Goldust

Trained by his father, the legendary three-time NWA World Champion Dusty Rhodes and by Skandar Akbar, Runnels made his debut on September 13, 1988 as Dustin Rhodes, in the same stomping grounds where his father gained fame, Florida. After a short stint in the World Championship area, teaming with another second generation wrestler Kendall Windham (son of Blackjack Mulligan) as the Texas Broncos, Rhodes went to Japan to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling, teaming with Tom Zenk to defeat Isao Takagi and John Tenta in Karasuyama, Japan.

Rhodes returned to Florida and teamed first with his father and then with Mike Graham, himself the son of legendary Eddie Graham. In May 1989, Graham and Rhodes teamed to defeat Bobby Jaggers and Black Bart to win the Florida Tag Team titles, although they dropped the belts to Bart and Tony Anthony a few weeks later. On May 23, 1989, Rhodes defeated Al Perez to win the Florida Championship Wrestling Heavyweight title.

After losing the FCW belt to Kendall Windham, Rhodes moved on to the CWA and USWA, making it to the finals of a tournament for the USWA Southern Heavyweight title, before losing to the Dirty White Boy. After several more months in the USWA, Rhodes joined his father in WWE.

Attacked by Ted Dibiase during one of his father's matches, Dustin joined forces with Dusty against Dibiase and Virgil. Soon after a tag team loss at the 1991 Royal Rumble, both Rhodes were gone from WWE, with Dustin resurfacing in WCW.

Rhodes quickly worked his way up in WCW, defeating Buddy Landell and Richard Morton and even battling Steve Austin to a 15-minute draw at Halloween Havoc '91. But prior to that, he would team with Tom Zenk and Big Josh (Matt Borne) to win the NWA World 6-Man Tag Team titles in August '91.

He would team with his former Texas Broncos tag partner's brother, Barry Windham, only to see Windham injured by Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko just before a tag team title match. Rhodes revealed his mystery partner to be Ricky Steamboat and the pair won the WCW Tag Team titles on November 19, 1991.

Even after the loss of the tag titles, Rhodes remained one of the rising stars in WCW, and allied himself with Sting against the Dangerous Alliance, culminating in a WarGames match at WrestleWar. Rhodes and Windham continued to team together, making it to the finals of the NWA World Tag Team title tournament, before losing to Steve Williams and Terry Gordy. However, Windham and Rhodes would take the unified WCW and NWA Tag titles in September.

The partnership between Windham and Rhodes would last only until they lost the titles to Steamboat and Shane Douglas, when Windham turned on Rhodes when Dustin wouldn't go for a pinfall on an injured Steamboat. In a twist of fate, it would be Steamboat that Rhodes beat in January 1993 to win the vacant U.S. Championship, a title Rhodes would hold for most of 1993, even after dropping it temporarily to Rick Rude, before finally losing to Steve Austin at Starrcade '93.


After jumping from independent booking to TNA in which he played a character call Black Reign.On March 3, 2010, Goldust joined the SmackDown brand, making it the first time that Goldust had ever been officially on the SmackDown roster. He made his debut for the brand on the March 4 edition of WWE Superstars in a losing effort against Chris Jericho. The next week on Superstars he defeated Mike Knox. He appeared in a dark 26-man battle royal match at WrestleMania XXVI, but failed to win, although his past ally Yoshi Tatsu won.

As part of the 2010 WWE Supplemental Draft, Goldust was drafted back to the Raw brand. On the May 3 episode of Raw, Goldust made his re-debut for the brand in a backstage segment with guest host for that week, Wayne Brady. The following week, on the May 10th episode of Raw, Goldust teamed with John Morrison, Yoshi Tatsu and Santino Marella in a losing effort against all eight of the NXT Rookies when Bryan rolled up Santino Marella for the win. On the May 20th edition of WWE Superstars, Goldust went on to face William Regal in a winning effort executing his finisher move, the Final Cut.