The WWE Is Ruining... Goldust

As a pro wrestling fan, it is a part of our identity to always know how to utilize wrestlers better than the WWE. If WWE would just give me, random WWE fan, a job a the company, ratings would immediately rise to the levels of the Monday Night Wars, despite how television ratings have changed as a whole over the last 20 years. But until that happens, WWE will continue ruining our favorite wrestlers, and that is why it is time to point out the error in their ways. Because of WWE's incompetence, I am literally going to pick a wrestler at random and point out how they could be better utilized, because WWE is ruining everyone in one way or another.

Today, I look at (deeply inhale) Goooooooollllllllllldustttttttttttt.

Goldust has seemingly been around forever. He started in the NWA/WCW over 30 years ago, in 1988, and the Goldust gimmick has been around since 1995. Originally, Goldust was just a super sexualized wrestler whose peacocking would have made Mystery jealous. The character has mostly devolved from there as it has included cross-dressing, Tourette's, and being a cuck. That last one was only ended due to the real life death of Brian Pillman.

A weird thing happened over his nearly 25 years in the role. 20 years into it when he should be thinking about retirement, he was doing the best in-ring work of his career. He put on some great tag matches while teaming with his brother Cody Rhodes (no clue what that guy is doing these days) and even some really entertaining stuff teaming with R-Truth.

He has been out the past several months with a knee injury, and considering his age, it's probably best that he doesn't come back as a singles wrestler, especially with what he has shown in the recent past as part of a tag team.

And as great as The Brotherhood and The Golden Truth were, neither of those teams compare to his greatest tag team. I'm of course talking about Goldust and Booker T, sucka.

I know what you're thinking. Why am I showing a video of Booker T and Latrell Sprewell in a post about Goldust? Well, that isn't actually the famous shooting guard; it's the legend himself, Goldust, in an elaborate disguise. I know, even when he says he's not Sprewell, it's still almost impossible to tell. The range that Goldust had with Booker T is truly incredible. A quick search of YouTube has Goldust disguising as Kane, Darth Vader, and even Santa Claus.

"But Booker T retired" you say? Oh, I guess he would never consider coming back for something like this, except for Booker T himself said he wants Bookdust to get back together.


With a retired Booker and a Goldust that hasn't been around in a while, maybe they shouldn't go straight to dominating the entire tag team division. Hell, I'm not even sure if they need to wrestle more than a handful of times a year. But in between, let's have Goldust dress up, use a sophomoric sexual innuendo, and occasionally trick Booker T into a sexual misadventure.

Is that really too much to ask?

Other Wrestlers WWE Is Ruining
Alicia Fox
Andrade "Cien" Almas
Apollo Crews
Bayley
Bobby Lashley
Bobby Roode
Charlotte Flair
Curt Hawkins
Dana Brooke
Dash Wilder
Ember Moon
Jinder Mahal
Kane
Karl Anderson
Killian Dain
Kofi Kingston
Luke Gallows
Mickie James
Mojo Rawley
Nia Jax
Peyton Royce
Randy Orton
Scott Dawson
Shinsuke Nakamura
Tyler Breeze

The Debut of the New World Order

The nWo is probably my favorite big pro wrestling thing ever. I mean, yeah, who doesn't love the Katie Vick saga, and Dr. D David Schultz calling Hulk Hogan a cross-dressing homosexual? Those are great small things, but the nWo is the coolest thing that pro wrestling has ever provided us.

But before it became too big and was half-filled with jobbers like Vincent and Horace Hogan, even before Hulk Hogan turned heel for the first time, before Big Sexy, Kevin Nash, joined up, it all started with one man, Scott Hall.

Before Hall even showed up, it was already a momentous occasion, as it was the first ever two-hour Nitro. Two-hour Nitros are hilarious in that no matter what is going on, they will shoot off fireworks the second that hour two starts. They literally just start blowing off fireworks in the middle of matches every other week, because they don't know how to time things out.

It was a solid show, but it was given an exclamation point with the appearance from Scott Hall. Not only did Hall make a surprise appearance, but he came out in jeans and a denim vest to let everyone that he is BOUT DAT LIFE.

Hall actually did a great job of making it seem like he was still with WWE. He made WCW seem white trash while referring to Billionaire Ted, Nacho Man, and Scheme Gene, names that all came from WWE's worst long-running gimmick ever, instead of using their real names.

I will say that Scott Hall struggled more when he confronted the announce team of Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan as he keeps repeating himself as he doesn't quite get his lines right the first time. Still, Bischoff and especially Heenan do a great job of selling it.

The next week, he shows up in the same Canadian Business Casual look. He basically says the same thing again, but this time Sting slaps him. He then says that he has a big surprise, and the rest, as they say, is history. Overall, it was a memorable first step, which led to one of the most iconic stables in wrestling history.

Oh, and if you're wondering what was going on at the same time on Raw. WWE competed with Goldust making out with Ahmed Johnson. That is the 100% truth, so...yeah, the Attitude Era, a true golden age of wrestling.

Goldust Was The Original PUA

Goldust is one of the most fascinating characters in WWE history. As a child, he was just seen as a weird queer, mostly because that is how Jerry Lawler referred to him most times, and children think Jerry Lawler has a lot of good insight. But man, looking back, Goldust is probably the most complex character in WWE history. That guy was an onion, and after peeling back all of the layers, at his core, he is not a "queer," he's actually the original pickup artist.

Goldust's first vignette was in front of a big-time Hollywood building. The problem with this was that the building had a giant Looney Tunes banner on the wall, and it really took me out of the moment. It's especially sad, because the WWE clearly did this with a green screen, and that is what they chose to use. Still, one week later, Jerry Lawler claimed that the debut of Goldust blew up the internet. I believe this is probably the first noted case of an athlete blowing up the internet, and this was 1995, so it may be the first thing that ever blew up the internet. Blowing up the internet is one of the greatest examples of a demonstration of higher value (DHV) that are essential in the world of pickup artists.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find that vignette on YouTube, but I was able to find his second one that was on Raw a week later. Let's take a look:

This is textbook PUA material right here. First, he opens it up with a quote from a movie. In Season 2 of the Pickup Artist, literally half of the openers that they used were, "What movie is this from? 'Nobody puts baby in the corner.'" Movie quotes are the backbone of any true PUAs pickup gambits.

Then he goes into a diatribe about magic and mystery, where gold only sheds light as opposed to darkness. If he were to use this line to a girl who was wearing any sort of dark color, it's basically the perfect neg that will have her begging for his approval.

Finally, that outfit. Man, there isn't a PUA who wouldn't be jealous about the extent that Goldust is able to peacock. He is wearing gold suit jacket with a bowtie and top hat. Right there, he's got top level peacocking working for him, but then to top it off with a long blonde wig, face paint, and black lipstick? That is truly next level. Imagine if you were a pickup artist, and you were wearing your freshest peacocking gear, and then you see Goldust at the bar? You're done. You have to leave the bar, and you may have to leave the state just to make sure you never run into the true master ever again.

He was more mysterious and flamboyant than homosexual, although he did like to toe that line. He had an in-ring interview with Vince McMahon where Goldust asked, "Is that another microphone in your pants or are you just happy to see me?" One of the great obstacles that PUAs face is the Alpha Male Of Group (AMOG), and Goldust just disarmed a legendary AMOG in Vince McMahon. Once you disarm the AMOG, it's easy to begin kino escalation with your target. It was true PUA brilliance.

I understand that many of you may be skeptical, but you must admit it is a little weird that it takes three seconds for a pin, and Mystery came up with the three second rule to approach a girl within three seconds. I see this as an homage from Mystery to his hero, the original PUA, Goldust.

Finally, this should kill any doubts you may have, as the proof is in the pudding.

Game recognize game.