Awesome / Goldust

• The reveal of Marlena wound up adding a new dimension to the character, in that Goldust was deliberately flamboyant and homoerotic in order to spook his opponents. It paid off with his first Intercontinental Title win over Razor Ramon at Royal Rumble 1996.
• Winning the tag titles at Armageddon 2002 with Booker T, especially meaningful if you remember at that point that Goldust had been doubting himself as the weak link of the team. He took a lot of abuse during the match with Chris Jericho and Christian's offense, but endured long enough to make the tag to Booker, who cleaned house and pinned Jericho with a Bookend to win the titles. Weak link? Uh uh.
• One week after Cody Rhodes was fired live on RAW, Goldust challenged Randy Orton to a match to get his brother his job back. He lost, but he definitely gave Orton a run for his money, even going so far as to use his brother's finisher against Orton.
• In the no-DQ match for the WWE Tag Team Titles alongside his brother Cody, Goldust more than held his own, holding off all three members of The Shield while Cody was indisposed on the outside, hit a beautiful mid-air "Shattered Dreams" powerslam on Seth Rollins, went to town on them with a steel chair, and even sandwiched the steel chair into Roman Reigns with a cross body when the big man tried to use it on Goldust. He may have taken the big spear through the barricade at the end, but Goldust kept him and his brother in the match for a large duration of it.
• Kicking his drug and alcohol issues, channeling his addictions into diet and exercise and getting back into shape, and subsequently having a series of acclaimed matches in WWE in late 2013. In his mid-40's he is slimmer and faster in the ring than he was in his 30's or even 20's.
• GOLDUSTCANRANA. 'Nuff said.
• Cody vs Dustin, "Natural vs Nightmare" at All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing PPV. Instantly held up as one of the best, if not the best, singles match of both brothers' careers. How much so? It got five stars from Dave Meltzer and was named Match of the Year by Pro Wrestling Illustrated.
  • It cannot be overstated how awesome this is for Dustin, who has been wrestling longer than most of the AEW roster has been alive, toiling at the midcard mostly as a joke, never been given an opportunity at the brass ring, and dealing with substance abuse for most his life. His first match at AEW, with his own brother, the kind of match that WWE never had the foresight to give them, and it's an absolute barnburner of a match proves that Dustin, even at his older age, can still perform better than wrestlers half his age.
• Taking on Bryan Danielson in the first round of the AEW World Championship Eliminator Tournament. While he lost the match, Dustin, despite his age, managed to keep up with his younger and quicker foe, including hitting a piledriver on Danielson.

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