»Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com

On Friday, April 15, 2005 at 2:17 PM EST

Brian Kelley of AudioWrestling.com sent in the following recap...

Interview recap of Dusty Rhodes on AudioWrestling.com
“The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes was a guest on the 4/15/05 edition of Monday Night Mayhem which can be heard in streaming audio every week exclusively on the AudioWrestling.com site!

Here are highlights from the interview provided by the show's co-host Shawn Walters of MondayNightMayhem.com and AudioWrestling.com

The crew welcomes Dusty to the show, who is audibly under the weather, talking about his new book, Dusty: Reflections of an American Dream. Dusty thanks George Steinbrenner for writing the foreword and Howard Brody in helping his write the book out since “he left his spelling in Texas”. He explains why he called the book a “reflection” and how it could relate to not only wrestling fans but the general public.

Mosh brings up Dusty’s relationship with Terry Funk, with their feud being rekindled recently in Carolina Championship Wrestling. Dusty still has tremendous respect for Terry and is glad to see “two outlaw’s books” out on the market. He feels that he and Terry are the last of the old-school, in addition to guys like Abdullah and Kevin Sullivan.

The conversation shifts over to the current state of TNA, where Dusty puts over the roster, particularly AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Kid Kash (who Dusty calls the “Madonna” of the wrestling industry). Mosh asks if the all-cage match format of the LockDown PPV is overkill. Dusty says the “ball” is in the hands of the roster to make the PPV special and possibly a yearly event. Overall, he is pleased with his work in TNA thus far, working with Jeff and Jerry Jarrett to bring cohesion to the product.

Dusty feels Jarrett’s almost year-long reign as TNA champ is justified since the longer Jeff holds the title and the more people get upset with Dusty over it, the better Jeff gets. His relationship with the Jarretts, despite the rumors of dissension, is simply “business is business”. Dusty thinks that there was no need for a booking committee; it’s best just to “lay it out on the line” and let the wrestlers make it work.

AH mentions the potential for TNA house shows and moving the PPVs to different venues. Dusty says it is still a goal of the company but it depends on getting TNA on a quality time slot on a national stage, much like RAW or old school NWA. At that point, it would be easier to gauge what wrestlers and angles work and make it worthwhile to run house shows.

The crew talks up the goodness of Dusty’s run in Championship Wrestling in Florida, captured on the Turnbuckle Memories DVDs (which AH has all twelve volumes). AH wonders if the Kevin Sullivan “Devil” gimmick would get over today if done to such extremes.

Dusty goes off on a rant of sorts, centered on the criticisms from the internet wrestling fans over TNA and his booking decisions. He was disappointed at the heat he received for the Phi Delta Slam/Harris Brothers match at Destination X, not only from the web but from his own TNA crew. Dusty feels that there the future of the business is the past and you “got to have it all”.

Mosh gets Dusty’s thoughts on guys like Ric Flair and Roddy Piper still kicking around on the scene. Dusty compares Flair to himself since they are both still giving back as is Piper but does concur that too much “old school” nostalgia is no good.

AH inquires about Dusty’s relationship with Hulk Hogan (or as Dusty calls him, “Yellowfinger”) and why they never interacted. Aside from a match with himself and Antonio Inoki vs. Hogan and Stan Hansen in Japan, Dusty never had any in-ring interaction with Hulk, simply because they both were “national treasures”. He has a casual bond with Hogan but he definitely has a lot of respect for him and his contributions to the business.

Commenting on the whole polka-dots outfits in his late-80’s WWF run, Dusty says it wasn’t Vince’s doing but an idea between him and Pat Patterson after viewing a candid photo of Dusty in a polka-dot headband. He made the “Common Man” gimmick work and didn’t mind it so much because it made him one of the boys again. Dusty’s only complaint was that the gimmick didn’t allow him to work with Hogan or be taken seriously as a main-eventer.

In response to working with the late Elizabeth and Sapphire, particularly at WrestleMania VI, Dusty said Sapphire kind of grew on him despite not being the original choice for the role. The match with him and Sapphire against Randy Savage and Sherri Martel was like a storybook fairytale, with the “common people” taking on the King and Queen.

AH asks about Dusty’s role with the nWo in 1998, it was done as more of a chance to work with Kevin Nash (“a creative mind”) and Scott Hall. During that time, he helped Eric Bischoff create the Berlyn character but other than that, it was purely for fun. Dusty vividly remembers the reaction he got when he turned on Larry Zybysko at Souled Out 98, describing the crowd like a “bomb going off”.

Dusty remembers coming back to WCW after his WWF run and it being a completely different atmosphere. It was much more corporate and he feels that attitude eventually led to the downfall of the company.

Talking about the bond between him and his son Dustin, Dusty feels he could write another book based just on his family relations in correlation with the wrestling business. He thinks what happened between him and Dustin was destined, regardless if Dustin trained to be a wrestler or not.

Dusty says he never received more respect anywhere other than in the ECW locker-room, largely in part to Paul Heyman’s understanding of the past and present. He also mentions a strong bond with Steve Corino, who recently called him up to tell him how moved he was with Dusty’s book, notably the Dustin chapter.

Wrapping the interview up, Dusty comments on the recent WWE releases of Rhyno and Matt Hardy. He likes both guys a lot and is open to them entering TNA, but questions their taking away from airtime for all the other hard-working wrestlers on the TNA roster. Its tough because TNA only has an hour of television a week to work with and Dusty feels TNA is not ready to do “major business yet”.

Be sure to check out Dusty’s new book, Dusty: Reflections of an American Dream, available at most major book retailers and at http://www.sportspublishingllc.com as well as http://www.dustyrhodeswrestling.com

You can hear the entire show every week on: http://www.audiowrestling.com