Dustin Rhodes Discusses His Upcoming 2023 Retirement

AEW star Dustin Rhodes appeared on Busted Open Radio during which he discussed 2023 being his last year in the ring:

“I remember seeing Ray Candy years ago when I broke in the business and he wasn’t in the best shape and he was on a walker. I was just getting into the business and I was green and excited about it, hungry and passionate. I still am, but I saw him and I made a promise to myself that I was going to get out while I can still walk.”

“I didn’t really think I was going to say anything about this, but it just happened and I said, I don’t think anybody would pick up on it, but it did, and it caught fire basically and I just have to own it. I really, truly, don’t want to go out in the business doing things that tarnishes my career. I don’t want to slip up and fall. I have this in the back of my head everytime I go out that what if I do something stupid and then they’re going to start chanting, ‘Please retire’, and I don’t want it to get to that."

"I know I’m doing really well. Right now I’m doing some of the best work that I ever had in my career these last four years, even though they are few and far between. Tony has done a good job treating me like an attraction in that sense, and I appreciate that very much. It does help my body, but on the flip side of that, it’s hard when you’re not working five days a week like the WWE schedule. Your body gets calloused and you get used to it and things like that. Now I work every 2, 3, 4 months and it’s like, man, you go 100 miles an hour and then you pay the price for it. It takes me a week in a half to two weeks to recover from one match. You start to see those things and my knees are pretty rough. My knees are pretty rough”

“I made a decision that at the end of July, my contract is up, and I’m going to be done with in-ring, or at least, tone it way, way down. I don’t know if that’s going to be it because they say when we’re retiring, they always come back and you never say never, but that’s what I’m looking for is an end date for my in-ring wrestling career and that will be 35, almost 36 years in the business, and I think that’s a good round number. There’s nothing that I haven’t done, good or bad, that I regret in the business. I love everything that I’ve done. The bad things have always come to me and taught me lessons, and I’ve become a better man for those. I want to get out while I can still walk, but still teach the kids, still coach hopefully, if God willing, I’m allowed to do that here or whatever, and occasionally make an on-screen appearance, I don’t know, but I just don’t want to embarrass myself is the main t