What If? – Dustin Rhodes Was Never Fired From WCW

TheChairshot.com asks the question…What If? DJ Minter discusses the ramifications that would happen if Dustin Rhodes was never fired from WCW!

What if I told you that a mostly forgotten match on a mostly forgotten Pay-Per-View during one of the worst creative years in professional wrestling history was directly linked to things we are currently enjoying in the modern era? What if I told you that a company’s very existence might not have been possible without this match and its aftermath? To do that, I need to thread a needle through the current timeline and lay out things as they happened, before asking the question ….”What if?”

Walk with me into the past – 31 years to be exact. The date is March 19th, 1995. The company is WCW. The event is Uncensored. WCW was in a state of transition with the recent acquisition of Hulk Hogan. For long term fans of WCW, the tonal shift in their programming was immediate and jarring. What had formerly been known as the “real wrasslin” company was now leaning toward “sports entertainment,” and creatively a lot of it was not good. Uncensored was WCW’s answer to upstart ECW, whose hardcore style was making waves and gaining traction in the industry. The WCW spectacle boasted several gimmick matches meant to cater to the hardcore fan, however the result was anything but. With a card promising gimmick matches such as a martial arts match (yes!) between Meng, formerly known as Haku, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan; a boxing match with Johnny B. Badd and Arn Anderson; a falls count anywhere match featuring Harlem Heat and the Nasty Boys; and a highly anticipated strap match with Hulk Hogan and Vader. What could possibly go wrong? The answer: everything. From top to bottom, the card was terrible. The matches failed to deliver anything actually extreme. The event was so awful that for the people complaining about how “bad” modern wrestling has become, I beg of you to seek this out and watch it.  

There is, however, one match that stood out as having potential. During 1995, “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes was embroiled in a good old fashioned blood feud with the Blacktop Bully, formerly known as Smash of Demolition and Repo Man. He had been repackaged into a semi-truck driver who was a bully. The feud culminated in a gimmick match that would see the two of them in the back of an open trailer semi-truck, fighting it out no holds barred style while the truck was driving. (Read that again and digest. You good? Ok let’s move on.) On paper, the idea had potential, but frankly, this did not reach it. Between the truck barely moving past brisk walking speed and the plunder available to them in the back, this match was anything but extreme. Where it does stand out, however, was that it was an early version of a cinematic match, as well as for a decision made by both men – one that would have ramifications in the modern wrestling world. In 1995, as part of its “sports entertainment” direction, WCW implemented a strict “no blood” policy.  This meant that wrestlers were no longer allowed to cut themselves open during matches. Dustin and Bully, probably sensing that the match they had been booked in had disaster written all over it, decided to go against policy and cut themselves open. This forced WCW to heavily edit the match, which had been pre-taped anyway. This also led to the subsequent firing of both men from WCW. 

This is where the timeline fractures between what is and what might not have been.

7 months after being released from WCW, Dustin Rhodes would debut in WWE (then still WWF) as the repackaged Goldust. This was a bizarre character that left a lot of us scratching our heads, but nonetheless, intrigued. (Editor’s side note: I absolutely loved the character and rank it among my top 20 all time gimmicks.) Dustin leaned all the way into the bizarre, doing everything that was asked of him and then some. Unfortunately, his trajectory and success in WWE(F) would be mixed. Coupled with his own personal demons, Goldust, while showing all the potential in the world, would waver from upper midcard to nearly jobber status during his first run with the company. He would exit in 1999 then spend the next 9 years trying to find himself, including another brief run in WCW, in Japan, and TNA. He would eventually return to WWE in 2008, and during this time, his younger brother Cody had started his professional wrestling journey. And this, dear reader, is where the plot thickens as they say.

Cody would try to establish himself as his own man, largely staying clear of Godust, even though their careers overlap at this time. Remember, while we all knew who Dustin was at this point, the character on TV as presented was not Dustin Rhodes. From 2008-2013, Cody would forge his own path, going through several gimmick tweaks and seeing moderate success. In September of 2013, the timelines would converge and brothers would finally unite as WWE TV finally acknowledged the Rhodes family connection between Godust and Cody. This culminated in a fantastic feud with new to the scene faction, The Shield.  

In June of 2014, Cody would undergo yet another gimmick change – one that would further alter the course of modern wrestling. He began appearing as Stardust, a character which was similar in look to Goldust, and started teaming with his brother. This would again have mixed success (Editor’s note, much like Godust, I loved the Stardust gimmick, even suggesting to a friend that we should dress up as Goldust and Stardust for Halloween). Cody would spend the next 2 years as Stardust, which was a role that he was growing increasingly frustrated with. After numerous attempts to persuade creative to let him end the Stardust character and failing, Cody would ask to be released from his WWE contract. From there, Cody would reinvent himself yet again and go on to have a legendary Indy run that would last more than 2 years, including stints in Ring of Honor, TNA, and New Japan.  

New Year’s Day of 2019 would fundamentally change the wrestling industry. At a press conference, the announcement of AEW, or All Elite Wrestling, was made. Backed by Billionaire Tony Khan with Cody, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega serving as EVP’s, the new company promised a different approach to not only its in ring product, but in its company business model as a whole. North American wrestling fans finally had another company to enjoy, and WWE had potential competition..

AEW’s part in this story cannot be understated. By design and by default, Cody would emerge as a top star within the company and cement his own legacy, ultimately showing that he was capable of being the top star in a wrestling company and a bonafide main event talent. Over the next 3 years, AEW would face ups, downs, growth and growing pains – all of which are a topic for another time. What’s important is that somewhere during this time, Cody’s relationship with AEW would erode. The details of situation are unknown and for the purposes of this article, quite irrelevant. But by the end of 2021, it was all but accepted news that Cody Rhodes was done with AEW. This news happened to coincide with the start of WWE’s WrestleMania season. So of course, the speculation started. Soon, speculation turned to rumor, rumor turned to news, and news turned into reality as Cody Rhodes would finally return home to WWE at WrestleMania 38 as Seth Rollins’ “mystery opponent” in 2022’s worst kept secret. In the next 2 years, Cody would further galvanize himself not only as a main event draw and attraction within the company, but also its top babyface, with him going on to “Finish The Story” and win the championship that eluded his father – the WWE Undisputed Championship. 

I have laid out the timeline as it happened, but the “What If” is subject to some imagination. What if Dustin Rhodes had never been fired from WCW? Would we have gotten Godust? That was a risky character who was a vital prototype for what would become the Attitude Era. If we had not gotten Goldust, would we have gotten Stardust, which was a character whose very existence led to frustration, causing Cody Rhodes to leave WWE and strike out on his own?  If Cody never leaves WWE in 2016, does he ever go on an all time indy run?  Does AEW exist if that never happens? If none of that happens, do we have “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes as the top babyface in WWE?  

We are living in a wrestling world that exists because of one decision in a throwaway match on a throwaway Pay-Per-View in 1995.