Goldust's SummerSlam plans and 5 possible new partners

This week on Monday Night Raw, a vignette aired of Goldust where he spoke in vague dialogue about how he will be participating in the festivities at SummerSlam.

Apparently, there will be a "big audition" of sorts as Goldust will be watching very, very closely.

Naturally, WWE is avoiding saying too much, as the specifics would kill much if not all of the intrigue, and have thrown out three possible options for how this could play out.

Will Goldust find his next hero, villain, or a beautiful new starlet?

Also read: 10 things we want to see over SummerSlam weekend

This could mean he's studying the performers and he'll start a new feud with someone or perhaps, he'll find a new tag team partner or someone to act as a mentor to.

The latter seems the most likely, as he even states "whoever it is, under [his] direction, they will shine like gold" and the rumour mill has suggested he will indeed be looking for someone to partner up with.

With that in mind, who are the five most likely candidates to be chosen to pair up with Goldust after SummerSlam? Let's take a look.

#1 Darren Young

By far, the most likely option in my mind is Darren Young, who is in dire need of some course correction if he's going to remain employed by WWE.

Young has had years to find his spot and he's been largely unable to accomplish that task no matter what type of gimmick he's had.

At first, he was a party guy in NXT, then a random low-level member of The Nexus, before having the most success of his career as one-half of The Prime Time Players with Titus O'Neil.

That partnership at least led him to tag team gold, but when they split, his attempt to "Make Darren Young Great Again" with the help of Bob Backlund quickly went sour and Mr No Days Off has spent a considerable amount of time on the injured list.

It appears as though he's been cleared to return to action, so that shouldn't get in the way anymore, but what could cause immense problems for him is his complete lack of direction.

Pairing him up with Goldust as a tag team or as a protege could give him a newfound spark to change into a different character and tap into other aspects of his personality we've yet to see in any previous incarnation of Darren Young.

#2 Summer Rae

Another Superstar who has spent a considerable amount of time away from television but is supposedly ready to get back in the ring is Summer Rae, and she, too, has had significant problems finding her place on the main roster.

By and large, Summer Rae has been a failure in WWE. It isn't because she's untalented or she's unattractive, as she does have qualities that should lead to success, but for whatever reason, nothing has worked out.

Her best times were spent as the valet for Fandango and as part of a stable with Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks, proving that she works best as a member of a group.

As Goldust tossed out the idea of a "beautiful new starlet" being an option, there's no better fit on the Raw roster than Summer Rae.

She's indeed beautiful and she is the only woman who has essentially nothing going on at the moment. Plus, this would be a good catalyst to bring her back into the fold while making it seem like it is somewhat important.

If we're lucky, this pairing will take the best aspects of Goldust's relationship with Aksana and improve on them. If we're unlucky, we'll see him proposing. At least Summer Rae is a United States citizen.

#3 The Velveteen Dream

Nothing in Goldust's promo stated that he was limited to the Monday Night Raw roster, so this leaves NXT and elsewhere ripe for the picking if he's going to bring someone new into the fold.

Assuming the game plan is for Goldust to have a protege he can act as a mentor to, the younger the person, the better, and Patrick Clark is only 21 years old.

As The Velveteen Dream, he's made quite a splash on NXT in a short amount of time, playing up a very androgynous gimmick that seems to merge inspiration from all sorts of angles.

Somehow, he's become a combination of Prince, a fashionista, Sasha Banks and the stranger on the bus who clearly just did some wicked drugs.

Goldust has been known as "The Bizarre One" and "The Prince of Perversion", even going so far as to call himself "The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust". Don't Google the images. Trust me. I was watching in the late 90s and suffered through that ring attire.

If anybody is going to follow in Goldust's footsteps for that certain type of strange character, The Velveteen Dream is the best possible choice for a sidekick.

#4 Lince Dorado

This is a bit of a stretch, but there's already a precedent of Raw Superstars managing talent from the cruiserweight division with Titus O'Neil branching out and acting as a mentor to Akira Tozawa, so the same could apply to Goldust.

If that is in the works, mostly everybody has some kind of gimmick or shtick outside of Lince Dorado, who hasn't had much notoriety since joining the roster after the Cruiserweight Classic tournament.

His talent is almost going entirely to waste as he's infrequently used, so for him to be paired up with Goldust, it certainly wouldn't be a demotion.

Obviously, the major connection here is that his name translates to The Golden Lynx and that may be inspiration enough for Goldust to want to set his sights on him.

If he's scouting talent that he can mould, we might start to see Goldust's influence on Lince Dorado start with a redesign of his ring attire to reflect more of the patterns we had seen in something like Stardust's gear and such.

It might not be the best idea in the world as far as logistics go, but it's something to ponder about.

#5 R-Truth

Good God, I hope this isn't the case, but it's something that we need to consider as a possibility, however, minute it might be.

When looking at the Raw roster, there aren't a ton of options available for people who could change their gimmicks and start to team up with Goldust.

Mostly everybody from Heath Slater and Rhyno to Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel are already in teams, there are strong units like Cesaro and Sheamus who won't apply for the position and there are singles stars who are just beyond it, such as Samoa Joe and Dean Ambrose.

What if, hypothetically, The Golden Truth reform but with R-Truth being more along the lines of a brainwashed sidekick and less of a partner in crime?

Again, I'm personally begging this isn't what WWE has in mind, but stranger things have happened before. We've seen tag teams split, reform, split and reform again.

At one point, Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton were part of The Wyatt Family. In the past, The Undertaker turned Phineas Godwinn into Mideon for the Ministry of Darkness, so there's certainly a history of this kind of thing happening.

When Goldust says he's going to show everyone his next great masterpiece, it implies that he's been working on something, and that may just be a brainwashing reboot of R-Truth into something else that people probably will have equally little interest in watching.

What do you think will happen with Goldust at SummerSlam and who would you like to see pair up with him if that's the intention? Drop your thoughts in the comments section below!

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