Former WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes recently appeared on Colt Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast and discussed his relationship with his late father Dusty and his brother Dustin (Goldust) and more. You can read some highlights and listen to audio of the interview below:
On he and Goldust having different relationships with their father Dusty: “He wasn’t on the road at all, at all. Yeah, he missed all of Dustin’s childhood, essentially, being on the road. He missed none of mine, so it’s so bizarre.” Rhodes continued, “I think him and Dustin having to resolve things later in life, led him to make sure he overdid me as a dad.”
On his own relationship with his dad: “He was an absurdly good father. [He] didn’t miss anything. Nothing. He missed one wrestling match and it’s the night he turned. On one of my amateur wrestling matches he misses, the night he turns to the nWo when he turned on Larry Zbyszko and I was also not smart to the industry, fully, so I was also very upset. Not only did he skip, but he’s also part of the nWo.”
On dealing with Dusty’s passing: “If the grieving process is in those seven stages they talk about, I think there are seven stages, I’m probably still on step one. It happened unexpectedly. The best part of the grieving process, the best thing for me, has been f–king independent wrestling because there had been a couple of teary-eyed promos in the ring and I’m not delusional. I know there are fans who are like, ‘come on, bud, get over it.’ I know because they’re not experiencing it. I know they’re out there and I’m not trying to bang them over the head, but still, this is like, my spirit was broken by his death, how things were going at WWE, so to go out in the unlikeliest of places and find it again… where were we tonight? St. Paul [Minnesota]. St. Paul in a high school gym. To find him there when I can’t find him anywhere else, it’s the best thing on Earth. So if anything helps the process, it’s literally going all over the globe and hearing about how much he meant to other people. That’s cool. That helps.”
On his tribute to Dusty: “I’ve taken to kissing the mat at every promotion that I go to now. And it’s not a pose. Sometimes it’s longer than others because it’s literally like it’s so weird, like feeling him again and it’s my favorite part of every night.”
On reacting to other people’s comments about his dad: “To me, a lot of people speak to me about Dusty objectively, and forget he’s my dad. Daniel Bryan once just cut this 45-minute promo on how my dad was a terrible commentator in WCW and I literally pulled the car over and said, ‘hey, dude, that’s my dad. I don’t give a s–t that he didn’t know the move of Pscosis in this match’ or whatever Dan was talking about.”
