Dustin Rhodes Reveals Who Really Created Goldust

Quick two-parter for the wrestling-to-Hollywood file: Goldust was never Dustin Rhodes' idea (that twisty character came straight from Vince), and Cody Rhodes is suiting up as Guile in a new Street Fighter movie while Roman Reigns is reportedly in there as Akuma. Yes, that is a sentence I just typed.

How Goldust actually happened

Dustin Rhodes debuted the Goldust character in 1995 and kept it rolling all the way until he left WWE in 2019. In a January 2024 interview with journalist Denise Salcedo, he said the whole thing was pitched to him by Vince McMahon. Vince walked him through the concept and hammered one word: 'androgynous.'

Rhodes was young, didn’t know what that meant, said yes anyway, then went to a dictionary and realized it was 'a person with both male and female characteristics.' Bit of a shock, but he leaned into it. All the wild mind games and sexually charged touches? That was Vince, not Dustin. Rhodes, now 56, ran with it and made it work before McMahon eventually dialed back the intensity due to fan backlash. Very Vince story, very 90s WWE.

Why he left WWE

On the Dropkick DiSKussions podcast in December 2019, Rhodes said he left because he was simply done. He felt he had nothing left to do there and even thought about retiring from wrestling entirely. Instead, he jumped to AEW, co-founded by his younger brother Cody, and found the spark again. The lighter schedule and more freedom didn’t hurt either.

'With the WWE, I'd had enough. It was time for me to go. It had been such a long, storied career with the Goldust character and, do you know, I really thought that I was going to retire... We were on the road so much up there that you don't have any time at home with your family and here, with AEW, I love it, man! The scheduling is great. I leave Tuesday to go to the production meeting, Wednesday's TV, come home Thursday and whatever else I want to do, I'm free to do - which I did not have that freedom to do anything that I wanted to do outside of wrestling up there. They made it very, very difficult, and that's one of the reasons why I left.'

Since then, Rhodes has also been using his off-days to chase a longtime goal: acting. He says he always wanted to make movies and already has a handful of film credits. Cody, for his part, has been dabbling in that world too.

Cody Rhodes is Guile in Street Fighter

Inside baseball alert: the Street Fighter production is keeping looks under wraps, but some wig test leaks slipped out anyway. Here’s the snapshot of what Cody and company are up to:

• Cody Rhodes is playing Guile in a new Street Fighter movie directed by Kitao Sakurai.
• Release date is set for October 16, 2026.
• Cody has done TV before (remember his villain turn on DC's Arrow), but this time he's one of the heroes, which lines up with his WWE persona.
• He has been taking time off from WWE to shoot. The recent angle where Drew McIntyre Claymored him through the announce table ahead of 'Wrestlepalooza' served as the on-screen excuse.
• The filmmakers are trying to hide character designs, but a glimpse of the Guile wig (and others) leaked online recently.
• Roman Reigns is also involved, playing Akuma. The report also mentions 'QB1' being in the mix, which is... oddly phrased and not exactly clear.

So, to sum it up: Goldust was Vince’s brainchild, Dustin made it sing, and when he finally walked, AEW and a little creative freedom kept him in the game. Meanwhile, Cody is flat-topping his way into Guile, with Roman allegedly raging as Akuma. Wild times.