It’s only natural that Dustin’s age would begin to work against him but god damn it, now is the time to give me the Dustin and Sonny Kiss tag team. Just three months of Dark tags is all I ask, Tony. I noticed Scorpio Sky didn’t fake laugh at Dan Lambert’s jokes on Rampage after Loss’ post about it  so I know you’re reading, you son of a bitch. 
 

As for Sammy, he was a heel to me the minute he snapped up Tay Conti. Respectfully, of course

I'm pretty sure Dustin has done the catching his breath bit before when working with young, quick guys.

I wonder what the plan would have been if Cody had not been protocol'd. Was he going to beat Sammy again? Lose the belt back to him after only a short reign and make beating him in the first place pointless? Seems neither option would have been optimal. 

I think the TNT title would’ve changed hands. I guess the point would have been to have one title change on the show, and to give Sammy a further rub of recovering, and beating Cody during this special.

I thought it was really clear that Dustin getting winded was a planned spot

2 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

I'm pretty sure Dustin has done the catching his breath bit before when working with young, quick guys.

That bit was obviously worked out gaga for the match

Guessing Cody would have just retained and likely moved on to something else.

Dustin is 52 years old and it's crazy how good he is for his age. It's just a shame there's not a touring system he could work 6 man tags and help the young guys get up to speed with their ring work. Keep him in tags if he wants to carry on wresting, as in singles he's starting to struggle to keep up with the guys in the ring.

Just a shame with how the WWE used him, think of all those awesome matches we could have had.

  

I remember they were actually giving him some meaningful TV time with the tag and feud with R-Truth, but both guys being out with injuries threw a wrench on the whole affair - which sucked, as the build to it was surprisingly very good and not overdone.

Dustin is one of the top talent I can think of that never had a run at the top. Not sure if he could ever have had such a run due to timing issues, but still.

In that sense, he peaked in 1996. Programs with Razor Ramon, Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior and Undertaker, and a house show run headlining against Michaels.

1 minute ago, Loss said:

Guessing Cody would have just retained and likely moved on to something else.

Would guess men of the year get involved leading to a tag match on dynamite  

Just now, Loss said:

In that sense, he peaked in 1996. Programs with Razor Ramon, Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior and Undertaker, and a house show run headlining against Michaels.

Shame his personal demons and gimmick hurt his work and push back then.  

As I mentioned before, my AEW predictions are awful, but I'm guessing we get a Cody vs Sammy ladder match at Revolution with both titles suspended above the ring and Men of the Year acting as foils for both of them in the same way 2point0 did in the Punk-Darby build. The winner probably loses to Danielson not long after that, just because I can't think of anyone else he can feud with if he doesn't do that, and the TNT title scenario Dave laid out makes sense.

Probably not a ladder match, because apparently we are getting the “Face of The Revolution” ladder match at the PPV. MJF brought that up at New Years Bash, when he told Wardlow that when he won it he’d relinquish the title shot to him.

6 hours ago, ragemaster said:

Shame his personal demons and gimmick hurt his work and push back then.  

Demons sure, gimmick? I don't think so. Goldust was great. Watching Dustin create a character that's all his, instead of being Dusty Jr., and owning it, was fantastic.

From memory it was because he had to tone down/stop his gay sexual overtones with the gimmick, Vince then lost interest with it.  

10 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Demons sure, gimmick? I don't think so. Goldust was great. Watching Dustin create a character that's all his, instead of being Dusty Jr., and owning it, was fantastic.

Will also add it was a gimmick feeding on homophobic hate, even in 1996 it was in poor taste, nothing fantastic about that version of the Goldust character. 

He wasn’t gay, he was just “BizaRRe!”, like Bulldog.

On 1/10/2022 at 9:52 AM, ragemaster said:

Will also add it was a gimmick feeding on homophobic hate, even in 1996 it was in poor taste, nothing fantastic about that version of the Goldust character. 

So was Gorgeous George, Rikki Starr, Adrian Street and many others. Playing on the homophobia of wrestling fans is something that's thankfully past us, right?

But we can still appreciate the commitment performers make when embracing a character. Dustin totally became something new and insane and made it work so much that he still wears the paint and jumpsuit as part of his current character.

6 minutes ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Playing on the homophobia of wrestling fans is something that's thankfully past us, right?

Honestly, I would say by and large yeah. I don't think any wrestling company would even do something like that in 2022.  The fact that there's several openly gay wrestlers who being gay is just part of who they are instead of it being a gimmick to attract heat is a testament to how far things have come. Now I'm not saying pro wres solved homophobia or anything, there's always going to be some chodes lurking around, but even Ian Rotten has gone on record saying his locker room is open to anyone. 

9 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

But we can still appreciate the commitment performers make when embracing a character. Dustin totally became something new and insane and made it work so much that he still wears the paint and jumpsuit as part of his current character.

My memories of that version of Golddust are slow plodding matches with sexual assault against other wrestlers in the build up for those feuds. The only "highlight" would be the Piper match at mania. The Hollywood version of Golddust was much more fun and enjoyable, but I have nothing good to say about the 1996 gimmick or his wrestling at that time. 

Think on the house shows he may have wrestled more like his WCW days, as I have seen the Michaels vs Golddust ladder match, which looked like his best match from that time period. 

Think it was supposed to be a rib by Vince on Dusty, as he was using Dustin for his normal sense of humour.

Dustin was a good enough wrestler and above average on mic to have made it to a world title picture, but I feel Golddust always held him back and kept him in the mid card for the whole of his career in the WWE. So this does taint my view of the gimmick, as much as Dustin embraced the gimmick and reinvented himself, it was at the detriment of his career   

As Dustin he could have been a classic foe for Austin and they would have had matches that we would still be talking about now.