On the latest episode of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed how Dusty Rhodes was different than other bookers. He also says he prefers Rhodes’ booking because he took risks.
Eric Bischoff on Dusty Rhodes as a booker: “Dusty loved trying things that were different. What people don’t really understand – and I didn’t have conversations with Dusty about this and I’m not suggesting I’m relaying what he said or anything like that – I’m giving you my impression of having worked with the man for a long time closely. He talked about his vision for things and it was part of his conversation you had with Dusty Rhodes when you were in his office and how he saw things playing out in a story or whatever. We sometimes use it to reference Dusty – my vision, baby – but Dusty had vision. Part of what fueled his vision was trying to do different things. Sometimes those things worked – Starrcade. Sometimes those things didn’t work. But I respect Dusty Rhodes more than most people that have ever held that position because Dusty had the fucking balls to try something different. And he didn’t care if he got criticized for it. Not saying it didn’t hurt him – and this is again my opinion – Dusty never said this to me.”
On why he preferred Dusty’s booking style: “When you talk about somebody in a creative position that’s willing to try new things knowing that if you fail you’re gonna get hammered by douchebags like Meltzer, I have more respect for someone like that than someone that hits 8 out of 10. Give me somebody that’s a .500 batter that tries new things over somebody who’s maybe hitting 8 out of 10 but those runs don’t matter to me. They’re not exciting to me, they’re just fucking runs. They don’t change anything. They don’t change the nature of the game. They don’t increase the number of people watching. They don’t explore the different ways of telling stories. You’re just a fucking machine doing what you do and eventually, you get stale. You get very stale. Dusty wasn’t like that. Dusty would try new things. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t.”
(Transcript Credit: 411Mania.com)