Goldust
Born	April 11, 1969 Austin, Texas
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Dustin Rhodes Dusty Rhodes Jr. Seven Goldust The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust Lonestar Dustin Runnels
Billed height	6 ft 4 in (198 cm)
Billed weight	263 lb (117 kg)
Billed from	Hollywood, California
Trained by	Dusty Rhodes Skandor Akbar
Debut	September 13, 1988

Virgil Runnels III (born April 11, 1969 in Austin, Texas; often called Dustin Runnels) is an American professional wrestler who has competed in the WWE and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He is mostly best-known for his World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) character Goldust, a sexually ambiguous movie star. He also wrestled in WCW and TNA as Dustin Rhodes. His father, Virgil Runnels, Jr., who wrestled as Dusty Rhodes, was one of the best-known wrestlers of the 1970s and 1980s. He most recently was performing for World Wrestling Entertainment on the RAW brand under the Goldust moniker until he was released on June 14,2006.

Early career

Virgil "Dustin" Runnels III was the co-captain of the East Mecklenburg High School Charlotte, NC varsity wrestling team in the 1987-88 school year. He also played varsity football during that same time.

Runnels started wrestling as Dustin Rhodes in 1988 in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). He debuted in the NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions in late 1988. He formed a tag team with Kendall Windham called the "Texas Broncos." They feuded briefly with Al Perez and Larry Zbyszko.

In March 1989, Dustin was back in FCW. He teamed with Mike Graham and feuded with Black Bart. He also feuded with Kendall Windham over the FCW Title.

In July 1989, he went to the CWA, where he continued to feud with Bart. He left for the WWF in January 1990. He continued to feud with Bart on the undercard and eventually teamed with his father, Dusty Rhodes, to feud with Ted DiBiase and Virgil.

World Championship Wrestling

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

In late 1991, he feuded with Television Champ "Stunning" Steve Austin over the title before forming a tag team with real life best friend Barry Windham. Windham was injured by Arn Anderson and Larry Zbysko, "The Enforcers", so Dustin got a new partner, Ricky Steamboat, and they won the tag team titles from them. For the next seven months (through June 1992), he feuded with Paul E. Dangerously's Dangerous Alliance of Anderson, Zbysko, Austin, Rick Rude and Bobby Eaton. He was in the "War Games" against the Dangerous Alliance with Steamboat, Windham, Sting and Nikita Koloff as his partners.

October 1992 saw him reform his team with Windham to 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, losing it to Austin in December.

In March 1994, he became involved in a feud with Bunkhouse Buck and Col. Rob Parker. Parker eventually brought in Terry Funk and Arn Anderson to feud with Dustin. Dustin brought in his father, Dusty, to help him. This feud lasted until December when Parker brought in Blacktop Bully to feud with Dustin. Dustin and the Bully both were fired in March 1995 when they both "bladed" (cut themselves to look busted open) at the Uncensored PPV after they were told not to.

World Wrestling Federation

In July 1995, Runnels debuted in the WWF as Goldust. He played mind games with opponents to make them think he was a homosexual. He 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 Marlena. Her gimmick was to be a director, and sat in a director's chair through his matches.

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. Goldust then engaged in a feud with replacement opponent Rowdy Roddy Piper, which ended in a "Hollywood Backlot Brawl" at WrestleMania. Goldust lost this match, but not his Intercontinental Championship.

His time as champion included feuds with Roddy Piper, 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 December 1996, Goldust and Marlena turned face and feuded with Triple H.

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. He began a feud with Brian Pillman in August 1997 which saw Pillman steal Marlena from him. 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, being Shaftdust etc. He feuded with Mero and Sable again with Luna.

In May 1998, he split with Luna and burned his Goldust suit on TV and feuded with Val Venis. In October, he brought Goldust back and feuded with Jeff Jarrett over the attentions of Debra. Early 1999 saw him feud with Al Snow briefly after stealing Head, feud with Bluedust and then join him to feud with Ken Shamrock, acquire Ryan Shamrock as a valet to bicker with Bluedust, win the Intercontinental Title again 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 re-named GTV when Runnels left the WWF. If the angle had been allowed to play out, it would have been revealed that Goldust was the "G/GD" in "GTV/GDTV", secretly filming people supposedly being another part of his mania. Interesting to note is that the WWF kept the GTV angle running for quite some time after relasing Runnels, ultimately, however the person behind it was never revealed.

Back to WCW

Runnels took some time off, patched up his differences with his father and rejoined WCW in several vignettes (in August 1999) as a strange, white face painted dream villain, Seven. When he actually debuted in the ring, he took the Seven suit off and cut a promo on stupid gimmicks. He became 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!. 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 dad 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 Entertainment

In January 2002, he returned as a heel again to the WWF as Goldust and won the Hardcore Title several times. He formed an unlikely team with Booker T and 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 tried to join the nWo in July after Booker joined them, even appearing painted up in the black and white nWo colors during one appearance, but they didn't want him. He rejoined Booker when Booker was kicked out of the nWo. 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. 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. The resulting shock gave Goldust a form of tourettism, causing him to stutter and yell random insults at people, and also preventing him from censoring himself; one memorable example had Goldust asking Eric Bischoff, "Eric, why are you such a Dic... Dic... Dic... Dictator, Dictator?" He then formed a tag team with Lance Storm, whom he tried to teach to be a more fun person, with hilarious results. He made occasional appearances before his contract ran out at midnight on December 31 2003.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

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 then 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 has feuded with Raven, Jason Roberts, and Bobby Roode.

On April 24, 2005, Runnels was arrested and detained by Orange County, Florida authorities following a domestic dispute with his girlfriend 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

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

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. 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 joy in the singles division, he was soon paired up with Snitsky as an "odd ball" tag team often being known as "The Freaks"; in reference to the perverted Goldust and the toe sucking Snitsky. On June 14, 2006 WWE released him and "wished him the best of luck in future endevors."

Goldust was released, by the WWE, on June 14th 2006.

Wrestling facts

• Previous managers

• Terri Runnels
• Luna Vachon
• Ryan Shamrock
• Blue Meanie
• Johnny Glitter
• Dusty Rhodes

• Quotes

• "And you will never forget the name of (takes a deep breath)... Goldust!"
• "I am the Prince of Perversion"
• "Snitsky! Oh my God! What are you doing? oh thats terrible (in a grossed out faced)". (usely does this when Gene Snitsky does something disgusting).

• Nicknames

• The American Nightmare
• The Bizarre One
• Lonestar
• The Natural
• The Prince of Perversion
• The Prince of Perv

• Finishing and signature moves

• Curtain Call (Suplex slam, lifting inverted DDT, or shoulder neckbreaker)
• Shattered Dreams /The Golden Globes (Cornered running kick to opponent's groin)
• Shock Treatment / Director's Cut / Perverse Powerslam (Powerslam pin)
• The Oscar (Mat slam)
• Bulldog
• Inverted atomic drop
• Butt Butt (Hip attack)
• Bronco buster with pelvic thrusts
• Catapult backbreaker

Championships and accomplishments

• World Wrestling Entertainment

• 3-time WWF Intercontinental Champion
• 1-time WWE World Tag-Team Champion (with Booker T)
• 9-time WWF Hardcore Champion

• World Championship Wrestling

• 2-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion
• 2-time WCW World Tag Team Champion (once with Barry Windham, once with Ricky Steamboat)
• 1-time WCW World Six-Man Tag Team Champion (with Big Josh and Tom Zenk)

• National Wrestling Alliance

• 1-time NWA World Tag Team Champion (with Barry Windham)

• Florida Championship Wrestling

• 1-time FCW Heavyweight Champion
• 1-time FCW Tag Team Champion (with Mike Graham)

• Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling

• 1-time TCW Heavyweight Champion

• American Combat Wrestling

• 1-time ACW Heavyweight Champion

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated

• PWI ranked him # 126 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003. He was also ranked # 87 of the best tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Barry Windham.
• Runnels won the 1991 PWI Most Improved Wrestler of the Year Award as Dustin Rhodes.

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• 1989 Rookie of the Year
• 1991 Most Improved Wrestler

Championship succession

External links

• WWE Profile