Dustin Rhodes Talks Face Paint, Goldust, AEW, WWE

AEW's Dustin Rhodes joined The Wrestling Perspective this week! The former WWE Intercontinental Champion spoke to Fightful's Lars Frederiksen and Dennis Farrell on various topics.

When asked about still using face paint at AEW, he said to us that being in the WWE for 24 years using face paint was all he knew. So he brought it over to AEW because it was important to him. During the early WCW tenure, he did not wear face paint and was a guy trying to find his way, so his character is half of his WCW persona and the other half Goldust, and he said all he had to do was change the colors.

When he was presented with the Goldust character by WWE, he was asked if he had something in mind on how he wanted to portray the character. Dustin said he was young and didn't have anything planned. Instead, he stated how Goldust had to grow on him because he was scared to do specific things, such as stepping out of his comfort zone. He said it took him six months to get used to things with his androgynous persona character and that he was always known as Dusty's son. So this was his way of doing something independently, and Vince gave him plenty of time to work the character. Dustin expressed how the Goldust character did so many great things and is a gay icon in the world of pro wrestling now.

Dustin told us that he's having the best matches in his career, and it's fun again and also said that he found his passion again. He told us that sometimes wrestlers get complacent when they are not being used and desire to be pushed to the moon. Dustin said his passion for wrestling did return when he wrestled his brother Cody Rhodes at Double or Nothing in 2019. He noted how he was told a match against Cody was not good enough for WrestleMania. Dustin says he wanted that match and was pissed about it not happening, but they proved them [WWE] wrong.

He briefly talked to us about his recovery time when he left the wrestling business. Dustin says his wife supported them while he was getting better and attending meetings nightly.

Dustin recounted a conversation that he had with Vince McMahon. Vince told him that business was going to change, and you're on the train, or you're not on the train, it's going to keep going, and you got to grow with it, or you got to get off the train when it came longer storylines.

When learning about the wrestling business, Dustin pointed out that he would "shut up and listen" because his teachers were Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton, and Ricky Steamboat.

Dustin talks about wanting to do another book that goes in-depth on his greatest rivals and matches regarding the Rhodes Family. He said one is in the works, but he needs to talk with his publicist, and then it comes down to working with a Ghost Writer.

Dennis Farrell asks Dustin if he's noticed a different crowd reaction when he appears at shows and what he makes of it. Dustin would state that he believes it's a "we all love Dustin, Dustin's earned it, and we're here with him, pop." Dustin then talked about his entrance music, how it style of Green Day's Basket Case, but [Mikey] Ruckus played with it a bit.

Dustin tells Lars that he would love to have something [music] that Lars made for him for his last hurrah regarding theme music. Lars said he had something for him and would send it to him. Rhodes mentions that he likes people singing entrance songs; it's good for business.

This interview will be available on Fightful.com, Youtube.com/Fightful, and your favorite podcast platform at 9:00 AM, Monday morning.