The following are highlights of a new Shining Wizards podcast interview with
WWE Hall Of Famer Ricky Steamboat:
On becoming Ricky Steamboat: “The late Eddie Graham
gave me the Steamboat name. In 1976 I walked into the Tampa office and there sat
Eddie Graham, and Verne Gagne had sent him pictures of me wrestling as “Rick
Blood,” and Eddie said what a great wrestling name- but for a heel. He then said
we had a guy here in Florida named Sammy Steamboat and he was from Hawaii. What
I would like to do is call you Ricky Steamboat, but I will not bill you as his
son. How about you be his nephew? I told Eddie, “you can call me anything you
like. I’m just happy to have a job.” The very next night in West Palm Beach- and
this is a story that not too many people know… I don’t know if I’ve ever told
this story live like this, I told it to a couple friends and some wrestlers- but
the story goes that the next night in West Palm Beach, I’m the first match. I’m
standing in the ring and the ring announcer goes “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have
a substitute this evening. Rick Blood is unable to make it.” And I’m standing
there and I completely freak out and forget that I’m Ricky Steamboat. So I make
my way up to the announcer in the middle of the ring and I’m saying, “I’m here!
Hey, hey, look, I’m right here!” And the announcer puts the microphone behind
his back and off the side of his mouth says, “Stand in the corner, kid. Get over
there and stand in the corner.” So I go back to the corner, and he says “Give it
up, Ladies and Gentlemen, for the nephew of Sam Steamboat, Ricky Steamboat!” And
the crowd jumped out of their seats, and I’m looking around with my mouth open.
The first thought that comes to my mind is, “Oh, this is what they do when they
know you or when you get over.”
On never working heel & wanting to: “I never
had a match where I worked as a heel. When I started in 1974, I was always a
face, and the reason for that was that the heel would always lead the match. Now
for me to graduate to be a heel, most times you started out as a face, and then
when you got good, you would transfer over to a heel and you were the guy in
charge. So I never had an opportunity to work as a heel, although in and around
1991, I expressed my desire to work as a heel and the response that I got back
was it would never work. Pat Patterson said that I was the consummate babyface
and it would probably hurt my career. I tried to push it to them hard and said,
“Let me go under a mask and let me go under a full suit and cover up my body. I
won’t throw any chops and I’ll just kick and punch and I’ll be a heel. Then the
big surprise, if we can carry this thing through, after about a year or so, have
somebody finally takes the mask off, hopefully the response we get from the fans
will be ‘Oh my God, all this time it’s been Ricky Steamboat,’” but they wouldn’t
buy it.
On being legit knocked out by a Jake Robert’s
DDT: Well you know, I’ve talked about this on other radio
stations and in public. They always bring that up, and I want to make this clear
that I wasn’t knocked out. I know people watching that, you could hear the splat
of my head hitting the cement floor. I know how to take a DDT, and he knows how
to give it. You know he was the best in the business, but I just got caught off
guard and my forehead hit the cement. I had all my faculties. I was working. My
body language was dictating what would happen to a guy if that happened. Jake
Roberts was trying to pick up a dead body and I was limp and everybody was
thinking that I was knocked out, but I wasn’t. I mean, it sounded like a hand
grenade went off in my brain and it wasn’t too long afterwards I had such a lump
appear on my head. I mean I looked like Elephant Man. It was huge and there was
water and fluids built up underneath. It was huge, but I wasn’t knocked
out.”
His last run as a performer in WWE: “A lot of the
guys say that, but during the match there were moments where I knew I was a step
off, and that’s just Mother Nature. I like to go 100 miles per hour when I hit
the ropes, and I knew I was a step off. I wasn’t as flexible as I once was. One
of my biggest things before the match was having a lot of the guys ask me what I
do before a match. Some guys like to run in place, some would do push-ups, some
do warm-ups. I really focused on stretching. I really think that helped me
throughout my career. Getting back to the match: God, it was such a great
feeling. I had a lot of déjà vu coming back over me in that match with (Chris)
Jericho. I was so happy he took care of me.”
On the superstar he’s most proud of: “I was not
coaching at the time, but a guy that I’m really, really proud of when I was a
producer/agent, with Arn Anderson & Dean Malenko, is Dolph Ziggler. You
could talk to him and see it in his eyes that he would get it. He knew what you
were talking about. It wasn’t like you just go out there and do something for
the sake of doing it. I always told him to have a rhyme and reason. I give this
example: You’re having a match and you’ve been working on this guy’s arm and the
guy’s gotten away from you a few times but somehow you’ve been able to get back
to that arm. The story that you’re telling is that you’re trying to wear the
guy’s arm down. Then you have a moment to which he gets away and you end up in
the turnbuckle and he charges with a high knee, and you move. He hits the top
turnbuckle with his knee and goes down and grabs his knee. I look at Zig and I
said, “Dolph, what do you do?” And he said, “Well, I grab the arm.” I said, “You
got it, kid.” Most times, the answer I get is “I grab his leg.”
His favorite match with his favorite opponent, Ric
Flair: “This was a match where George Scott was the booker. And
I’m going back, say 1979-80. Back then they had time limits and most of the main
events had 60 minutes. And we wrestled to a draw. Back then we called them
Broadways… George (Scott) said I don’t’ want to beat Ricky & I don’t want
to beat Flair, so we wrestled 60 minutes to a draw. I’ve never wrestled anybody
as many times as Ric Flair to one hour draws. So we are in Charlotte and this
night Flair is going to go over and he was going to cheat, and George said you
don’t have to go out there and go 40 or 50 minutes. Just give me a good solid
20. So we’re out there and the flow is going so good after 20-25 minutes that we
go 45-50 minutes. The crowd has seen us wrestle so many times to the draw that
they’re already calling it. Fifty-five minutes in and the announcer announces: 5
minutes left… 4 minutes left… 3 minutes left… 2 minutes left… 1 minute
left in this contest. Then 30 seconds, 15 seconds, and as he starts the
countdown 10… Flair hooks my legs and I go down on my back and he puts his
feet up on the corner and the ref counts 1-2-3 with 3 seconds left on the
clock… I laid there and Flair was laying there, because normally in a Broadway
the last couple of minutes you’re really kicking into fifth gear. And I’m
painting a picture that I’m trying to pin him all over the place. It’s false
finish after false finish because the people understand time’s gonna run out for
Ricky. And all of a sudden, he yanks my feet out as he’s begging off in the
corner, and throws his feet up on the second rope, and the ref jumps down and
counts 1-2-3. There was a hush over the Coliseum, and then all of a sudden it
erupted… and they were throwing so much crap at Flair as he was trying to make
his way back to the locker room. Coke cans, popcorn, cups… and I just stood
there watching him cover up his head and try to make his way to the back… and
then I looked up at the people and said, “We got ya.”
Check out the complete interview at ShiningWizards.com.
