At 51 and now in his fifth decade of a decorated professional wrestling career, Dustin Rhodes is embracing his new role as elder statesman of All Elite Wrestling.

While still an active in-ring performer, Rhodes is also serving as a coach, helping to train and instruct some of the company’s younger performers with a focus on the women’s division. For Rhodes, it’s in his blood. His father, the iconic Dusty Rhodes, helped shepherd and train an entire generation of World Wrestling Entertainment performers through NXT, its developmental territory in Orlando.

Just as Dusty called his students “his kids,” the younger Rhodes has taken to doing the same with his charges.

“I love them all, man,” Rhodes told TSN.ca. “I work with the girls every single week and with all the ladies – and all of the guys, too – if I see something they’re doing wrongly that needs to be addressed, then I’ll say something. Other than that, most of them are coming up to me and asking for things where[as] back in the past, they were not, and I think that’s very important that I pass on my knowledge and that’s where I shine the most right now.”

Making his debut with a major promotion in 1988 with World Championship Wrestling alongside another second-generation talent in Kendall Windham, the son of Blackjack Mulligan, as part of the Texas Broncos tag team, Rhodes says he took inspiration in his early days from Windham’s older brother, the legendary Barry Windham.

“That’s where I tried to mimic my wrestling style, after Barry,” Rhodes said. “It was natural to us, hence the nickname ‘The Natural.’ I caught it like a fish to water. It was a lot easier for me than it may be for others coming into the business and it takes a little longer. But I loved it. I lived it. I was really born and bred into this business. I’m incredibly blessed that I’m still able to do this at 51 now...and being with my brother (AEW wrestler and executive vice-president Cody Rhodes) and (sister-in-law) Brandi (Rhodes) and the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega and (AEW president) Tony Khan. Being around them makes me feel younger. That’s what I love about them. They’ll joke around and call me an old man and this and that, but it’s fun. Maybe back in the day I would have taken offence to it or something like that, 10 years ago, but these kids have so much love in their hearts for me, for our business, for AEW and I’m excited to be here.”

This current enthusiasm for the business is something that Rhodes didn’t know he would find again. Spending the better part of the past 25 years in the WWE as Goldust, Rhodes says he felt that he “lost that passion for the last couple of years” before the expiration of his WWE contract allowed him to link up with his younger brother in AEW.

In May of 2019, Dustin Rhodes took on Cody at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view event at Las Vegas's MGM Grand Garden Arena. The two waged a 22-minute instant classic filled with blood, sweat and tears. Dave Meltzer of the influential Wrestling Observer gave the match five stars, making Rhodes the oldest-ever competitor to appear in a five-star singles match.

Rhodes considers the match one of the highlights of his career.

“I could go on about it all day,” Rhodes said of the match. “It’s like, you get in there – and I tell this story all the time – it’s like The Legend of Bagger Vance. Will Smith gets Matt Damon in the zone and you’re looking down the fairway and everybody just disappears. You’re laser-focused on that pin and it’s getting closer and closer until you actually see it, but you can’t see the audience. You can’t see the gallery on the sides. You know what you have to do and you see it in your head. It’s the same feeling and I have never, not one time in our business in 33 years, felt what I felt at MGM for Double or Nothing that night. I got in there and they started the ‘Dusty’ chants and we’re both squaring off face-to-face before we even locked up. Everybody in that audience disappeared. I could hear them, but I couldn’t hear them. I could see them, but I couldn’t see them. It was so magical. I knew exactly what needed to be done. I was focused on every single move that we did out there. We could have missed a thousand things, but it would not have mattered. The focus and the professionalism...it was perfect for me.”

Rejuvenated in his AEW run, Rhodes says working with the younger generation and watching them shine under his tutelage is giving him a great sense of satisfaction.

“I’ve been in the wrestling business for almost 33 years,” Rhodes said. “I’ve done everything imaginable. I love performing. I’m not ready to hang it up, but at the same time, my backstage role plays such a huge part for me. And to see these kids go out and try something new and it works because I’ve led them down that path, it makes me feel good. It makes me smile that these guys are listening and they’re learning, but also that they’re that passionate and hungry to make a difference and to make AEW the powerhouse that it’s becoming.”

Like virtually every other business on the face of the earth right now, AEW has been forced to make changes due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Shows are currently being taped without fans in the audience. It’s not ideal, but it’s something that Rhodes and the rest of the promotion are dealing with and towards which they’re making adjustments.

“Stuff happens and that’s what we’re dealt with right now,” Rhodes said. “And because of our professionalism and our love for the business, we’re still going out there. It is a little more difficult when you don’t have fans that feed you that energy that you need, but you still get into a zone and your adrenaline kicks in and you start going through your motions and get into the match. Our crew is still giving 110 per cent out there each time without a crowd. And it will make things that much better for when we have crowds come back in. It’s an exciting time. It’s not as hard as people think, but of course we miss the emotion and adrenaline. We need that to feed us.”

Though there haven’t been any fans in attendance, a handful of AEW talent has been ringside in the stands for the last few tapings, giving the wrestlers in the ring an audience and adding to the atmosphere for the viewers at home.

“That’s even harder because you’re doing it in front of your peers, not wrestling fans,” Rhodes said of the current audience. “They’re our peers who we work with. So they see everything we’re doing and they know when to cheer and when not to cheer. But it’s always nice to have a crowd. We’re dealt with what we’re dealt with right now until all of this mess is over with and hopefully everybody gets well and we can get back to some normalcy.”

Up next for Rhodes in the ring is a quarterfinals match in the tournament to crown the promotion’s first ever TNT (the network that airs AEW Dynamite in the United States) Champion. Rhodes thinks the time is right for AEW to introduce a secondary title.

“I like the idea of throwing this in now and getting another roadway for superstars who aren’t vying for the world title,” Rhodes said. “This gives a little something to, say, the upper-midcarders and midcarders – and I don’t normally like to use those terms because everybody works their asses off. If it’s up to me, I would rather open or close a show. If you open the show, you’ve got them hot and you can set the tone right for the entire night. I don’t look at that as a lowly position. I look at that as probably the most important position on the card that night to open it up right. And if you don’t open it up right, you’ll see the next match and the next match kinda follow suit and it just doesn’t get to the level where you need it. If you open it and everything is right in the ring, the second match will also follow suit and so on and so on until the main event. And it’s going to be a great show.”

On Wednesday night’s edition of Dynamite, Rhodes faces off with “Superbad” Kip Sabian for the right to advance in the bracket for a semi-final matchup with “The MurderHawk Monster” Lance Archer. In the days leading up to the match with the 27-year-old Sabian, Rhodes has vowed to retire as an active competitor should he fail to get past the cocky Brit.

“I tweeted about Kip [last week] when I watched his match on TV [against Chuck Taylor] and I watched it when we shot it,” Rhodes said of his opponent. “He’s incredible. He really is. He’s one of the most talented we have on our roster. He’s young and he has an added extra in (manager and real-life fiancée) Penelope Ford...the only thing with Kip is that, as good as he is, he has attitude problems sometimes.”

Should this match be it for the storied career of Dustin Rhodes, he knows exactly how he’d like to be remembered.

“I was a worker,” Rhodes said. “I was one of the best workers in the business and that’s what I would want people to look back at and say that this guy was a stellar storyteller – he could tell stories inside that ring and outside the ring. He performed at a high level all the way up until he retired. He gave it his all every single time he went out there, no matter his age because age is just a number. He hung in. He hung in with the young boys – or the young boys hung in with him.”

“The Natural” Dustin Rhodes takes on “Superbad” Kip Sabian as part of the TNT Tournament on AEW Dynamite. You can catch all of the action at 8pm et/5pm on TSN2, the TSN App, streaming on TSN Direct and on TSN.ca.