Vince really surpassed himself when he turned Dustin into a bizarre Hollywood obsessed movie buff called Goldust that dressed like a real life gold Oscar statuette and when that gimmick unsurprisingly bombed out of the gate having him push the gay envelope to new lengths. Vince had stuck it to his booking rival Dusty Rhodes on several occasions already, naming Ted Dibiase's black man servant Virgil after Dusty's real first name, spoofing his American Dream gimmick by turning The One Man Gang into Akeem, the African Dream, a white man pretending to be black in a completely over the top manner, and forcing him to wrestle in yellow polka dots as " Common Man" Dusty Rhodes when he worked for the WWF from 1989-1991. Things got worse when Vince McMahon had the golden opportunity to repackage the talented Dustin Rhodes, who had been fired by WCW despite his father's management position after he bladed at the Uncensored 1995 pay-per-view, which was strictly forbidden in the company at the time. Walker rightly stated that the WWF " sent the message that it's okay to abuse gays and make them an object of hatred" and managed to procure a public apology from the company, but it made little difference to how the characters were portrayed on TV. No-one complained about this questionable practice until British Columbia gay activist Ken Walker happened to be watching when The Bushwhackers encouraged the fans at a Vancouver house show in November 1991 to chant faggot towards their opponents The Beverley Brothers and their camp manager The Genius.
At the height of Hulkamania, we had an obese " Adorable" Adrian Adonis prancing around in pink whilst fans frequently chanted faggot at him. Like other promoters, Vince McMahon dabbled with this heel character from time to time, but his sin was worse, as he pushed them when he promoted a product that was primarily aimed at kids.
So far, so good.īut given pro wrestling's ultra complex history with homosexuality, perhaps due to its inherent nature of sweaty, scantily clad men rolling around with each other on the canvas, where " homophobia locked in mortal combat with homoeroticism", there is some cause for concern in the future.Īs Jonathan Snowden rightly pointed out, ever since the days of Gorgeous George, who was the first wrestling star to be made into a mainstream name by the power of television in the late 1940s, the audience's homophobia has been routinely exploited either by characters that subtly teased they were gay to generate catcalls of sissy, queer and worse or were full blown homosexual predators that would grope and kiss their opponent to get extreme heat. But even though the announcement was a big work, WWE has to be credited with handling it in a dignified manner. Dave Meltzer has since confirmed our suspicions that Young's move was indeed orchestrated by WWE and Irv Muchnick claimed that WWE had to settle for the story being published by TMZ when other more highbrow media outlets weren't interested in the exclusive. Of course, that narrative is as phony as the " reality" WWE has been serving up on Total Divas for the past four weeks.
WWE sources then leaked to TMZ that his boyfriend of two years that he's deeply in love with was the driving force behind his decision to be open about his sexuality. He got the red carpet treatment at the Be A STAR anti-bullying rally that coincidentally was held the day after his coming out party.
Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, John Cena, Titus O'Neil and many other WWE superstars rushed to publicly congratulate his courage at such a sudden, shocking revelation of raw honesty. A TMZ reporter just happened to strike gossip gold by asking Darren Young about his thoughts on homosexuality within wrestling and he out of the blue came out as being gay and claimed to be very happy with his life as a WWE performer.
WWE executed quite the publicity stunt this week.