Dusty Rhodes dies at age 69

[detroitKG]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4luNsXj_08[/youtube]

[SUN]

Dude was just a common man, working hard with his hands. RIP Dusty.

[skbucks1985]

I was watching the NXT All Star Panel and they talked about Dusty and I've had this thought about him for a while but I didn't want to say anything immediately after he died because I would be a little too prisoner of the moment. But as time has passed I feel even more strongly about it which is that I think looking at the totality of it, I think Dusty Rhodes is the best babyface promo ever. Granted, I'm only talking about guys whose careers have been preserved by television so I can't talk about Bruno. But in the last 35 years or so years, looking at the best babyface promo guys I think he's tops. Unlike Hogan and to a lesser degree Rock, his promos age pretty well whereas those guys seem very dated especially Hogan. Cena has the tools to have gone down as one of the all-time great babyface promo guys, but he's way too overexposed and has had so many just god-awful bad comedy promos to be considered the best. Its between him and Austin for me and once you get beyond the surface there are a lot of similarities between the two. Austin became the bigger star but I think one of the bigger reasons for that, beyond him being so good, is that he fit the cultural zeitgeist at the time and there audience so perfectly. But I think Dusty had a promo style that I think could appeal to everyone while Austin had an appeal primarily to that 15-35 year old male crowd. But he didn't have that same level of appeal to women and children.

[Ruzious]

Big Dust was larger than life in the NWA years - back when Ali was the most famous celebrity in the world. He could sell out MSG without being the champ - and I'm not sure Bruno could do that - though Bruno as champ was perfect for that era. And yeah, Dusty's common-man themed promos were the best baby-faced promos ever. Nobody could get a crowd on his side like Big Dust.