In 1997, Dustin “Goldust” Runnels lost a wrestling match, condemning his wife Terri into sex slavery. While this amused (and aroused) Jerry Lawler to no end, it was sheer hell for Dustin (and no picnic for Terri, either, because of the sex slavery).
Originally, Terri was to leave her husband for her captor, no doubt driving Goldust to further despair. Real-life tragedy led to an abrupt cancellation of the story line, however.
After a month of creative limbo, the WWF made its next move on the Goldust character, a return to his “bizarre” roots after his recent run as a family man. Except this time, he’d eschew anything cerebral or clever about the character and just be weird for the sake of weird.
Having abruptly left Terri, Goldust showed up the next week with “FU” painted on his face (standing for, of course, “Forever Unchained”)…
…but you’d be hard-pressed to find this clip on Peacock, as it apparently resembled blackface a little too much for the streaming service’s standards.
Now “unchained”, Goldust could truly express himself via chandelier earrings, devil horns, and a smoking jacket…
…or this checkered-flag face paint straight from Bob Holly’s nightmares.
Not only did he have new ring attire and a new name (capitalizing on Prince’s name change four years prior)…
…he also unveiled a new valet in Luna Vachon, in a segment once again scrubbed from Peacock.
The following week, Luna led Goldust around the ring on a leash. The Bizarre One wore a lime green body suit, metal bra, and g-string.
It’s astonishing to see how utterly ineffective a character Goldust had become. In early 1996, all he had to do was make a suggestive comment about Razor Ramon and everyone went nuts.
Fast forward two years, and he was crawling around on all fours with a ball gag in his mouth, and nobody cared.
Goldust’s shrinking budget reflected his new irrelevance, with Dust trading in his expensive feathered robes and gold accoutrements for sex shop surplus.
The tasteless bondage get-up set the tone for the Goldust character for the next six months: trying so hard to shock fans that they just got numb to it.
Every week, Goldust would throw as much crap against the wall as he could to see what would stick. In this metaphor, the wall was Goldust, and the crap was makeup, vinyl, and fetish gear.
Different colored wigs? Sure.
Panty hose? Okay.
How about wearing lingerie over every outfit?
Or a codpiece?
Or a diaper?
Or a flasher’s trench coat?
Sure, why not read an entire Dr. Seuss book with a lisp on a pay-per-view. Whatever.
And why not do the exact same thing for Christmas, but with A Visit From St. Nicholas.
Had he tried dressing as Sable?
Yes?
Well, maybe he should dress as her again. And always—I can’t stress this enough—always wear women’s underwear.
Other impersonations from this period included Vader (in—you’re not going to believe this—women’s underwear)…
…his own father (to the amusement of several people backstage)…
…and Triple H.
It was during the latter impersonation that Goldust lost the European title to Owen Hart. He wasn’t actually the champion—oh good heavens, no—but Commissioner Slaughter let the title change stand anyway.
Then there was the time he showed up as a 1970s pimp. Ironically, the one time he *really* did blackface, Peacock let it slide.
His opponent, Flash Funk, was far less accepting, attacking Goldust with uncharacteristic fury…
…even if the announcers didn’t seem to understand why.
Toward the end of his run as The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust, he repeatedly dressed as Marilyn Manson, having run out of novel combinations of wigs, chastity belts, sanitary pads, etc. Still, at least it was a more topical music reference than “The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust”.
And once he had truly scraped the bottom of the barrel, he just wore his old Goldust outfit…
…albeit with noticeably cheaper wigs.
It was around this time that Dustin Runnels offered to get breast implants to further his gimmick. How desperate could Dustin have been to even entertain that idea? Well, look at all these get-ups and you tell me.
But it wasn’t his creative bankruptcy or his failure to shock audiences that led Dustin to abandon his Goldust persona.
No, it was a wrestling match. See, Vince McMahon had given Goldust a title shot against Stone Cold Steve Austin. Goldust failed to beat the boss’s least favorite champion…
…and the next week, possibly as punishment, he was booked against the monster Kane. The two men had a standard, fairly competitive wrestling match until The Undertaker interfered, attacking Kane and ending the bout in under two minutes.
But this experience was so traumatic to Goldust that the next week, he burned his gold suit. Sadly, there was not enough gasoline to burn his collection of strap-ons or whatever.