Magazine Archives: Ricky Steamboat Interview – Part 3 (Patreon)

From FightfulMag.com, issue 3

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Jimmy Van: You were talking before about the importance of selling a match and how it’s an element that you are really conscious of in the ring. And it was probably no more apparent than when you did the crushed larynx angle with Randy Savage in the WWE. Tell us about working with Savage and about that storyline.

Ricky Steamboat: Randy was very technical. More so in trying to get together with the guys he was working with that evening in putting together the match. Back in the day, or during that time, most of us would probably get the finish of the match and then feel out the match as it was going along and do stuff out of the blue. You know, just ad-libbing and developing and making a match as the match was going along. But he was the kind of guy that wanted to have everything pretty much laid out before the match would even get started.

JV: Some guys have described him as being paranoid. And I know that in the past he would have guys after you as well, during the match and other matches, he would want to practice it. He would want to bring the guy to Florida or wherever and practice the whole thing in the ring. Did he do that with you?

RS: No, he didn’t. This is also news to me. Maybe this started with Randy later on in his career, working with some young talent.

I can see this happening, and it happens more so now because in working back with WWE, we have a lot of good athletes and a lot of good young talent. And maybe they want to try something new, or a new move or a new hold. The best thing to do before actually going out there in front of a live audience is to get in the ring with the guy you’re working with, just to see if you can try out if it works. The thing with Randy Savage never happened with me. And once again, that could be based on the caliber of your work. You know, your reputation.

JV: Of course, we’ve got to talk about WrestleMania. What’s an interview with Ricky Steamboat without talking about WrestleMania? It’s considered by a lot of people and wrestlers to be the best match ever: Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, Wrestlemania III. Somebody coined the phrase, “Hogan and Andre sold the show, but Savage and Steamboat stole the show.” Have you ever heard of that one, and where did that come from?

RS: I’ve said it myself… I’ve even heard it publicized that way too after that big WrestleMania; WrestleMania III. I don’t know if it came out that way word for word, but it came out to that effect. All the credit has got to go to Savage and Andre. Because at a time with, you know, Hogan as big as he was, and obviously, as big as Andre was, what a matchup between those two guys.

A fortunate thing that I knew before that match was Andre’s lower back was killing him. So he was just really limited at what he was able to do. Savage and I, knowing this and knowing the kind of work style he had, and the kind of work style I had. What an opportunity for us to go out there and try and have the best match of the show.

JV: Sure.

RS: And, and I’m not just saying this, you know? Randy, myself, Bret Hart, Rick Rude, Jake “The Snake,” Ric Flair. I could go on with more names. When you reach a certain status in the business, your attitude basically is to go out there and to have the best match on the card. And almost challenge them to try to go out there and top that, you know? That was the mindset going in, and it was only a natural thing for Savage and I, as competitive as we were in our business, to go out there and have the best match on the card. I didn’t care who I was working with on that particular night. With the list of names that I gave you, like Don Muraco or whoever, we wanted to go out there and have the best match of the card.

JV: I’ve heard that you don’t necessarily consider the match with Savage to be one of your greatest because the whole thing was kind of mapped out? Whereas, with a guy like Ric Flair, you guys can walk and talk and put it together in the ring. Is that how you looked at it?

RS: I agree with that. In the matches that Flair and I had, the three matches that we had in 1989, when I won the belt and had to return and the third match in which I lost the belt back to Ric. If I were to rate them on a scale of one to ten, they’d probably be a seven. But when he and I were hard working in the Carolinas, we’d go to a little show in Greenville… none of it was filmed, of course. It was just back in the day when we did live house shows; we probably had several matches better than the three matches that he and I had working for TBS at that time.

JV: I’ve talked to Sherri Martel in the past. She told me that when she was working with Randy, he was every bit as paranoid about Elizabeth in real life as he was on television. And when you were working with Randy, you were considered one of the heartthrobs at the time. Did Randy ever express any paranoia or jealousy whenever you were around?

RS: Never when I was around. But, in getting back to what you said, it was an ongoing talk in the locker room. They had their own separate locker room. She was to stay in there throughout the show or until it was time for her to come out. They would stay in different hotels than where the crew or the guys were. He pretty well had her sheltered; he had the big nets around her.

JV: You won the Intercontinental Title at WrestleMania. From what I understand, you were intended to have a long reign. As the story goes, you went to Vince McMahon, and you asked for some time off — I think your wife was pregnant and about to give birth to your son at the time. How did Vince respond when you asked him for that time off?

RS: I was told early in December, before WrestleMania, that we were going to do this angle. I was going to get the championship, the Intercontinental belt, at that WrestleMania. And probably hold it for a solid length of time.

Then it was a surprise to me, and it was also at that time, that my wife, Bonnie, was pregnant. I was asking for a couple of weeks. The week before the date and the week after, just some space in there that I could make sure I was home. We were doing a lot of traveling back in that time, probably 300 shows a year. And, it wasn’t too long afterwards, but I’m thinking eight or nine weeks later. I didn’t have the belt too long.

A couple of months later he wanted me to drop the belt to Wayne Farris. It was a surprise. You know, being who I am, and that is I tried to be a consummate professional. I could maybe put some more emphasis on the belt as being the champion. Also, coming off the match that Randy and I had, I could have put more emphasis on the belt. And then, not knowing Wayne Farris or the “Honky Tonk Man.” It let me down in my heart also.

JV: I heard a rumor at the time that the WWE was going to put the belt on Butch Reed, and he went missing or something, and Hogan suggested the “Honky Tonk Man.” Is that true?

RS: I don’t know anything about that. That is news to me. And you think if that was something true that it would’ve gotten at least back to me somehow as being involved with the IC Championship and belt switch.

JV: It was just a rumor I heard years ago. Also, you went away and came back, and you were still being booked for the big shows. You had a feud with Rick Rude for a little while. Then WrestleMania IV came along, and I think a lot of people were expecting that you were going to win your match and Randy was going to win his match. That would put you guys together in the second round for a rematch from WrestleMania III. Greg Valentine ended up going over you in the opening round. Were you surprised when you found that out, and why do you think the WWE didn’t push you as hard after your layoff as they did before? Do you think Vince McMahon was bitter that you took time off?

RS: I don’t know if he was bitter because I asked for that time off. At that time, he was very understanding about it. Working pretty hard with the company for maybe going on two and a half years, I didn’t get that feeling at all. Pat Patterson and Vince were there when I went up and asked that I’d like to have some extended length of time. And I was getting to that burnt-out factor just being on the grind all the time. There were a lot of guys going through it. I think a lot of guys dealt with it better than I did and didn’t ask for any time off.

Coming back and looking at the card when it was made up and the rounds, I just assumed, and I think other people did too, that I would go over Greg and there would be the match between Randy and I. After all, just a year before that, we had that match at Wrestlemania III. But it didn’t come out that way. It was probably the way they had everything figured out from going from round to round that coming down to the final two guys and then Savage winning it. Nothing was brought up to me at that time, at that particular WrestleMania. I was never afraid to go out there and do a job for somebody.

And even putting Valentine over in the first round, understand that I had just come back to the company. I had just been back for a couple of months after taking about six months’ leave of absence. I had no problem with Greg at all. He had put me over many times in the Mid-Atlantic area. But you know, there was a thought, I was looking at the rounds, I’d have liked to make it to the second round, and then I would put Savage over and just repay him for him doing the job for me at WrestleMania III. I’d be happy to put him back over. I’m sure we could’ve gone out there and had one hell of a match again.

JV: You ended up leaving WWE shortly after. I heard a couple of different things that you can confirm or deny for me. One thing was that you were considering retiring legitimately from wrestling at that time. The other thing was that you had a contractual falling out because Vince wanted the rights to the Ricky Steamboat name.

RS: That was an ongoing thing because of the Ricky Steamboat thing… I had already trademarked the name. But, we never got into it; it was always a very passive and diplomatic conversation. And, it wasn’t where we ended up screaming and hollering at each other. There were just a few things on the contract that my attorney brought to my attention. Vince was saying that this was a standard form everyone else has signed and that the tone of the language was pretty much like that.

Getting back to your first statement, I think what had happened was that taking such a leave of absence for six months made me realize how nice it was to be at home. It just planted the seeds, and then it wasn’t there until shortly after that. I did have serious thoughts about just picking something up at that time. Understand the business; it is a hard type of business where we don’t go seasonal. We pretty much grind it out the whole year.

JV: Whereas today, guys have two to three days off a week. Back then, you’d go stretches of, what, two to three weeks in a row.

RS: There was one stretch I went for ten weeks. Ten straight weeks before I made it back home. It’s pretty nice now, three or four days, and then they’re home for three or four. And that’s every week. Unless, of course, we do the overseas tour. Sometimes we go over there for five or six straight days in a row, then you’ll end up doing two days of TV before going and then when you come back from the tours, and you’re right in line for two more days of TV. But, you know, the ongoing two to three weeks, and then the five weeks, and then back to three weeks, then ten weeks, that wears on you. And you’re doing it year after year.

JV: You left WWE, and you ended up resurfacing in the NWA in ’89. What led you to go back there? What made you decide to get back into it, to get back into wrestling again?

RS: George Scott was the new booker for Turner, and he was very instrumental when he was in the Carolinas in booking myself and Flair. He was also very instrumental when he went to Vince in the mid-80s and was booking there. I continued to work for Vince for two and a half more years when George had left. Then he resurfaced for Turner’s group.

It was when I wasn’t working for Vince that I got a phone call from him. Once again, it was just timing. And I always respected and loved George for what he had done for me over the years. I wasn’t doing anything at the time, and I was almost seriously thinking about contemplating retiring. At that time, I was thinking about getting into real estate and getting my real estate license, learning brokerage stuff. I get a phone call from George that he was down there in Atlanta, that I should go down to work for him. George has always treated me right and never misled me. The next thing you know, I was working down there.

In March 1989, Flair and I had a match for the belt, and I win the belt. And you want to know something else? Neither Flair nor I knew the finish of the match until an hour before our match was going on. The show had started, and he was saying, “Oh, I may just let you guys wrestle to an hour draw, or I might let Flair screw you and come off with something really hot, or we might just shock everybody, and it’s been a while since you guys have hooked up in a long time.” He never let us know until it was getting down to the last minute before we were supposed to go on.

JV: After the last match in May at Wrestle War, when Ric went over you and got the title back from you, Terry Funk came out and attacked him; that started a new program with them. I heard that you didn’t know Terry Funk was going to do that and that you were under the impression that you were just going to keep going with Flair. Is that true?

RS: That is true. I had no knowledge that Terry was going to do the run-in. I think he ended up pile-driving Flair on the table. I was leaving the ring, and as I was leaving, I was watching him run in. That got me a little bit on the edgy side with Flair, as close as he and I were throughout the years and the number of matches he and I had. For him to not even pull me aside that night just to say, “Hey, out of simple respect for what we had done for each other for our careers, we’re doing a thing where Terry’s going to run in afterwards.” Instead… it being a shock to me as much as to the fans watching.

JV: What’s your relationship with him like now? With Ric Flair?

RS: We have respect for each other. I’ve been back with the WWE for a year, and I’ve seen him at every TV day. We may have a few moments to talk. TV days for either one of us are pretty busy. We may try to hook up during the Christmas holidays. We have some time off coming. May sit down and have dinner, or something. If we do that, Jimmy, it will probably be the first time we do that in ten years.

Even with some of the wrestling guys, especially with a lot of the fans because of our reputations here, the ongoing feud that we had, people are amazed that we probably talked on the telephone twice in ten years. It’s only because of coming back to the company now that I see him on TV.  We have a conversation in passing, which lasts a minute or two. We did make it a point of it, and we have the holidays coming up that we might have dinner one time.

JV: What was it that led you to leave the NWA? I think it was the Great American Bash that you put Lex Luger over, and then you left the NWA. What made you decide to leave then?

RS: I can’t figure out the name of the guy that was running the company at that time.

JV: Jim Herd?

RS: Herd! He put me on for six months for the contract. I won the belt, had the match with Ric Flair and dropped the belt back. Then, at the end of the six months, I don’t know why he did, but when he came and approached me for another contract, for another six months—they were going to go six months at a time—he wanted to pay me less money. And I didn’t budge on that.

I had done a lot for WCW in the matches with Ric Flair. This was 1989, the company’s new, and I would at least expect to get as much as I was making. I was making good money, but other guys were making more. It shocked me that they wanted to pay me less. I was almost expecting maybe a little bump in pay for what I had done for the company. And to come in and offer less... Once again, I’m not the kind of guy; I don’t scream and holler. “I don’t think that’s going to make it. Restate what you want to give me for the next six months. If that’s what you want to give me for the next six months, I’m going to take some time off again.”

JV: You ended back in WWE again. When you were there the first time, you were one of the top-level guys known as Ricky Steamboat. This time you came back, there was less emphasis on the name Ricky Steamboat and more emphasis on “The Dragon.” You were breathing fire, and the kerosene and all that. How did that come about? I know, at the time, the WWF was going through this comical period with a lot of these cartoonish-type wrestlers. How did that come about? Was that because of the whole trademark issue with Ricky Steamboat?

RS: Well, I think Vince wanted to go more in that direction; act like your character. And they had a complete wardrobe department. They had people making all sorts of robes and trunks and wardrobe fixtures for each of the wrestlers? Mine came back, and was one of the most challenging, with the dragon wings, dragon tail, you know? Big ol’ rubber tail that was about seven feet long hooked to my back, and it was heavy. It was 30 or 40 pounds. They wanted more likeness to your character. Bruce Prichard came to me and said, “Hey, we found somebody down in Florida that works with a carnival that will teach you how to breathe fire.” I thought it was cool.

That will really fit the character with “The Dragon.” Go to the ring with a torch. They’d shut the house lights down. I got fairly decent at doing it, and I thought, “yeah, that will work.” Not knowing that right after, I’d have to get into the ring and continue to wrestle with this residue of kerosene in my mouth. That was a little bit tough. Have you ever tried to siphon off gas and get a mouthful of it and then have to go out there and perform? That was a little bit rough.

JV: I read in your book that one time there was no kerosene, so you had to get a mouthful of raw alcohol?

RS: Yeah, it was like pure grain alcohol. Like a 160 proof to 180 proof, and it burned the inside of my mouth. It’s like, have you ever burned the roof of your mouth when you bite into a hot pizza?

JV: Of course.

RS: Well, you ever get a water blister up there? I had about a dozen of them all along the inside lining of my mouth. I think that was in Las Vegas, where they had a hard time finding kerosene. The ring truck had run out of it, and they couldn’t find it. I don’t know where they found the grain alcohol; it might have been one of the ring guys who had it for his own stash.

JV: During your brief stint with WWE, I heard that one of your best matches was a non-televised match. They had a King of the Ring show at that time, it wasn’t a big PPV or anything, and you worked with Ted DiBiase. Do you remember that match? What was it like working with Ted? Back then, he was one of the top in-ring workers in the business.

RS: Excellent. Jimmy, you understand the number of workers we had in the business at that time. Everybody was good. Everybody had a little bit of their own way of doing things. I always found that to make the match what you want it to be, it was easier for me to adapt to the style of the heels, as opposed to the heels to try to adapt to me. Wrestling a Don Muraco one time is different from wrestling a Randy Savage or a Bret Hart. Bret Hart was more of a technician out there. I learned that early on in my career.

Over the years, I had such great pleasure working with heels. And, maybe, the underlying reason was the fact that… I knew how this guy worked. The hidden mannerisms in the ring and the kinds of stuff he’d like to do, and I would go with the flow, but I would make sure to get the Ricky Steamboat stuff in there too. You would see it appear. It would pop in and out. Most of the time, I would just adapt.

Ted was an excellent, excellent worker. He came from the same time as myself and Savage and Flair, Jake Roberts, Bret Hart, and all of us guys. We were big on psychology. We were big on anything you do in the ring. Does it make sense in the storyline that you’re trying to tell? You know, don’t work on somebody’s arm, and just for the sake of it, you start kicking him in the back. It would blow off the whole night that you’ve tried to establish that you’re trying to break this guy’s arm off.

We never went that route. We always stuck to one part of the body and painted that picture that we were always trying to get back to it. Ted was right there; we were on the same page. He was an excellent guy to work with. He wasn’t one of these guys that were so worried about making sure he got all his stuff in. Even if he did get some of his stuff in, likewise with myself, it was only because it fit.

JV: Part of the story.

RS: Yeah, it fits the storyline that we’re trying to tell, to show the folks.

JV: You talked about the ability to adapt, and I know that a guy like Shawn Michaels prides himself on having the ability to do so. When you look at some of the wrestlers who have said their best matches or their favorite matches were with Ricky Steamboat, it almost reads like the who’s who in the business. Ric Flair, Randy Savage, Steve Austin and Bret Hart have said that. What is it like for a guy like you to hear some of the all-time greats say that their favorite opponent or one of their favorite matches was against you?

RS: Obviously, it’s a great feeling. What recognition. To have your peers, to have the guys you stable with saying that throughout their illustrious careers that one of their best matches was with me, is a great honor. But even without them knowing, my secret to it all is that I knew how this guy likes to do stuff in the ring, and I can accommodate that. So I wouldn’t get any flak.

You know, a lot of guys would come into the ring and say, “Man, you’re hogging the match; you’re trying to get all your stuff in. You’re trying to make sure that you look good.” It was never that. I knew how to take care of myself to make the match interesting to show that Steamboat was always in the fight. And I can let the heel feed on me for half an hour and not make it boring and have everybody sitting on the edge of their seat saying, “You can’t count him out, no you can’t. Somehow, here he comes again. Oh, no, he just got shut down. Oh no, here he comes again.”

JV: “The Little Engine That Could.” That should’ve been your ring name.