In an interview with Fox Sports, Paul Heyman told a story about sneaking into a NWA production meeting during the 1980s and Dusty Rhodes’ reaction to it after he caught him.
He said: “I snuck in early, sat in the back row with a baseball hat on so I wouldn’t get noticed, because I wanted to learn. I was 18 years old. Yes, he noticed me and called me outside the room. He said ‘what are you doing here?’ and I said ‘I’m here to learn from you.’ He said ‘You picked the right person, because I’m a super genius baby.’ He told me to go back in the room. He went to the bathroom, and then came back and continued the production meeting.”
He added that Dusty eventually approached him later and asked what he learned. He said: “I noticed the way you formatted the show. He liked it and said the next time I was at one of the events to feel free to join his production meetings. I wasn’t there all the time because they weren’t based out of New York, and I was. But I would try to make it any time they had a pay-per-view or TV. I grabbed the bull by the horns and ended up sitting in the front row.“
