine years old, and the only comfort I could provide my mother was to find that ring.

Looking back, it seems strange that I was trying to find a symbol of a busted marriage that had just led to a broken finger. I didn’t know what else to do or how else to help. I don’t know whether my father knew what was happening to my mother. I don’t know whether he cared one way or another at the time. My father never failed to send us child support, but he was young and I really don’t know whether he gave a damn. Like I said, his life was rolling and on the upswing. He was hell-bent on making a name in the business, which he most certainly did.

After they divorced, my dad would roll into town from time to time and we would go to the events. Still, it wasn’t until I was eleven or twelve that I really understood he was famous, or that he did something different from all the other dads. That’s about the time I started watching the World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas with the Von Erichs. Kerry Von Erich, the Modern Day Warrior, was big at that time. The Freebirds were big, too. I remember going to the Coliseum in downtown Austin to see my dad wrestle. I was probably about nine years old, and it was the first time I saw my dad perform live. I was running around the floor as the show was going on. I was so excited to see my dad, and there were all these people jumping up and down cheering for him. It was really cool seeing people react to my dad that way. It was the way I felt about him, too.

After the show ended, I walked up to the ring. I jumped up onto the apron and grabbed the ropes. That’s when I heard my dad’s booming voice. He was in the back behind the curtain. He came running out into the arena and started yelling. “Don’t you ever get into that wrestling ring again.” He was mad, and it was scary for a young boy. I mean, that was my dad. He scared me so much that I didn’t get back into a ring until I got my start a decade later. To this day I don’t know whether he was concerned about my safety, or he just didn’t want me ever to become comfortable with the idea of one day being in the business. I know one thing: I’ve never forgotten that experience. All I wanted was to be with my dad. It was as if all these people, all the fans in that arena and in cities all over the territories he worked, had more of him than I did. He was always good to us, but I wanted to be a larger part of his life. Many years later my daughter, Dakota, would come with her mother and me on the road. I always let her climb into the ring and bounce around with Hunter and Edge and just have fun.

As the years rolled on, my sister and I didn’t see a whole lot of our father. During Christmas, he would fly us to Tampa on Braniff Airlines. In the summer, we’d make the same trip again, this time staying for a month. That’s all we really saw of him. Even then he was gone working all the time. Once in a while we talked to him on the phone, but otherwise he was somewhere out in the world. When we did see him, the time passed so quickly that it seemed like within moments of our arrival it was time to turn around and go home. At Christmas we’d open our presents and, boom, a couple days would pass and we were headed back to the airport. He was never really there for us. Then again, this lifestyle comes with the territory. It’s more demanding than most people can imagine. He was a father when...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1439195161
• ISBN 13: 9781439195161
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande