While in Asheville, North Carolina, on Thursday, working with our charity, Headlock on Hunger, WWE caught up with me to interview me for the upcoming Owen Hart DVD. I had just been asked the question, "What does the date May 23, 1999, mean to you?"
My cellphone began buzzing like it was obsessed at the mere mention of a date that remains burned deep in my mind. My cell buzzed so long, so often, that one of the crew members had to stop recording.
With my mind reluctantly racing to the fateful date in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, that I regularly work on suppressing, I excused myself to regain my composure, adjourn to the men's room and check my messages on my manic phone.
While trying to wrap my head around what the date in '99 that Owen Hart died meant to me, I found out that my friend of 30-plus years, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, had died.
What seemed to have become a sad day suddenly became a day of despair and heartbreak.
"The Dream" was dead.
Virgil Riley Runnels Jr. was born Oct. 12, 1945, and was a proud Texan who graduated from Austin Johnson High School, where he was a baseball and football star before attending a variety of colleges for varying lengths of time while playing both sports and occasionally attending class.
Big Dust was a lifelong pro wrestling fan who parlayed his distinctive speech impediment and burly physique into one of the most charismatic pro wrestling personas of any era.
In the ring, Virgil became Dusty, and outside the ring, the son of a plumber was also Dusty. Playing the role of a common man with a huge heart and no fear was easy for Dusty, because that's what he was.
The greatest performers in the squared circle are embellished replicas of themselves. Dusty Rhodes was simply cast as himself, and no one portrayed themselves better than The American Dream.
There were many Oct. 12s while my wife, Jan, slept in that Dusty received a happy birthday call before she got her happy anniversary greeting.
We were broadcast partners on many occasions, the last time calling a match on Florida Championship Wrestling in a bout pitting William Regal vs Dean Ambrose.
Broadcasting together again, we were as happy as two stocky rednecks at a barbecue buffet.
Dusty Rhodes was an innovator, a creator, a mentor and a performer the likes we will never see again in his star-crossed profession.
The spirt and the legacy of The American Dream will live forever in the hearts and minds of everyone who heard him speak and watched Big Dust get "funky like a monkey" inside the squared circle.
Until we see each other again, may you rest in peace, my dear friend.
