Magazine Archives: Ricky Steamboat Interview – Part 2

By Jimmy Van, originally in FightfulMag.com issue 2

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Ricky could not have been kinder and more generous with his time. This was meant to be a quick interview, but we ended up speaking for four hours over two days. What follows is about as honest and as detailed of an interview with Ricky Steamboat as you’ll ever read.

DECEMBER 8, 2005 – PART TWO

Jimmy Van: Jay Youngblood passed away in September 1985. There have been conflicting reports as to what happened to him; one story is that he died of a heart attack from an overdose, and another story is that he died after being injured in a match. Did you ever hear the truth as to what happened to him?

Ricky Steamboat: Well, the story that was told to me by his brother Mark was, Jayhad a tumor. And he tried to make it through the tour. He had been complaining about abdominal pain. After the show on the very last night, they took him to the hospital. They performed surgery trying to remove this tumor. It was about the size of a grapefruit in his pancreas. And his body temperature rose to where it stopped his heart. They put the juice to him, brought him back, he breathed for about 30 seconds, and then he never came back.

JV: Towards the end of your NWA run, in December 1983, you were one-half of the tag team champions with Jay, and you announced your retirement, vacating the titles. You went away for a while, then ended up resurfacing in WWE. Was that a legitimate retirement; did you really intend to walk away from wrestling at the time?

RS: No, I’d opened up a small health club gym, and I wanted to focus on getting it off to the so-called right foot. I had planned it a long time, and Crockett also knew at that time that I was going to take about a six-month hiatus. I did come back to Crockett, and that’s when Dustywas booking. When I came back, Tully Blanchardwas the TV Champion, which was 1984.

When you go to the house shows, even though you’re the main event, the TV belt was up for the first twenty minutes. You could wrestle past that and wrestle for the 60-minute allotted time limit for the match. I would go around, and Dusty had just come in or had been in for about six months. I was wrestling Tully. We went around the territory, and I would beat him, but I would beat him in about 24 minutes. Right after the 20-minute time limit had expired for the belt, the match would continue. I would win the match, but he would go home with the belt.

Tully was a pretty good heel, and I was one of the top babyfaces in the Mid-Atlantic. Dusty being the booker who was also a babyface. So here I would go around making Tully look good even though I would win the match, but he would continually go home with the belt. After watching on television while I was there, Dusty was wrestling Tully and won the championship in seven minutes. I could understand my position and how I was going to be used.

Then, it was about a couple of weeks after that, Nikita [Koloff]came into the territory. I had a match on television with just a local guy. And I went over, and as I'm walking back from the ring to the locker room, the planned thing was that Nikita would come out and give me a clothesline, which he called the Russian Sickle. And they carried me out on a stretcher. I knew what was going to happen there, that I would go around and make Nikita look good and then he would end up wrestling Dusty. It was right after that I gave my notice and went to the WWF... that was the reason why I left.

JV: That was always the one knock on Dusty too, when he was the booker, he always put himself over. Other guys have done it. Kevin Nash did it in WCW later, it's not a rarity.

RS: A lot of guys do not like the fact that if you have a booker that is booking but is also working, that is something to be aware of.

JV: You went to WWE, and it turned out to be a great decision for you. You were in the very first WrestleMania, going over Matt Borne. What did you think at the time of the WrestleMania concept?

RS: I don’t know if I thought that it would take off. My biggest awe… was how big the production was. And even at that time, it was at a grand scale. Here you’ve got Liberaceout there dancing with The Rockettes. Muhammad Aliwas the special referee there with Hulk Hoganand Mr. Tagainst Piperand Orndorff... and this was going coast to coast on PPV, the first WrestleMania and everything. But if you look at the way they do things now in production, and you look at the first one, you think God, that was so archaic. It sort of reminded me of black and white boxing back in the 1960s. Coming back to the business now and being with them and seeing how they do production now, I still catch myself standing back, looking at the guys putting everything together and saying to myself, “Boy, has this really grown.”

JV: When you started in WWE, you wrestled in trunks. You didn’t wrestle in long tights as you did later on. How did you go transitioning from Rick Steamboat to Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat? I remember a vignette where you were in a dojo, and you beat up a bunch of ninjas.

RS: Yeah, that was in a Japanese garden in Philadelphia... there was a roundtable discussion between me and Vince andPat Patterson and the manager ofThe Four Horsemen,J.J. Dillon.

Well, they liked to keep the name Randy Savage, but they would like to add some of their own twists to it… and then I came in as Ricky Steamboat. “We like that, and we know you campaign that name, and everybody in the wrestling world knows you by that, but we need to add some flare to it. We need to add some pizzazz to it.” In this roundtable discussion, we started talking about how I look like... we started talking about Bruce Leeand some of the movies he made, Return of the Dragon.Then they started throwing it around, “The Dragon” Ricky Steamboat. Or Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Or Ricky Steamboat “The Dragon.” So that’s how that name came on.

Then, I was doing some martial arts, and they said, “Wow, instead of just going out there in a standard ring jacket with short tights on, let’s put you in long tights and karate boots, and let’s put a karate gi on you, black belt, headband,” and all of a sudden, there was “The Dragon.” That “Dragon” was a different “Dragon” than the one in 1991.

JV: No kerosene.

RS: No kerosene.

JV: Early in your stint in WWE, you teamed up with Jimmy Snuka, as well as with King Tonga. What was it like working with those guys?

RS: Great... Snuka... what did we call ourselves?

JV: I think it was The South Pacific Connection.

RS: Yes! The SPC. It was great, our styles, we gelled. And also, with Tonga, who later went on to wrestle as Haku. No, Tonga was not Haku...

JV: Yeah, he was.

RS: Was he? The Tonga Kid... no, I'm thinking of King Tonga, who went on to wrestle as Haku.  Once again, our styles were similar. They did the chops and all that kind of stuff.

JV: Music today is a huge part of wrestling, but in the mid-80s, it was kind of rare. There were only two or three guys who were known for music. Hogan had “Eye of the Tiger” and then “Real American.” Savage had “Pomp and Circumstance.” And Ricky Steamboat had “Sirius” by The Alan Parsons Project. Who came up with the idea for that music?

RS: I did. I had the tape, “Eye in the Sky,” that was the name of the cassette. That was one of my favorite songs. It had such a longer intro before they went into the lyrics. And I thought that would make such a great ring entrance. So, I brought that to the table, and everybody liked it.

JV: Your first major feud in WWE was with Don Muraco, who you worked with in Georgia. The famous angle from that was the hanging angle when you did the TV thing, and he hung you over the top rope.

RS: Right, he took my black belt and put it around me and over the top rope. I'm hanging there.

JV: What was it like working with Don?

RS: Very good. Bigger guy, heel. Also billed from Hawaii. Had Mr. Fujithere on the floor who was getting his heat but not stealing the show. Don was 280 pounds. When it was time for my comeback, the big guy was there. I don't care how blown up he was. I don't care how much foam and saliva he had coming from his mouth. For some reason, he would be there. He was a great guy to work with. Great matches with him.

JV: This leads me to a rumor you can confirm or deny. WWE was running two tours; one usually had Hogan headlining. The other usually had the IC Champion or whatever the top mid-card feud was. So, in ‘85, Hogan was headlining, and you were headlining the other with Don Muraco. You guys were outdrawing Hogan. The rumor was that George Scott, who was a booker in Mid-Atlantic and went on to be a booker in WWE, he pitched to have the WWE World Title put on you. Is that true?

RS: That was told to me by George Scott. That was told to me I would have to say 10 to 12 years after the fact. No, I would have to say ‘89-ish. That is when I went to WCW and started the feud with Ric Flair. George was booking at the time. Yeah, it was 1989 that he told me that.

JV: What did you think of that? Hogan was Mr. Untouchable.

RS: Well, all things taken into consideration, The Iron Sheik was not known as being a great worker. Maybe, that was some of the reason why when “The Rock”and I would go out there and work. We’d go out there for 30 or 40 minutes, and we had Mr. Fuji out there always as the backup. We would have some great stuff. And our return matches, after the people came to see us one time, we’d go back to the big towns, and big coliseums and the houses were always better. We put on a better show. We’d go in behind Hogan and Sheik, and I know in Boston we did better, Detroit we did better. One time, we went in behind them at the Garden and did better. But also understand, I had two guys who could go out there and work, and The Iron Sheik is The Iron Sheik.

JV: Another rumor is that in the late 1980s you approached Pat Patterson and you told him that you wanted to turn heel.

RS: 1991.

JV: What was the reaction? Obviously, it didn't happen.

RS: No. He said, “Ricky, you are the consummate babyface… We could take you out there with a chainsaw and cut off Hulk Hogan’s arm, and everybody in the place would stand up and say that he deserved it.” I never worked one match as a heel.

Around that time, I had been in the business for something like around 16 or 17 years. And here, I wanted to work heel. Everybody else, I mean Hogan started as a heel. Even Bruno Sammartinoworked heel. You’ve got Ric Flair that’s worked babyface and heel I don’t know how many times. Almost everybody that you can think of; Bret Hart.

JV: You and Tito Santana were the only two.

RS: I don’t know if he ever worked heel. He used my name as Dick Blood in Georgia. I had just come to the Carolinas in ‘77, this was about a year later in ‘78.  Jim Barnett flew into Greensboro just to ask me, “…I’ve got this kid that’s come into Atlanta, his name is Merced Solis. I would like for him to use your real name, Dick Blood.”

JV: I wonder how he ever saw a connection between Tito Santana and Dick Blood?

RS: He just loved the name. And Tito was a young babyface, good-looking guy. He wanted to put the name on him. He just wanted to use it.

JV: I want to read you a quote from Ric Flair’s book quick. He was talking about you and putting you over. He said, “If [Steamboat] had any drawback, it’s that he never played the bad guy. Unlike wrestlers who could get the crowd to either love them or hate them, he only knew how to be the hero.” Would you agree with that?

RS: Very much.

JV: Do you think if you’d had the chance to be heel you could have made a go of it?

RS: You know, I think I could have because what would determine a good guy going bad or a bad guy going good is... usually we would do some kind of angle on TV. If there was a good guy in the ring getting his butt kicked, all of a sudden you see a bad guy running into the ring and clearing house, instantly that bad guy became a good guy. Now, the return match... most times, he would be tagged up with the guy he’d saved going up against the guys that were kicking the babyface’s butt. Could you pull it off in your work? In other words, convince the people?

Even though I never worked heel a day in my life, I do feel that I have worked with enough top heels such as Flair, Don Muraco, and Randy Savage. The list goes on and on and on. Throughout my career, I had enough guys that I worked with that I knew I could probably accommodate, or I could pick it up very quickly. I felt very confident with it, and that’s why I went to Pat Patterson in ‘91 and pitched it. I think that’s one drawback in my career that’s probably hindered me on a professional level.

Also, coming from me on a personal level, that is something that I would have been able to hang my hat on that at one point in time in my career that I was able to work heel. On the other hand, you look at it where... how many guys in the business worked 20 years and only worked one side? A lot of times, promoters would switch a heel to a babyface or a babyface to a heel. That happened when that guy’s career in that territory... when he would not start to draw as well as he was. So, all of a sudden, they would switch that babyface heel, and they’ve got the people coming out in droves going, “I can’t believe he did that. Now he’s a no-good son of a bitch.”

JV: You didn’t need that obviously?

RS: For a wrestler, at that point in time in his career, all of a sudden, he’s got a boost. I had a good career and did well. There were periods in time in my career where I could have needed a boost.

JV: After the Muraco feud came Jake Roberts. The first major spot, which 20 years later would still be a major spot today – he dropped you with a DDT on the concrete on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Who came up with that spot?

RS: Jake’s idea. He said, “Let’s do something to the effect of, I pull the rubber mat... exposing the cement floor.” Unfortunately for me, I hit it. I had a concussion. The side of my head blew up, twice the size... the left side blew up twice the size of my right. They took pictures of it, and they had me on TV with it. The left side of my head looked like the size of a watermelon.

JV: You were always one of the best when it came to selling. With Jake after the DDT spot, you cut your hair, and you stopped smiling and shaking hands when you did your ring entrances, demonstrating your focus on getting back at Roberts. What were your influences when it came to selling and paying attention to the intricate details of an angle?

RS: To me, that was the favorite part of the match. A lot of times, where the match would go is, the babyface would look good at the beginning. And then the heel would get frustrated and do something to stop the babyface. That’s how the word heel came to be because he would heel on the babyface. Undermining and stop the babyface, then he would get his heat.

And then, of course, after that... the babyface would have his comeback, and they would have to finish off the match. I learned early on that if there isn’t any heat, there is no match. The babyface can have all the shine that he wants in the beginning, but when it’s time for the heel to get his heat, if there is no heat, there is no comeback, and there is no finish. There is nothing.

This is the part of the match that is probably the most important. I’ve got to get across to the people convincingly. So, I worked hard at selling. I liked it so much that I would limit my shine in the front half of the match to something very short and then have the heel start getting his heat because I knew how to take care of myself. People would be sitting on the edge of their seats because they always knew, “You can’t count him out. He’s not done yet. It’s not over yet.” I could let the heel get 30 minutes, hell you know with Flair, 30, 40, 50 minutes of heat on me because they always said, “Well, he’s still in the fight.” And then I realized when I started my comeback, because of all the heat… we’d blow the roof off the place.

JV: I think it was WrestleMania II when you wrestled Hercules, and when you went to the corner for the high crossbody, you were practically crawling to the corner because you’d been selling for him for most of the match.

RS: And getting that reputation over the years of me working as a babyface that loved to sell, the heel loved it because he thought, “This guy’s getting me so much heat,” that the heel would always be there for me in my comebacks. He’d be there and would almost do anything for me in my comeback because of how I allowed him to get so much heat. And the heels loved it. They loved working with me because of that reason.

JV: You used to study boxing tapes to see how the fighters looked when they got hurt.

RS: Yeah, how would they react in a shoot? If a guy got caught with an uppercut, a right cross or even a simple jab, how does he sell that? How does the fighter sell a punch in the first couple rounds, as opposed to now we’re in the 11th or 12th round? There’s a difference in how you react. Thirty minutes into it, you’re painting a picture that now you’re beaten down pretty good. And I picked this all up from boxing.

When I do seminars and workshops with independent promotions, I tell everybody to get the movie Raging Bullwith Robert DeNiro. I tell them to separate themselves from the theme of the movie and focus on DeNiro’s portrayal of a boxer getting his head beat in and how he did it so convincingly.

JV: You’ve done a lot of seminars with Les Thatcher. Did you not do some training as a heel?

RS: I do it in my seminar. I still give seminars with WWE during our TV days. The ring is set up, and sometimes we’ll get out there, and they’ll be 10 or 15 guys there around the ring. I’ll give five minutes of this or five minutes of that. Most of the time, it’s babyface. But I also know what to do or say as a heel, even though we do have Arn Andersonthere… and Dave Finlay, guys that are great heels.

Sometimes we’re doing it collectively as a group, and there might be 20 or 30 guys. Even Batistaand John Cenasit in and watch and listen. Or we may do it with some of the new guys that they have... guys that come in from OVW and the other camps. We are always trying to teach and to give them information so they can get out there and work. It gives a product that people watching at home are looking at it and saying, “Wow, that was a hell of a match.”