Dustin Runnels, better known to most fans right now as Goldust, was released by WWE about a week ago. The details are sketchy as to when it exactly happened, but he's changed his Twitter handle from @WWEGoldust to @DRHODES_SAYS and has started booking convention dates. Runnels had been working more or less behind the scenes for the last year, although he was openly campaigning for a feud and match with his brother Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania.
As Goldust, Runnels had a good run in the ring the last couple of years, including being Sheamus' first real program in WWE on the defunct ECW program (and it produced more than a few good matches) and having a few really awesome bouts with William Regal on Superstars. However, I think most people within the Twitterverse/blogosphere will remember Goldust's obnoxious Twitter habits. An entertaining account at first, it soon went sour after he started blocking people for the most inane reasons and then live-tweeting every user he blocked. It turned into this weird cult where people who didn't even follow Goldust would make a comment in passing about him that wasn't flattering, and one of the people whose head was shoved so far up his ass that I'm surprised it didn't have scarring from stomach acid would issue these "citations":
I actually don't know whether to shake my head in disgust or actually applaud this for being high-level trolling to the nth degree. I guess it depends on whether the people issuing them are treating this as srs bsnss or not. I don't think I want to know.
Either way, I'm not necessarily happy that Runnels lost his job over some Twitter bullshit. That would be petty. No one should lose their job in this economy unless they really do something to fuck it up. I actually wish WWE would've used him a bit more in the ring, since it's clear he still has it. I miss WWECW.
