Photo: AEW's Dustin Rhodes Pays Tribute To Sting With Pic Of Them With Brother Cody

Along with "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, Dustin Rhodes holds the distinct honor of working with Sting under the umbrella of four major companies – WCW, TNA, WWE, and AEW. Given their extensive history, Dustin has issued a heartfelt tribute to Sting ahead of his official retirement match at AEW Revolution this weekend.

"Icon, inspiration and friend. Thank you @Sting for an incredible career. I will miss you man. #Stinger," Dustin wrote on X (formerly Twitter) alongside a smiling photograph of himself, "The Icon," and his real-life brother Cody Rhodes.

Icon, inspiration and friend. Thank you @Sting for an incredible career. I will miss you man. #Stinger pic.twitter.com/7taO7RDOrd

— Dustin Rhodes (@dustinrhodes) March 1, 2024

Following his run with WWE, Sting came aboard AEW in late 2020, aligning himself with former TNT Champion Darby Allin both on and off-screen. As they continued to bond, Sting even invited Allin to his home in Texas for training sessions in his personal ring. It was here that Allin finally convinced the former WCW World Heavyweight Champion to step back into the action himself. Three years later, Allin and Sting are now the AEW World Tag Team Champions.

While he never held any tag team gold with Sting, Dustin Rhodes received valuable opportunities to team with him on several occasions during his second stint in WCW (1991-1995). As he was still in the early years of his career at this point, Dustin made an extra effort to study the movements of his veteran tag team partner — something he previously described as an "inspiring" experience. One of Dustin and Sting's more memorable tag team outings occurred at WCW's 1993 Fall Brawl event, where the two paired up with Davey Boy Smith and The Shockmaster to defeat Harlem Heat (Booker T & Stevie Ray), Big Van Vader, and Sid Vicious in a brutal WarGames match.