It appears as though WWE has signed 33-year-old Japanese women’s wrestler Kanna, who was shown on screen alongside Ric Flair and Sgt. Slaughter during NXT Takeover: Brooklyn on Saturday night.
The rumors began when Japanese wrestling news journalist Enuhito, who recently had news about Jushin Thunder Liger working NXT, noted that WWE signed her a few weeks ago. It was also noted that she did not work the WWE tryouts at Sumo Hall this summer, but WWE did get a chance to look at her beforehand.
It’s worth pointing out that she normally spells her name with one “N,” however WWE spelled it as “Kanna” at Takeover, which could be another sign that she has signed with the company.
Although he was in Brooklyn, New York for some WWE 2K16 obligations, as well as some other work, WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin will not be sticking around for Saturday’s NXT Takeover: Brooklyn or Sunday’s WWE SummerSlam events. There were those who were hoping that Austin would make an appearance because of how WWE is promoting this year’s SummerSlam to be a WrestleMania-sized event, however that will not be happening.
It is worth pointing out, however, that Ric Flair will be in town for Saturday and Sunday’s shows. There is no word as to whether or not Flair will actually appear on camera in some form or fashion, however it’s definitely a possibility.
According to F4WOnline.com, “something huge” is planned for Monday’s post-SummerSlam edition of WWE RAW. What exactly that is isn’t clear at the moment, and things could always change before Monday night, however as of right now, something big is planned for the show.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair is in town for WWE SummerSlam weekend. Flair is there primarily to watch his daughter Charlotte wrestle at SummerSlam, and apparently other members of the Flair family are also in town for the show. Former WCW star David Flair is among those from the Flair family that made the trip.
– WWE taped the following matches for tonight’s edition of WWE SmackDown:
* Ryback vs. Big Show
* The New Day vs. Los Matadores and El Torito
* Neville vs. Bo Dallas
* Brie Bella vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch
* Randy Orton, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Cesaro vs. Sheamus, Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper and Kevin Owens
– WWE posted the following video of Triple H looking at the new Ultimate Warrior book, “Ultimate Warrior: A Life Lived Forever.”
Mexican wrestling legend and former WCW star Konnan recently spoke with Marc Madison of The News Hub about a number of topics. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On working with Kevin Sullivan: “It was excellent because Kevin was the one that had originally called me because Woman (Nancy Sullivan) was working at the time which you remember was his wife at the time. I think that she was the one that told him, ‘look, this Konnan’s I believe you can do something with him especially since you don’t have any Latino’s’. He called me and when I got there he really helped me out a lot. I was actually going to do a program with Hogan at one point for Mexico and the United States. I think what happened and I’m not sure, I have ask him about this and it is something that I want to ask him the next time I see him is, this is what I really think happened.
I got there and they really had big plans for me but I don’t think they thought I didn’t know how to wrestle the American style which Paul E made that same mistake. When I went in there, he put me in there with some American guy and we had some terrible match and I told Paul E, I don’t know how to wrestle American style. They think just because you speak English, that you could also wrestle the style and I think the same thing happened with Kevin. So I had to be deprogrammed. I had to learn how to wrestle American style. By the time, I learned I think my stock fell in their eyes. But Kevin was always like a mentor to me there.”
On the most underrated faction he was a part of in WCW: “I think the one that comes to mind is the Filthy Animals. Imagine this in the same faction. You had Torrie Wilson, Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Disco Inferno, Konnan and then for a while there we had Juventud (Guererra). So there is a lot of talent right there and they just didn’t do anything with us. The problem with WCW was and we all know and it’s been well documented and I know this is going to sound redundant but you had an owner that was a mark for the stars and the stars dictated what they wanted and they made sure that none of us got through. So none of us did, a lot of these guys had there to go to WWE. I give Vince credit for that.
Chris Jericho and Rey and (Chris) Benoit and Eddie had to leave WCW to become stars, would never had happened had they stayed. The funny thing about that group was I’ll tell you how it was formed. I had actually gone to Vince Russo who had just taken over and I said, ‘look, they’ve been burying us since before you got here and I don’t know if you have any plans to do anything with us but let me get a bunch of my friends, put us together and let us have fun and if you want bury us then at least we’ll be together and we’ll get buried together’. So I basically got a bunch of my friends which were the people I just named. Torrie was actually going out with Billy so we just brought her into the fold. That’s basically how the group came about. We did some angle where we buried Ric Flair in the desert, somewhere in Vegas I believe and nothing ever happened after that. We just knew they weren’t going to do anything but at least we were having fun being together.”
– The Thursday, July 30th edition of WWE SmackDown drew 2.443 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. This week’s SmackDown was up from last week’s show, which averaged 2.353 million viewers.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair issued the following statement on the passing of fellow WWE Hall Of Famer “Rowdy” Roddy Piper to celebrity-gossip website TMZ:
“We’ve shared the ring, traveled the world, maintained a friendship throughout the ups and downs of the wrestling world, and battled to see who was the better heel. It’s almost impossible to express my grief. My condolences to his children and to his wife Kitty. I’ll miss you Roddy. The world will never be as Rowdy without you.”
– Here is the synopsis for Total Divas airing on Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 9/8 CT on E!: “Nattie is caught in a web of lies after she invites her sister to move in with her; Nikkie is concerned that Brie isn’t taking Bryan’s health seriously enough; and Trinity’s future hinges on her inner bad girl.” The episode is titled “Good Diva, Bad Diva.”
– With the NBA off-season in full swing, Cleveland Cavaliers star forward LeBron James took a moment to connect with his fans as he held an impromptu Q&A session with his Twitter followers on Tuesday afternoon. James, a self-admitted wrestling fan, responded to a question asking who is his favorite wrestler of all-time.
@Briantelevision Ultimate Warrior, Sting, Ric Flair and Legion of Doom
On Friday the news broke that Hulk Hogan had been released from his WWE contract and removed from their websites after making racist comments.
Since then everyone began asking who would be taking over his role as a judge on Tough Enough alongside Daniel Bryan and Paige.
Bryan Alvarez of F4Wonline.com had said Ric Flair was a contender while the likes of Chris Jericho and The Miz were also mentioned.
The three coaches – Billy Gunn, Booker T and Lita have also been mentioned as coming on as judges in some sort of a rotation each week to join Daniel Bryan and Paige.
Nothing has been clarified as of yet however WrestleZone.com have reported that Bret Hart had been flown in to meet with Vince McMahon about taking over Hulk’s role.
– WWE is scheduled to release their “Beast In The East” WWE Network special from Japan on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom and Australia on October 5th. In addition to the matches that aired on the WWE Network live special, the DVD will also feature the dark matches, which included Cesaro vs. Diego and The New Day vs. The Lucha Dragons.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair is scheduled to make an appearance for Top Rope Promotions at their Summer Showdown 2015 event on July 31st. For more information, visit Facebook.com/TopRopePromotions.
– John Laurinaitis posted the following photo on social media that features Irish WWE performers Becky Lynch, Sheamus and Fit Finlay.
WWE Hall Of Famer Harley Race recently spoke with the folks at The Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling podcast about a number of topics related to his legendary career. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On what students take away from a Harley Race Wrestling Camp: “They are going to learn how to take care of themselves and then how to perform inside that squared circle. After that we start sticking them into the ring and see how they would look for the public. When you’ve got the physical side and that’s pretty much all the way down then the other parts will come along to you fairly easy.”
On heat with Ric Flair during his career and not wanting to drop the NWA Title: “Overall, Flair and I have had a hellishly active part of wrestling. He knows and I know that we are too old to want to get involved with this stuff now. In 1983, Flair was just starting to really get involved and I was at that point in time thinking that that he wasn’t ready but once he got really involved in the championship part of it (the business) he came along to be one of the best ever. Flair proved to me that he was a good hand in the ring and he was in there with the absolute very best so it was all pretty easy from there.”
On memories of Dusty Rhodes: “Dusty was probably one of the best interview people ever in wrestling. He could talk about anything on the face of God’s green earth and make it sound like it was extremely important. Overall, Dusty could perform in that ring as well as just about anybody. I never really had a bad performance with Dusty in any of the matches that we ever had. There are very few people that I can say that about.”
On working against Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr. and if he has a preference between the two: “Dory was very, very good in the ring. He and Terry both were great in there but I can’t mention one without mentioning the other. Between the two of them it was just the flip of a coin, with Dory you could have a little bit better of a wrestling match. Terry was good for wrestling but he was very very good at scrambling.”
On bodyslamming Andre The Giant: “The only reservation I ever had was to have everything in the right spot at the right time and to be able to come up with him. Because you were lifting the world’s biggest athlete. It was a hell of a lot better to be on the same side as him.”
On the WWF’s national expansion and invading “his territory” during the 1980s: “By the time they had done the expansion you knew that they were going around the whole entire country. I didn’t want to get involved in fights with them or against them. I just wanted to stay Harley Race in the wrestling world, worldwide and that is what I did for a long time.”
WWE Hall Of Famer Ricky Steamboat recently appeared as a guest on the Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling podcast. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On memories of Dusty Rhodes as the booker in the Carolinas: “I have mixed memories with Dusty. Part of it being business when I was actively wrestling and he was actively wrestling and then later on when we were both coaching and teaching at the WWE school for the up and coming wrestlers. Understanding the business part of it, he was doing a job he had to do and at the time that it was in the Carolinas back in 1984. When you are the booker or the match maker and you are also still actively wrestling, most of the guys that were bookers around most of the country at that time were no longer actively wrestling and not penciling themselves into matches. I didn’t come to realize this until a couple of months ago. I was in the Carolinas and Dusty was the new booker and Dusty was wrestling as a babyface. The way he was writing for me being one of the top baby-faces in the Carolinas and having a ton of matches against Ric Flair and it just being smart business, he was using me in a way that with him coming in, whoever I couldn’t beat he would beat. The fans would say well “Ricky couldn’t beat him, but Dusty could beat him.” So Dusty was so much better and it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth and that’s another reason why I left the Carolinas for the WWF.”
On his all-time favorite match with Ric Flair: “It wasn’t taped and we had wrestled each other so many times in Charlotte at the Coliseum. George Scott who was the booker at the time said I don’t care how you do it but you are going to put Flair over tonight. We’ve had so many one hour Broadways that we had to make it something hot. Going sixty minutes all the time, twenty-five or thirty minutes would really shock these people. But we ended up going fifty-five minutes plus and the fans were thinking we were going to go with a draw again. We had one minute left in the match before it was going to become a draw and here comes (Steamboat) making his comeback, I’m pinning Flair over and over again, with fifth-teen seconds left and Flair in the corner I charge him, he lifts my feet up and puts his feet on the second rope in the corner and the ref counts three as the announcer is counting 5,4,3..two seconds left and Flair wins by cheating with his feet on the ropes. There was a lull in the building with the fans looking at us and then they just erupted and started throwing stuff at Flair and Flair looked at me and said “we got them tonight” and rolled out of the ring.”
On adapting to different in-ring styles: “I learned early on as a babyface you had adapt to their style. Ravishing Rick Rude had his own style and his own way with a little bit of some Ric Flair-isms. But I always learned to adapt myself. A lot of guys would say that I was like a damn chameleon. It doesn’t matter who you are in the ring with, you can adjust and adapt. I could have great matches with Blackjack Mulligan, with him at 6’8′ 340 pounds and who was nowhere near the pace of a Rick Rude or Randy Savage, same as Greg Valentine, he worked very much like his father.”
On knowing you have chemistry with your opponent: “I would say yes, but I don’t know how many guys would be able to agree with me. There are certain guys that you know when you lock up with each other that after the first couple of minutes you know there is something there . But it’s a double edged sword because believe me there were a couple of guys that we locked up and couple of minutes later I didn’t want to be in the ring with him. You can feel greatness in the ring. You can get two guys that gel together and it’s just like poetry or a work of art.”
On Jake “The Snake” Roberts and the infamous DDT on Saturday Night’s Main Event: “Pulling the mat away and exposing the cement floor and being dropped in the DDT is very dangerous and it ended up being dangerous for me that night. I’m going to say it was a timing issue. If my memory serves me right whenever Jake would suck you in and pull you underneath his arm he would always look at the crowd for a moment and then drop you. In that moment you show that this is the end for this guy and he would have a little snicker on his face and a little bit of an attitude and then drop you. But as soon as he sucked me in he dropped me and I was waiting for that pause. The unfortunate thing that happened is that what everybody suspects when he does do the move YES when it happened my head did meet the cement and they took me away with a bad concussion. Part of my head swelled up so bad and ballooned out and I know I got in front of the camera with it but I cannot find any pictures of what my face looked like because it looked distorted.”
On the rematch that never happened with “Macho Man” Randy Savage at WrestleMania IV: “In the locker room I was looking at the brackets. Randy of course goes on to win the championship. In the first round I had Greg Valentine and I was just assuming I’m going to get a win over him and Randy and I will have a return from the WrestleMania 3 match and the fans will be very very curious in wanting to see that. It was a big surprise to me that it never came out that way. I never went to Vince or any of the upper people in the company to ask why because I wasn’t that kind of guy. I always felt that whatever I was asked to do that my ability in the ring would speak for itself. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of politics in our business and there were guys that have the boo-hoo face because they weren’t getting there hand raised that night. Wins or loses didn’t matter to me, my worry was did the match get over? That was my priority. So I didn’t know who was going to win the championship, I just knew I wasn’t. I thought I would be with Randy in the second round and return the honors and that we were going to tear it down and GOD help the ones that follow that match.”
Check out the complete interview at Podomatic.com.
– The official result of the Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WWE Battleground last night is a “No Contest,” according to WWE.com. As seen during the show last night, the Lesnar-Rollins match ended when The Undertaker returned and attacked Lesnar.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross will review WWE Battleground on his “Ross Report” podcast this week with The Fight Network’s John Pollock. The show will be available tomorrow night at PodcastOne.com.
– WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair took the following photo backstage at WWE Battleground last night with his daughter Charlotte, as well as Paige and Becky Lynch.
– The latest edition of Jim Ross’ “Ross Report” podcast, which features an interview with Ring Of Honor star Michael Elgin, is now available. You can download the show right now at PodcastOne.com.
– The latest edition of Ric Flair’s “Wooo Nation” podcast, which features an interview with J.J. Dillon, is also available today. You can download that one at Play.it.
– The following matches and segments were taped on June 18th in Winter Park, Florida for tonight’s edition of NXT TV on the WWE Network.
* Eva Marie promo
* NXT Tag Team Champions Blake and Murphy vs. Sawyer Fulton and Angelo Dawkins in a non-title match
* Sami Zayn appears
* Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte for the NXT Women’s Championship
– Gabi Castrovinci was the contestant eliminated on this week’s edition of WWE Tough Enough. The final three on this week’s show were Sara Lee, Tanner and Gabi. There are now nine competitors remaining going into week five.
– WWE posted the above clip of Ric Flair getting emotional as he watched his daughter Charlotte make her official main roster debut at Monday’s WWE Battleground “go-home” edition of RAW in Atlanta, Georgia.
WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair has appeared on WrestleTalk TV and spoke about a number of topics including the demise of WCW and working with Vince Russo.
– Flair spoke about working with WCW towards the end of the 90’s and admitted that it’s not a time that gave him many fond memories and that if Ted Turner knew what was gong on, he believes he would have put his foot down.
– He also spoke about Vince Russo and how that when he joined WCW he was “just trying to survive” though he confessed that he wasn’t a fan of some of the things he did with Russo but he got on with it anyway because he had a family and generally everyone just wanted to survive.
As previously reported, WWE dropped Roddy Piper from his WWE Legends contract, according to Ric Flair, due to issues with Steve Austin over Podcast One.
The issues reportedly began when Piper claimed that Austin got Piper’s podcast booted off of Podcast One after satirical comments were made by comedian Will Sasso, who was impersonating Austin, on a Piper’s Pit podcast that took place earlier this year.
Austin noted earlier this week that at age 50, he has no time for “soap opera stuff.” Austin claimed he had nothing to do with Piper getting pulled from Podcast One. He said he contacted the President of Podcast One and was informed that Piper asked for a meeting with them to tell the company that he no longer wanted to do a podcast for them.
Austin said he is not to blame for Piper leaving and claimed Piper himself is the one who wanted to leave. Austin added that despite everything, he has no hard feelings towards Piper.
Piper plans to address the situation on his next podcast. “This will be cleared up and gone after my next Podcast,” said Piper. “I heard what Steve said! Respect! My Honor’s not for sale!”
WWE Hall Of Famer “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair mentioned on the latest edition of his “Wooo! Nation” podcast that fellow WWE Hall Of Famer “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has been dropped from his WWE Legends contract.
According to Flair, Piper was dropped from his WWE Legends deal as a result of his recent issues with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin over PodcastOne.com.
We don’t have a lot of specific details on this story yet, however stay tuned as we hope to have an update later today.
– The following is a clip from the Dusty Rhodes tribute that aired on the WWE Network after Monday’s edition of RAW. In the clip below, Arn Anderson talks about Ric Flair’s rivalry with Rhodes outside the ring.
– WWE posted the following Total Divas preview clip, which shows Eva Marie training with Brian Kendrick.
– WWE and Mountain Dew are giving away two trips to this year’s WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York with their new “#WWExDEW Sweepstakes.” Full details on the contest are available at WWE.com. Below is a video of Dolph Ziggler promoting the contest.
– UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey indicated on Instagram that former WWE Diva Eve Torres, who is now the wife of Jiu-Jitsu instructor Rener Gracie, has given birth to her first child. Rousey wrote the following: “She is so beautiful!!! Congratulations @evetorresgracie and @renergracie can’t wait to meet the newest Gracie!”
– Ric Flair, Goldust and Stardust are all backstage at WWE RAW in Chicago, Illinois tonight. The three are likely there for the post-RAW live tribute to “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes.
WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair noted on a recent edition of his “Wooo! Nation” podcast that he recently underwent complete medical testing by WWE and that he has no medical issues right now.
“I don’t have any health issues,” said Flair. “Everybody else has hips and knees. I had to go to Pittsburgh for a physical because they wanted me to do some in-ring stuff. I go there to see the heart specialist. They tested me for four hours.”
Flair continued, “The doctors said ‘there’s something wrong with you, has to be,’ and I said ‘yeah, it’s called an hour Broadway every night brother.’ The guy looked at me and said that I was a medical miracle.”
– As previously reported, immediately following RAW tomorrow night, the WWE Network will air a one hour live special where WWE Superstars and Legends will talk about Dusty Rhodes.
PWInsider are noting that one of the legends WWE plan on bringing to Chicago for the live special is WWE Hall of Famer, Ric Flair.
– This coming Tuesday on the WWE Network a new episode of “The WWE List” will air at 4:30pm EST looking at “the Royalist of Superstars that WWE has ever been graced with!”
– Michael Cole noted during the WWE’s “Beast in the East” special yesterday that Nikki Bella has begun her campaign to become the longest reigning Divas Champion in WWE History. S
She posted the following on Instagram after her match with Paige and Tamina:
https://instagram.com/p/4vBmJLCkCH/
The photo had the following caption:
What an honor defending and retaining my Divas Championship in Tokyo. On the road to 300 days. Through jet lagged and injuries I gave it all I had last night and I succeeded. Couldn’t have done it without my #BellaArmy support. We stand strong and proud! Love you! ???????? #DivasChamp #FearlessNikki #FearlessDivasChampion #RoadTo300Days #WWETokyo #Repost
– The latest edition of Ric Flair’s “Wooo! Nation” podcast, which is available now, features an interview with WWE Hall Of Famer Terry Funk. You can download the show at Play.it.
– Originally, Paul Heyman was scheduled to travel to Japan to be with Brock Lesnar at the WWE “Beast In The East” special on the WWE Network. Now, however, Heyman is no longer scheduled to go, so it appears Lesnar will be appearing on the show by himself. The special is scheduled for July 4 from Tokyo, Japan.
– Below is a preview for next week’s edition of WWE Tough Enough:
WrestlingInc have noted from “An Evening with Shawn Michaels” last Monday in Manchester, England that HBK has revealed that he has turned down a role at WrestleMania 32 next year.
Michaels explained that he was offered a major role but decided against it because he feels like he has done everything that he can do – he has plenty in the tank but has had enough.
The Heartbreak Kid also spoke about his match with Ric Flair at WrestleMania 24 and how the entire match was planned by him, how he wrote down the finish during the middle of the night, even the “I’m sorry, I love you” moment.
WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross was originally planned as the host of the show but the pair ended up doing the show together and JR noted that Flair didn’t want to retire.
He explained that WWE had decided that Shawn would be the man to end Flair’s run with the WWE and end his career on a whole. You can read more at this link.
WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair recently appeared on Busted Open Radio to talk more about his memories of the late Dusty Rhodes. Below are some highlights from the interview.
On his initial reaction to the passing of Dusty Rhodes: “If Dusty Rhodes came on the scene tomorrow at 25 years of age Vince McMahon wouldn’t have enough money to pay the guy. He was that good… in the ring and on the mic. They don’t make them like him anymore – he was that good. And he was a genius. I used to say “Hey what are you doin’ man?” and he used to say “I’m genius-ing”(laughs) It used to crack me up the things that came out of his mouth. He was genius-ing so… that’s it, you know? We made music for 30 years together. I started my career idolizing him and … the good thing about this, if there is a good thing to it, is that I spent about 4 hours with him on Tuesday at the Performance Center in Orlando when I was done there visiting my daughter and the last thing he said to me was … pissed off that I was going to see LeBron James and he wasn’t, ha. He was like “Get out of my office… go see LeBron man, I don’t care (laughs). I said “I’ll wave to you from courtside … and then I got the call yesterday so … we had so much fun together. He loved John Elway, I like Lawrence Taylor. He liked the Celtics, I liked the Lakers. He liked the University of Texas and I liked Oklahoma. We just went round and round on everything, it was tremendous. He loved sports and he loved life.”
On his first memories with Dusty: “I idolized him. I was being trained by Verne Gagne but Dusty and Dick, his partner Dick Murdoch were in Minneapolis wrestling and the charisma was too much and he liked me. I had just gotten married and I wasn’t even booked in the towns and I would drive all the way … 300 miles… somewhere in South Dakota just to hang out with those guys and I wasn’t even booked. No wonder I couldn’t stay married. “How much money did ya make?” “Well, uhhhhhh” (laughs). Jesus, I just couldn’t get enough of him. He was too much man. Then he moved into an apartment, he and Murdoch did. The nicest apartment complex in Minneapolis at the time .. 3 blocks from my mamas house. Ah jeez, it was just the best. All they had was two saddles, some blankets and they kept their mule in the apartment. It was the best. I was in the business 3 weeks and I went to Japan with them and they made me carry their bags with them everywhere for 3 solid weeks. Threw my clothes out the window of the top story of the hotels… took a fire extinguisher to my room. Murdoch stabbed me for taking one of his French fries. And we would get on a train or driving or riding the bus and all Dusty would go “Dear John, I hate to write you…” as if my wife was leaving me or something (laughs). Nobody can say I didn’t pay the price when I started man.”
On his thoughts of Dusty as a wrestler: “They are never going to say he was a great technician but he could work! He knew his limitations but I’m gonna tell you right now… I wrestled Dusty Rhodes at least 300 one hour draws. Dusty wasn’t a 10 minute guy. We wrestled hour draws and I think the defining moment in our careers was that I was Charlotte and Dusty was from Tampa Florida… Originally from Texas … but our careers were established in Southern parts of the world and I wrestled Dusty in the Checker Dome in St. Louis for Sam Muchnick’s retirement… 20,000 people, it wasn’t the ‘Briscos and the Funks’ … It wasn’t Harley … it wasn’t Brody and me. It was me and Dusty Rhodes — that’s how big that feud got. It got World-Wide attention on TBS. And the Horsemen against Dusty and The Road Warriors – Dusty and Nikita and Sting… The War Games … all of that stuff he created. Starrcade… he created all that stuff. That was all Dusty Rhodes, nobody else thought of that. And those War Games, man, we did 42 of them in a row. That’s cuttin’ yourself every night 42 days in a row. Of course me and him… we did it every day anyways, so it didn’t matter but it was work but we had so much fun that it didn’t seem like work … and everything was sold out.”
On Dusty’s influence on the younger generation: “The reason he was at NXT, which worked out being a huge advantage for people going through it is, because of his phlebitis, which was, you know, he’s been iIl with different things off and on for years but whatever caught up with him this time was much more severe than phlebitis, but he couldn’t fly more than an hour at a time without landing and walking around, even when he came to WrestleMania this year he had to go through Dallas and walk around for 3 hours before he could fly the last 3 hours. He would be up in Stamford, right. Him and Vince healed everything and Vince… there’s no doubting Dusty’s genius. His main direction was teaching the kids, helping them learn how to be confident and helping them learn how to carry themselves and be fluid on the microphone. Some kids never get that but it wasn’t because he wasn’t there and, I mean, he was the best. My daughter is so crushed, of course she has known Dusty since she was born, you know, when we were living together in Charlotte. He bought a car, I bought a car. He bought a new house, I bought a new house. That was living the dream. Anyway… my daughter is just crushed over it so she’s up in Cleveland tonight, where I was last night, then she is in Columbus tomorrow and I’m on my way right now to Orlando from Tampa to do a documentary on Dusty right now at the Performance Center. I think they are going to have the funeral Wednesday in Tampa and I would expect a huge turnout. He’s the guy… everybody loves Dusty Rhodes, that’s just the way it was and I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
On how Goldust is holding up: “Dustin sounded OK. He was there. He moved from Gainesville to Orlando several months ago. I thought that, down the road, Dustin will be an instructor at NXT, which is great for him. And I think that he and his dad had really gotten tight. He sounded OK, I mean, how do you ever sound? I went through something like this a couple of years ago with my son, I mean, how do you ever sound? And what do you ever say? You never know what’s the right thing to say, know what I mean? I’ll get a better feel of how they’re all doing when I see them in person.”
WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair, who idolized Dusty Rhodes as a young wrestler getting into the business, wrote the following on Facebook about the passing of “The American Dream.”
“All I wanted to be in 1972 was Rambling Ricky Rhodes. The Dream told me “you can make it on your own.” He mentored me and taught me how to be a star. Dusty used to say “If you are going to pass by… why not in a Cadillac??” He’s the man who invented A Flair for the Gold and was a genius way ahead of his time. Much love to your family and more respect than can ever be measured. Love you Dream.”
Flair also released the following statement on the passing of Rhodes:
“Today I lost one of my greatest opponents and greatest friends. He was the definition of heart and soul and I’m honored to have shared the ring with him countless times.
He became the ‘American Dream’ because wrestling needed a hero they could respect, and he was the man for the job. Dusty Rhodes, I will miss you my mentor and friend.