WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair recently talked to Doug Mortman and Dave Lagreca on Busted Open about his friend Dusty Rhodes. You can hear Busted Open on SiriusXM 92 and on the SiriusXM app or at BustedOpenNation.com. Below are highlights:
His Reaction To Dusty Rhodes Passing:
“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.”
His First Memories Of 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.”
