Wrestling veteran takes issue with AJ Styles namedropping WWE Legend in his promo (Exclusive)

Former WWE Manager Dutch Mantell spoke about AJ Styles mentioning Dusty Rhodes during his promo segment.

AJ Styles and Cody Rhodes were face-to-face this week on SmackDown as they signed the contract for their title match at Backlash. The Phenomenal One addressed Cody and said that his father Dusty Rhodes helped him a lot at the start of his career.

On this week's episode of Sportskeeda Wrestling's Smack Talk, Mantell felt that WWE namedropped Dusty Rhodes too often. He acknowledged that they were doing it to push Cody but felt that Dusty's wife deserved some royalty because the company was using his name. He felt WWE could come out with Dusty Rhodes merchandise and share some of the proceeds with his wife.

"I'm wondering. Are they sending Dusty's family a check? Because they use the name for a lot of instances." Mantell continued, "I would say that they need to take, as many times as they mentioned Dusty in the last year, I think the family is owed something, the wife is owed something. Dusty busted his a*s all these years like the rest of us. I know they're using Dusty to help Cody. But also, that Dusty Rhodes name is out there. I'd come out with some merchandise or something." [32:40 onwards]

AJ Styles and Cody Rhodes will battle for the first time in WWE at Backlash for the Undisputed WWE Championship.

It will be interesting to see if AJ Styles can bring an abrupt end to Rhodes' title run when the two Georgia boys lock horns.

---

If you use the quotes from this article, please embed the YouTube video and add an H/T to Sportskeeda for the transcript.

---

Rhea Ripley explains how a Triple H vs. Ric Flair match got her into wrestling. Check out her comments below.