Dustin Rhodes' Forgotten & Horrendous TNA Gimmick
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Not many people could have guessed that Dustin Rhodes would be wrestling to this day, back in 2007, when he was doing his thing in TNA as Black Reign. By then, his career had fizzled out, and he was nowhere near the star that he had been during his peak as Goldust in the Attitude Era.
TNA was extremely hot as a promotion at the time though and was a genuine alternative to the WWE. Thus, many viewed this as a chance for Rhodes to get his career back on track. Unfortunately, what followed was the worst run of his career, and fortunately for Rhodes, most wrestling fans seem to have forgotten about it, or simply chosen to not bring it up again for how bad it was.
RELATED: Dustin Rhodes' 10 Best Matches, According To Cagematch.net
Dustin Rhodes Returned To TNA As Black Reign
Rhodes had already had a run in TNA back in 2004 and 2005. He would make his return to the company in 2007 by helping Christian Cage beat Chris Harris, establishing himself as a heel straight off the bat.
There did not seem to be anything strange about him on the night. Things changed pretty quickly though. The storyline was that he had a split personality disorder and had a dark alter ego named Black Reign.
Black Reign painted himself in black and silver, and wore full body attire of the same color. He also carried a rat to the ring. Now, it must be pointed out that Rhodes was in the worst shape of his career at this point of time, and thus, the attire was more necessity than fashion. He did make a surprisingly good in-ring debut. While there was nothing to write home about the match quality, the character development was very good, as Black Reign looked like an absolute monster and left Chris Harris bleeding, while attacking multiple referees. The fact that he lost due to disqualification did not matter much. Unfortunately, things would go downhill from here.
Gimmick Match After Gimmick Match Made Black Reign Boring
Monster's Ball, Capture The Rat, Cuffed In A Cage, Match of 10,000 Tacks, and Shop of Horrors are just some of the gimmick matches that Black Reign was involved in during his run in TNA. Perhaps it had become clear from early on that he was not in the condition to have great in-ring matches, and as a result, the company decided to rely on these stipulations.
It did suit his gimmick but was clearly being overdone. If someone is taking a bump on thumbtacks every week, sooner or later, it is bound to become old. That is exactly what happened with Black Reign.
RELATED: 10 Things Fans Forget About Dustin Rhodes' WCW Career
Black Reign Was In A Horrible Tag Team With Rellik
Rellik is a name that is engrained in the minds of TNA fans from the mid-2000s despite the fact that he was never a top guy in the company. Perhaps that is simply because the commentators insisted on telling us every week that Rellik was 'Killer' spelled backwards.
Rellik was actually Johnny The Bull or Johnny Stamboli under a mask and face paint. It was a dark, monster-like gimmick, similar to Black Reign. Naturally, they were paired up together.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the most boring tag teams in the company during a period of time when the division was on fire, as they had the likes of Team 3D, Motor City Machine Guns and LAX, just to name a few. It felt like Black Reign was put in a tag team because he was not in great shape and was struggling in singles' matches. Incredibly, Rellik would end up being the workhorse of this team while Black Reign barely did anything during the matches, and appeared to have gotten even lazier.
TNA Appeared To Give Up On Black Reign By The End
It did seem like TNA had completely given up on Black Reign towards the end of his run in the company. He looked like a shell of his former self in the ring and there was no fan support behind the character either.
Black Reign and Rellik ultimately found themselves feuding with Super Eric, who was Eric Young in a superhero costume. Both of them would be gone from the company soon afterwards. TNA might have been better placed letting Rhodes wrestle as himself. At least his name would have carried a lot of value. As Black Reign, he was doomed from the start.
It was also one of the worst periods of Rhodes in his personal life as well, but thankfully, he managed to leave those issues behind. At 53 years of age, he continues to wrestle to this day and might actually be in the best shape of his career.
