The past few weeks have been a roller coaster ride for "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes. In the month of July alone, Rhodes managed to defend the ROH Tag Team Championships with Sammy Guevara against The Infantry at ROH's Supercard of Honor event, wrestled at All In Texas twice, with the second of his two matches resulting in him shocking the world and winning the AEW TNT Championship, and the month concluded with Rhodes being dethroned as the TNT Champion by Kyle Fletcher in a brutal Chicago Street Fight that ended with Rhodes being stabbed in the leg with a screwdriver.
Rhodes recently revealed that he would need to have invasive surgery on his knees following the loss to Fletcher, a surgery that would keep him out of action for an undisclosed amount of time. While some people suspected that Rhodes might have to call time on his career due to the injury, the man himself has taken to X (formerly known as Twitter) to squash any talk of retirement, as well as revealing when he will go under the knife.
"The Natural" said "Knees are both destroyed. I have to go under the knife August 21st. They can't actually fix the damage so we are getting 2 knee Replacements. Damn! #KeepSteppin. By the way.......This Is NOT THE END." Retirement talk has cropped up more than once in recent years given his age, but Rhodes has made it very clear that whenever he does decide to hang up boots, AEW will be the place where that happens as it is the only company he has ever felt truly respected in. Rhodes signed a new multi-year deal with WWE at the end of 2024, which was later revealed to be a six-year deal, meaning that "The Natural" be a part of AEW until the end of 2030, a year where he will turn 61-years old.
