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Goldust, is that you?

Last night's WWE Superstars show was the definition of turning back the clock. Was that 2009 Goldust or 1991 "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes in the ring? There was a fire in his belly and purpose in his movement working against Sheamus last night.

I tell ya, Rhodes snuck up on us. I didn't see this coming. When he was "traded" to the ECW brand, he was one of those "players to be named later" or a the "cash consideration" thrown into a 15-player deal involving three teams and one (or two, if you count Donald Trump) crazy team owners.

Last time there was any legitimate attention on Rhodes, he was carrying a rat in a cage associating with the likes of RELLIK and Johnny Devine with a funny name on TNA Impact.

Somewhere along the way, Rhodes decided he was going to prove his worth again. He fits into that "Val Venis, Hardcore Holly, Kane, D-Lo Brown" category of Monday Night War era mid-carders who hung around in recent years.

Venis is hosting a radio show online, Holly is taking independent dates, Kane is working on his Undertaker status and wrestling Khali at Summerslam, and Brown has a good thing going in Ring of Honor.

Rhodes was put into the Holly position of elevating young talent working with Sheamus the last two weeks. Instead of deciding just to go through the motions, Rhodes has seemingly taken it upon himself to prove he's not going to ride into the sunset as an enhancement talent.

He showed fire on ECW TV ten days ago when the Goldust paint was fading and "Dustin Rhodes" was taking a peek at the light of day. He followed that up with one of the best matches he's had in a long time against Sheamus last night.

The match absolutely stood out and would have been a contender for match of the week if it didn't follow John Morrison vs. D.H. Smith on the same show.

Rhodes appears to be reinvigorated, rejuvenated, and running the ropes like it's 1991 and he has something to prove being the son of Dusty Rhodes. The Goldust character has new life with the right balance of "WWE gimmick" and "Dustin Rhodes."

After running through every possible gimmick in the book to stand out as a wrestler, Rhodes might have found something that will stick. Hopefully WWE has the right follow-up program in mind on ECW TV. This is an opportunity that needs to be capitalized on to continue bolstering the mid-card on Tuesday nights.

No Touching, Please

The other mid-card program worth pointing out from the ECW brand is the Kozlov vs. Ezekiel Jackson program that has followed a strict "no touching" policy the past four weeks.

Viewers don't know where the program is leading, which is a good thing. The fact that WWE has not provided the visual of the two "Rocky villains" touching is a good thing. The increased interest in finding out where the heck this is going is a good thing.

The "no touching rule" was also applied to the Kevin Nash vs. Mick Foley confrontation last night on Impact. Although Foley put himself through a table to conclude the segment, Nash's calm, cool demeanor mixed with Foley's passion made you want to see these two lock up.

The match might completely bomb, but TNA made you think this is going to be Angle-Joe at Lockdown 2008. By not having Nash and Foley come to blows, TNA showed confidence in the two veterans to sell the match verbally instead of physically. TNA needs to make this a company policy to allow the wrestlers to talk people into buying PPVs, not giving away too much action for free, leaving the viewer with nothing to anticipate.

The same thing happened at the end of the show. Matt Morgan cut a promo on Kurt Angle that took Angle's character off guard. Angle could have snapped and ended the show with a Mafia-style beat down on Morgan. But, that would have killed the anticipation and build-up for Sunday. We can all reason - based on the same historical patterns in TNA - that Morgan is going to side with Angle anyways, but the seed of anticipation was planted.

TNA has too often given away "the visual" on free TV and expected people to spend money to see the same visual on pay TV. The "no touching rule" is one of the most valuable tools in a booker's toolbox. WWE and TNA need to go back to basics of using this tool. ECW is demonstrating this with Zeke vs. Kozlov. TNA demonstrated it last night with Foley-Nash and Morgan-Angle.

The Raw brand needs the most help in this area. They gave away three free TV match-ups between Jack Swagger and Evan Bourne with no build-up, anticipation, or hype. The wrestlers weren't even given enough time to deliver stand-out matches and erase the thoughts of lackluster build-up. If that match-up between two of WWE's top young stars is going to mean anything down the line, they can't touch for a while to erase the damage done.

Carlito vs. Primo was the worst example of WWE giving away the visual of two brothers going at it when WWE simply gave away the brother vs. brother "blood battle" on free TV without any hype on Raw a few weeks ago.

They got it right with Randy Orton vs. John Cena on Raw this past Monday, though. Orton and Cena didn't come to blows in the opening segment. They didn't come to blows in the main event despite Orton's run-in.

On Raw this Monday, Cena and Orton will be in a tag match working together before their Summerslam title match. The "no touching rule" needs to be in effect for WWE to salvage the sub-par Summerslam build-up thus far.

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