DiBiase had a bodyguard by the name of Virgil, who was by his side during his matches and vignettes. The idea for the name Virgil was based on then-NWA/WCW booker Dusty Rhodes, whose real name was Virgil Runnels, though booker and producer Bruce Prichard disputes this. The name of DiBiase's finishing move, the Million Dollar Dream, was also supposedly meant to be a rib (inside joke) towards Dusty Rhodes, who was nicknamed "The American Dream".Ted DiBiase: The Million Dollar Man, p. 156f., Ted DiBiase with Tom Caiazzo, Pocket Books, New York, 2008, Virgil was often seen performing humiliating tasks, such as rubbing DiBiase's feet. DiBiase claimed "Everybody has a price" demonstrating his "power" through a series of vignettes in which he did things such as bribe the manager of a local swimming pool to close for the day so he could have the pool to himself, or when the honeymoon suite in a hotel was already booked, he bribed the desk clerk to have the couple already in there thrown out. Other skits featured DiBiase traveling in limousines, giving $100 tips to waiters, and using $100 bills in convenience stores for small purchases like chewing gum. In reality, DiBiase's road travel was deliberately booked for first-class airplane flights and five-star hotel accommodations, and he was given a stipend of petty cash from the WWF Offices so that he could "throw money around" in public (i.e. pick up tabs and "overtip", buy drinks for entire bars, actually pay for small items with a $100 bill, etc.) in order to make the character seem more real. Other times, DiBiase invited fans (including a young Rob Van Dam and a then-unknown Linda McMahonTed DiBiase: The Million Dollar Man, p.155, Ted DiBiase with Tom Caiazzo, Pocket Books, New York, 2008, ) to perform humiliating acts (such as kissing his feet) for money. During one skit, he invited a young boy onto a stage and told him if he bounced a ball 15 times in succession, DiBiase would pay him $500. After the 14th bounce, DiBiase kicked the ball away, sending the boy home without pay; however, according to his autobiography, everybody who wasn't paid on-camera was paid off-camera. He frequently stuffed a $100 bill into the mouth of a wrestler on whom he had used the Million Dollar Dream move. Virgil, however, would more often than not retrieve the discarded bill from the wrestler's mouth.
