Would he still have been a wrestler if his father (WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes) wasn’t part of the business: “Probably not. Just growing up, watching it all the time because dad being in the business probably was the one factor that lead me to be in the business. So, if he was not, then I have no idea what I’d be doing, probably playing football or something like that; maybe be in the NFL by now. Who knows?” 

The importance of ring psychology in the professional wrestling business: “Psychology is so hard to learn these days; you can’t really teach it. Psychology is storytelling; it’s knowing when to do a certain move as opposed to not doing it; how to make that first person in the front row… there’s always someone out in the arena (out around ringside) that does not want to be there, that hates pro wrestling and can’t stand it, that doesn’t believe in it, he’s only there because of their kids; they’re only there to see John Cena or someone like that. And that’s my job, that’s who I pick; there is always one and I’ll find them. I’ll look for them and I’ll work my whole match to get around this one individual, whether it be female or male. And towards the end of the match, they are on their feet and you can actually see something in their eyes change, a spark in their eyes change… at the end of the match when they are on their feet and you can actually see ‘wow, this guy made me a believer’, then my job is done right.” 

The Goldust character and issues with it: “When Vince sat me down and explained the character, explained that the character was androgynous; I seriously had to go home and look up that word cause I had no idea what the hell that meant. But he explained it to me; I thought ‘Ok, let’s give this a shot’, and he said ‘I’m going to be behind you no matter what, Dustin. There’s going to be a lot of people talking’. But he kept using the word androgynous; never used the word gay or anything like that, so me knowing what that means now, I’m going out there and try to dress the part but not really understanding how to act the part of the Goldust character; he had me trial and error stuff. I did a few things and they didn’t really work, so I was frustrated and finally one night I felt it clicked. I was with Savio Vega, and I owe a big deal to Savio Vega for helping me get this character over because he really kicked it into gear for me, and he said go behind me and start to rub up and down my chest. I was really against that and didn’t want to do it, but I though ‘what the hell, let’s try it’. So I tried it, it worked, people became unglued, pissed off, angry, saying ‘what the hell is wrong with you’, you know just horrible stuff but I was like ‘Damn, this is fun, this is awesome. I got this’. And from that point it was so easy, so easy that Vince had to tell me to tone it back a bit.”