Who?: Rick Rude
Promotions: WWF, NWA/JCP, WCW, ECW, WCCW/WCWA
Nicknames: The Ravishing One, Smooth Operator
Classic Affiliations: Former managers include Percy Pringle, his sister named Raven (obviously not Scott Levy), Jimmy Hart, Paul Jones, Bobby Heenan and Paul E. Dangerously. He tagged with Manny Fernandez in JCP/NWA and was aligned with the Heenan Family, more specifically Curt Hennig, in his first WWF run. When he went to WCW, he became a member of the Dangerous Alliance along with Arn Anderson, Steve Austin and others. After retiring and coming back, he became DX's bodyguard, and after leaving the WWF over anger from Montreal, he joined the nWo in WCW, being the only person to appear on both RAW and Nitro on the same night.
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 251 lbs.
From: Robbinsdale, MN
After the jump...Signature Maneuvers
Rude Awakening
Classic Feuds:
- Rude's first big feud in the WWF was against Jake "The Snake" Roberts. The lines between "real" and "staged" were blurred big-time in this one as Rude targeted Roberts' wife, trying to force himself on her during a show and then having her image airbrushed across his crotch. That action infuriated Roberts so much that he
- From that feud, Rude would go onto the then-Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior. The feud started with a pose-down at the Royal Rumble in 1989 that led to Rude attacking Warrior with the metal pose bar. With shenaningans, Rude then took Warrior's IC Title at WrestleMania V, before dropping it back to UW at SummerSlam. The feud would rekindle the next year, as Rude unsuccessfully challenged Warrior for the WWF World Championship at SummerSlam in 1990. Rude would leave the company shortly thereafter before he was slated to start a feud with the Big Boss Man, a feud that was going to be predicated on the Ravishing One disparaging Boss Man's momma.
- Rude jumped to WCW in 1991 and helped found the Dangerous Alliance. From there, he feuded with Ricky Steamboat for a while after defeating Sting for the US Championship. During the feud, Rude and the DA would break Steamboat's nose (not legit, a worked injury).
Titles Held:
WWF Intercontinental Championship
WCW International Heavyweight Championship (3x)
WCW United States Championship
NWA Mid-Atlantic World Tag Team Championships (with Manny Fernandez)
WCWA World Championship
Promos:
Hitting on Cheryl Roberts
Pre-match promo responding to heel heat
"You're not worth wasting wasting his breath on"
Rude looking wasted, delivering a promo on Warrior
"Sit back and shut up!"
Rude's Legacy: Rude may very well be the poster child for wasted potential. The man could garner heel heat like a mofo, but he always had the misfortune of getting injured or leaving a company as soon as he was ready to make the next step. It's not inconceivable that Rude would have been a multiple time World Champion in the WWF had he stayed, but you can't blame him for feeling the squeeze with Warrior and Hogan dominating the top of the card as superhero faces. Still, if Rude were around, a guy who could draw heat as easy as most of us breathe, would they have needed to have gone the cheap heat route and made Sgt. Slaughter an Iraqi heel to sacrifice to Hogan at WMVII? Who knows. Add on top of that him getting hurt in WCW when he was their "International World Champion". His run at the main event there was just getting started.
Be that as it may, Rude is still one of the greatest heels ever, and he was really a forefather of the Attitude Era with his gyrating hips, pulling women into the ring for a kiss and most importantly, his tendency to make feuds personal. That feud with Jake "the Snake" Roberts was nowhere near any title, and yet Rude had crowds wanting to lynch him in the parking lot for what he was doing to that poor guy's wife. It was edgy; it blurred the lines between kayfabe and real life to the point where everyone was probably asking themselves whether Roberts and Rude legitimately hated each other. It's stuff like that that convinces me that Rude was born about 10 years too early, and that he would have been a perfect fit in the WWF from 1997 through the 2000s.
In his later years, he had never lost his gift for gab as he was a big deal in ECW, instrumental in the formation of DX (a group that was in all likelihood a homage to him) and finally in the nWo and the Monday Night Wars altogether. Of course, like many of his title reigns, that ended prematurely with his own passing. Rude could have been one of the all-time greats, and I firmly believe he'd be mentioned with Hogan, Austin, Flair, Rock and Michaels as icons of the last 30 years had he not been so susceptible to injury and then later, to drug addiction. Still, what he gave us was epic, and that's why Rick Rude will always have a place in the hearts and minds of wrestling fans everywhere.
Photo Credit: WWE.com
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