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Customer Reviews of WWE - The American Dream - The Dusty Rhodes Story

A Great Look At Dusty's Career...With a Few Nitpicks
The silver lining as it regards the WWE owning the rights to the tape libraries of many now-defunct wrestling promotions like WCW, AWA, Championship Wrestling from Florida, and others is that is gives them the ability to put together great DVD sets, such as this most recent offering on the career of Dusty Rhodes, that feature classic matches, interviews and angles from the multiple territories where the subject matter worked throughout his career. The "touch of gray" is that these DVD sets have a tendency to be WWE/F-centric, with an inordinate amount of time devoted to the subject's WWF tenure even if that tenure was actually a fairly insignificant blip on his overall career. <
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>The documentary portion of the Dusty Rhodes DVD was very well done, featuring commentary from Rhodes himself as well as many of his contemporaries such as Ric Flair, Harley Race, Ted DiBiase and Superstar Billy Graham. Commentary is also provided from modern era wrestlers like John Cena and Simon Dean who explain how Dusty inspired their own careers. Any somewhat knowledgeable wrestling fan will likely be able to point out a number of historical inaccuracies presented by Rhodes in the documentary, such as taking credit for the invention of Halloween Havoc even though he hadn't worked for WCW for nearly a year at the time of the inaugural event or blaming the demise of JCP entirely on Jim Crocket's money mismanagement and none of his own booking, namely pushing himself as the top star of the promotion long after his sell-by date and the overuse of his infamous "Dusty Finish" (wrestler wins World title only to have the decision reversed based on an earlier disqualification). To be fair, though, I'm sure if you were to analyze any biography featured on shows like "Behind the Music" or "E! True Hollywood Story" you will find similar examples of performers trying to portray themselves in the best possible light, even if this may involve a little (or more) exaggeration. <
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>The matches on the DVD span nearly 30 years, starting off with matches from the early 70s in the AWA, where Dusty formed a legendary heel tag team with Dick Murdoch, all the way through 2001 when Dusty teamed with son Dustin to take on Ric Flair and Jeff Jarrett in WCW. Match selection on these DVDs is really a subjective thing - it's easy to nitpick that this or that match should have been included while this or that match should have been left off. The real head scratcher on this DVD was including an obscure, not particularly exciting, 1988 match vs. Ivan Koloff while having absolutely no matches at all from Dusty's legendary feud with Kevin Sullivan from Florida. The biggest knock against this DVD is the overabundance of footage from Dusty's late 80s/early 90s run in the WWF. What's funny is that during the documentary portion of the DVD, Dusty's polka-dot gimmick is almost universally panned, yet there is virtually an entire disc devoted to Dusty's matches, interviews and skits from this era. Obviously Dusty did wrestle for the WWF during this period, so it makes sense that there would be *some* material from this era in the collection, but considering the importance of this period to Dusty's overall career, this era definitely seems overrepresented. <
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>While Dusty may not be known as the greatest in-ring performer of all time, the one area where Dusty truly shines is on interviews. In my opinion, he is arguable the greatest babyface interview in the history of the business. The strongest aspect of the DVD are the dozens upon dozens of Dusty interviews included in the collection. Like the Ric Flair DVD, this is an easy product to recommend, but there was definitely enough material left off to hope a second DVD is in the works.

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Very enjoyable, but has a few problems
Having viewed the majority of everything on this set, for the most part I really liked it. That is until I got to disc 3. First, I want to talk about the positives of this set. Unlike many here, I think the documentary was well done and interesting. Especially the part when the issues with son Dustin back in the 90s are addressed. Finally we get the real story, not the trumped up internet version about Dusty turning on his son because of the ambiguity of the "Goldust" character. Myth 1 taken care of. This was moving and the emotion very raw. How can anyone say "why is this talked about"?! Dusty's relationship with a son who got involved in wrestling isn't important?! <
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>As far as the Crockett days are concerned, much of what Dusty said has also been said by David Crockett, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Tell me those guys are just "covering up" for Dusty. The one thing that may have been glossed over a bit was how and why Dusty left. Dusty seemed to imply he left because he didn't agree with Jim Herd's vision of what the NWA/WCW should become. While this is probably true to an extent given most wrestlers accounts about Herd, it's common knowledge that he lost a powerplay with Ric Flair concerning booking of his match at Starrcade '88. During Crockett's last months in power he demoted Dusty as head booker and Flair was put in charge. I think this had more to do with his departure than anything else, but that is just my opinion and mine only. <
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>On disc 2, I was very pleased with this as well. His match with Tully Blanchard from Bash '85 is presented raw and uncut with no commentary. This is particularly cool since you can hear the exchanges between the wrestlers and Baby Doll's verbal clashes with people in the crowd. To clarify, you're not going to hear them calling spots since you had 2 guys who knew how to work and what each other was thinking. <
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>The match with Ric Flair from Bash '86 is not a rehash from "Greatest Cage Matches". This is the raw, uncut master footage from the event, complete with Ric Flair's full entrance, and Dusty's post-match celebration. In the previous release, WWE had used the version from the commercial VHS tape JCP released back at the time. Props for really making good use of that tape library! Only downside for me was that the commentary by Rhodes & Co. was totally kayfabed. I would have preferred to hear more of the backstory on the booking of this match and how they decided what they were going to do. Still, it takes nothing away from the match. <
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>Now for what I had problems with, especially with disc 3. I agree with the other reviewers who stated there was too much made of his career with the WWF. An entire disc of this era is overkill, especialy since many view this as an embarrassment for Dusty. However, things are made much, much worse with the removal of Jesse Ventura's commentary. Do you know how painful it is to hear those long pauses with only the soundbytes of Tony Schiavone?! Not to mention listening to a Wrestlemania match with only Gorilla Monsoon seemingly talking to himself. Everybody knows the exchanges between Jesse and Gorilla helped many a sub-par matchup seem interesting. Big friggin' deal if Jesse is suing for royalties. For a company like WWE who likes to file a lawsuit every chance they get, it's pretty ironic how much they back down when someone goes after them for a change. If this is how it's going to be, than I would just assume they not include any matches from this period at all, or wait until things are settled. Note to Vince McMahon: you are not powerful enough to erase memories!!! <
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>As mentioned earlier, there are more mistakes with dates as there have been with other releases. How the production team continues to do this is beyond me. These are things almost any fan of the time wouldn't screw up, so this tells me the people working on these releases may be like the script writers for WWE. They just work there, they aren't fans. Oh well. <
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>Lastly I enjoyed most of the promos, and some of the WWF matches aren't all bad. I got quite a few laughs from his match with Honky Tonk Man (watch for the spot where he totally messes up Honky's hairdo). I wished they had included their singoff from Primetime Wrestling which was hilarious back then. Gorilla: "If they hung either one of them for being a good singer, they'd hang an innocent person!" <
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>This is not exactly what I would call a definitive collection, but again, I enjoyed it for the most part. It was fun and interesting to watch. Maybe if they do a Four Horsemen set we'll get the parking lot attack and other confrontations from the Crockett years.

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OK, but could've been better...
I'm a huge Rhodes mark, but this set falls far below the expectations I had coming in. <
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>Too Much: <
>- later WWF matches (not the Graham atuff, but the polka dot days) <
>- Dustin-related material...let Dustin have his own DVD. <
>- promos...some of them are pointless for this box set, although he cut some of the best in the business. <
>- did we really need to see the ECW match? <
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>Not Enough: <
>- Florida footage...the feud with Kevin Sullivan (and others) was ignored. <
>- footage from other territories...he also wrestled in Texas, California, Mid-South, PWF, and Japan, and other places, but no footage of that? <
>- really needed to pay more homage to his feuds with Race and Flair, with some more matches...those feuds were the hottest feuds of the '70s and 80s, and really cemented Rhodes as a top draw. <
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>Mistakes: <
>- someone seriously needs to double-check their facts...the footage labeled as being from The Omni in Atlanta ('81 title change w/Race) is actually from '79 in Tampa. For the second time on a DVD release, Rhodes refers to the '81 title change as his first NWA title. <
>- the Sgt. Slaughter promo, labeled as being in the late 80s was actually from about 1980, right around the time Slaughter was the US champ. How could the production team overlook such a huge mistake? <
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>If you're a Rhodes fan, this will quench your thirst. But if you're a Rhodes mark, this will come up short...remember, this IS a WWE-produced set.