Dustin Rhodes delivered a passionate promo on the February 5th episode of AEW Dynamite, calling out MJF for bringing up drug and alcohol addiction, relating it to his own issues and MJF's worries regarding his career.
Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Dustin reflected on his promo.
"For me, I don't like to rehearse, everyone else likes to rehearse a lot of things. I like to just put it out there when we're live. I don't like to script my stuff. I like to pour from the heart. It's very important. The reason I do that is it's more heartfelt and you can make people feel something. That's the object of what we do," said Dustin.
He continued, "It was a great reaction. Once I started going, I could see I was spitting in Max's face. It was more of a lecture than a promo to him. Everybody seemed to love it. Back when I started, I was terrible at promos. My dad [Dusty Rhodes] would be watching because he was my boss and it was just intimidating and I couldn't do anything right. Over the years, you just study, learn, watch the best, and I try to bring out passion in my promos to make people feel something. If they feel something, we're not losing them. They're not turning the channel."
Dustin is set to face MJF on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite.
"I want as much as you can give me. Whenever Tony calls upon me, I think I do a pretty fair job of delivering. My matches are sound. Drawing money is with promos and having segments people can get behind and where we structure a story and it makes sense and people want to see something. A lot of them are just generic promos, 'I'll see you next week in the ring.' I don't like those kind of promos. I like when there is some truth behind the promos and feelings like drug and alcohol addiction and him mentioning my family, which is something I don't like people to do at all, neither does Cody [Rhodes]. We take that very serious. Max has that ability to get under people's skin, and he does a great job at it.
"He calls upon me and I'm going to deliver. I don't think I've had a bad match since I've been here. I've been in shape and gotten my act together and trying to evolve and take this business to the next level and doing my best whenever I am called upon. I do believe that I should get more opportunities. I've learned over the years that patience is a virtue, and not everybody can be in there at the same time. We have a lot of very talented individuals who need TV time, too. I'm lucky and glad that at 55, I still have a platform where people can see me, and I'm so passionate about doing what I love to do. When it's over, it's going to be very scary for me. I think about it every day. It's tough. Even though I'm going to float into a coaching position after, this has been my life for 37 years. I want to make 40. If I can make 40, I'll be happy. I think the chemistry is going to be there for Max and I and it's going to be a fun little match. When you start talking about family and you get into the real stuff like he did with Jeff Jarrett on the drug addiction and alcohol addiction, or Owen Hart, who is not even here to defend himself anymore, that pisses me off. He was my friend. He was everybody's friend. We loved Owen. To go to lengths like that to get under somebody's skin, that's what MJF does and he's very good at that. You have to have thick skin to be around this business anymore because we survived some hell. We've survived everything thrown at us over the years where we should be dead or in prison. Here we are in 2025 and we're all still in the business and we love it. Any opportunity I get, I'm always ready, I hate to say always ready because I don't want to mess up Matt Cardona's trademark, but I am. I'm ready. You call on me, I work my ass off in the gym with my trainer. I'm down to high school weight for the first time in a long time and my dog weighs more than me. I'm 212 (pounds)."
Dustin was victorious over Izzy James on Saturday's AEW Collision.
Fans can find Fightful's coverage of AEW Collision by clicking here. Check out the post-show podcast for a full review by clicking here.
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