Dusty Rhodes is my dad.
Well, not my real dad, more like my adopted father. Maybe I should start at the beginning.
I was never a baseball fan as a kid.
Growing up here in North Carolina, we do not have a major league team, the closest one to us are the Atlanta Braves.
My family didn’t exactly have the money or transportation to go that far when I was growing up, and to tell the truth, my dad was never a baseball fan himself. In fact, he wasn’t a sports fan at all.
So, I have no great childhood memories of going to a big league park with my dad.
But, while Dad was not much of a sports fan, he was a pro wrestling fan.
I have vivid memories of watching NWA on Saturdays, me sitting in the floor, my dad kicked back on the couch. I couldn’t tell you what exactly was happening, but I’m sure it involved Ric Flair, Wahoo McDaniel, Blackjack Mulligan, and other Mid-Atlantic legends of the business.
I also remember when the little people had their go in the ring. In those days we weren’t very PC, so it was called midget wrestling. There was never any offense meant, at least not on our part. That’s just what we called them.
I would sit on his lap for those matches, mostly because, to be honest, the little guys kind of freaked me out as a kid. You have to realize, I grew up in the late 70’s south, and I didn’t really have what you might call a diverse cross section of people to associate with.
“They’re going to get you, Tommy, they’re going to get you,” he would growl as he tickled me until I thought I would puke.
I also have memories of going to see the NWA when it came to town. I remember Flair’s robe, and Wahoo’s headdress.
That was 34 years ago, and I have been a fan ever since.
Now, back to The American Dream being my second father.
Dusty was a big man, like my dad, and while he didn’t really resemble him in any other way, that was enough for me to relate to him.
I myself was a big kid, and when I looked at Dusty I saw a normal guy who looked like he could be my neighbor.
He didn’t look like a pro wrestling legend in the making, or a future Hall of Famer. To me, he was just The Dream. Tough as nails, larger than life, and full of fire and heart. He truly epitomized the American fighting spirit, reborn in a 302-pound frame from Austin Texas.
Dusty became more than just a wrestler to me, he became that second father that I instantly felt a kinship to. When he stared into the camera and cut a promo, it was as if he was talking indirectly to me, telling me “I need you on this one, Tommy. I can’t do this alone.”
So, when Dusty Rhodes went to war with Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen, he didn’t go by himself. I was there, in the floor, eyes glued to the TV, heart racing, doing my part to cheer the Dream to victory.
I would yell at the ref, usually NWA senior official Tommy Young, because I knew that he was secretly in Flair’s back pocket. Hey, the Horsemen had all the money in the world to make anyone turn their head, it made sense that Young was on the take.
Then I would yell at Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Ole Anderson, and JJ Dillon. They had to hear me. They knew I would be watching. How? Well, because Dusty couldn’t do it without me, remember?
The night the Horsemen broke Dusty’s leg in the ring, I cried. It wasn’t right. Dusty was actually there to help Ric, to do the right thing. And they attacked him for it.
When Dusty beat Ric for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1986, I was on my feet screaming my head off. It was a big moment for Dusty, an even bigger moment for me. Hey, I was his biggest fan.
Dusty never gave up. It did not matter how badly the odds were stacked against him, or how many times he was beat down. He always got back up. Always.
Dusty Rhodes had become the central father figure in my life, and he was the best example I could have to look up to at that time.
Why was there a need to have Dusty as a second dad? Because six days before my fifth birthday, my father was killed by a drunk driver.
I spent the rest of my youth growing up without him, and I suppose I projected some of that love to a man I had never met, and who would never even know.
My dad was a regular guy, a blue-collar man who worked hard, loved his family and didn’t deserve what happened to him. He was more like Dusty than I ever realized until much later in life.
Now I watch the sport of professional wrestling with my son. To be honest, I watch, he sits in the floor and plays. He’s only two right now, but one day he will be old enough to understand what he’s seeing.
And when he is, his old man will tell him about the days when he and his grandfather, who he unfortunately will never meet, watched together also.
On this Father’s Day, to any fan who has those great memories with a dad who is no longer here, this one’s for you. And to those fans who still have their fathers, give them a call today.
Invite them over to watch some wrestling on TV this week. Even better, go to a show live. Make some memories, and one day, pass them on. I know I will.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Wesley says hey.
Boasting popular sporting events and original entertainment shows, cable programmers long ago surpassed the broadcast networks in viewers.
Now they are beginning to close the advertising-revenue divide.
"For the first time, the cable upfront take will be greater than the broadcast upfront," Bill Koenigsberg, chief executive of Horizon Media, said this week at the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. convention in Chicago.
This year, many top cable channels, including Time Warner's Turner networks, have been able to raise their ad rates by more than 10% in the so-called upfront market, the period when advertisers place their orders for the bulk of the commercial time for the upcoming TV season.
Of course, it is slightly unfair to compare the ad revenue of scores of cable channels with that of the five major broadcast networks, but cable being poised to take in more ad revenue is nevertheless a symbolic moment for the industry.
Broadcast networks still fetch a premium for their 30-second spots because most of their programs are watched by much larger audiences than those for most cable shows.
With cable, however, advertisers can focus more on select audiences. For example, home-improvement stores buy time on home and garden shows, while movie studios can zero in on the younger audiences drawn by MTV or ABC Family.
Demand for national cable TV advertising is up about 8% compared with last year, Tim Spengler, president of Initiative North America, said at the convention. Cars, banks and other financial services, national retail stores, pharmaceutical firms, technology companies and Hollywood movie studios have been among the strongest advertising categories, he said.
"We are also seeing more spent on online video," Koenigsberg said.
However, he cautioned that the strong upfront market doesn't necessarily mean that economy is bouncing back. "I don't think the barometer of this upfront is a predictor for the future," he said. “The jury's still out on whether or not the money is going to continue to flow in."
Advertisers were encouraged to buy time during this spring's upfront market, because those who sat on the sidelines last year were punished. Prices for commercials spiked by 30% or more later in the year. So this year, advertisers placed their orders early.
One area where cable is not making gains is political advertising. Cable networks hoping for a bigger slice of the 2012 campaign-spending pie might be disappointed, particularly when it comes to the presidential race, warned to two top political advisors -- David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama, and Ed Gillespie, former counsel to President George W. Bush.
Cable news networks CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC will attract plenty of political dollars -- but presidential candidates most likely will continue to steer the bulk of their dollars to local TV stations, Axelrod said.
"We spent the vast majority of our money last time on broadcast television," Axelrod told attendees at the cable convention. Only 12% of the money went to cable television, he said, adding that about 68% of the dollars went to TV stations in battleground states.
"It's still the nuclear weapon," Axelrod said of TV stations. "We will probably spend a little more on cable this time, but there still are barriers in cable television that we need to overcome."
He explained that more commercial spots are up for grabs on local broadcast stations, and that candidates have a greater level of assurance that their messages hit the right geographic targets. "It is a national campaign, but it is delivered locally," he said.
Decisions also come down to how much money the various candidates raise.
"If the president has a billion dollars to spend in the election, you know they will be buying time on "American Idol" and "NCIS" and our nominee will be buying the Cooking Channel in Butler County, Ohio," Gillespie, the Republican said.
-- Meg James
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Fox Broadcasting upfront advertising sales approach $2 billion
What we learned about the fall 2011 TV season at the 'upfronts'
ABC wraps up advanced advertising sales, generating more than $2.2 billion in prime-time
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