Top 40 Ricky Steamboat Quotes

You can feel greatness in the ring. You can get two guys that gel together and it’s just like poetry or a work of art.

Flair was a guy who 90 percent of your match was called on the fly, while Savage was a guy who had 90 percent of it set in stone before the match began.

Without our fans, we wouldn’t have anything. I owe everything I have to the ones that paid money. It trickles down to them paying my salary, so I’m always thankful.

Competition has always been good.

The roar of 93,000 people was just… I had nothing to compare that to.

I always felt that whatever I was asked to do that my ability in the ring would speak for itself.

I learned early on as a baby-face you had adapt to their style. Ravishing Rick Rude had his own style and his own way with a little bit of some Ric Flair-isms. But I always learned to adapt myself.

I’m not suggesting that every moment in the match has to be huge, but you’ve got to space it out to have a couple of really outstanding moments.

I remember when we were having cage matches and Superfly Snuka was the first to do this – both of us were doing dives off the top rope – but at MSG he did off the top of the cage onto Don Muraco.

The old-timers taught me about psychology. Whatever body part, for instance, you decided to work on, well, you worked on. If you’re working on someone’s arm, you don’t go to the head with headlocks. You don’t go to the lower body. If you start with a body part, you stay with a body part.

I know one thing, after the match with Savage at Wrestlemania III, I was gassed. I went back to the locker room and fell on the floor.

The doctors have said that they don’t want me in the ring bouncing around or getting picked up and slammed down. They said the old head just can’t survive anymore trauma.

Things can be fast paced in the ring but I was very particular in knowing to be in the right time at the right place.

Whenever you do big stuff in the ring – a big move or a big hit – you have to let that moment breathe. That allows a moment to sink in for the fans so they can reflect on it.

For every 100 times you can nail a big move, it’s that 101st time where you over-rotate and it can end your career.

Guys like myself and Arn Anderson, we’re always trying to pass knowledge along.

Big moments, you’ve got to let it soak in. It actually adds to the drama so you don’t throw away the move and the moment.

Who would have thought that Shane McMahon would have any kind of a chance versus Undertaker?

When I went to WWE, the level of work I put out every night was just balls to the wall.

Flair and I would work with one another sometimes seven nights a week, and with four weeks in a month, we had to keep changing up the matches with fans following the circuit every night. It would always test me and Ric to do something different.

I was in the business for 20 years and look at Flair. He was probably approaching 35-40. But today, if a guy has good 8-10 year run, he is either considered that damn good or lucky.

Jim Crockett could just advertise Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair, and we would do great numbers just off of the two names being hooked up for the evening. Fans knew we’d go out there and give them a hell of a match, win, lose or draw.

You know I’m very happy with WWE, the company in which I still work.

The one moment above all that fans bring up from my career when they run into me is the Savage match. Here it is, 30 years later, and everywhere I go that’s what people want to talk about.

I’ve got a bad back from being in the business for more than 20 years, but if I did have that opportunity, I’d love to have one more go-around with Flair.

It is one thing that I get a lot of joy out of, and that is passing the torch. Some stuff I show young wrestlers, people haven’t seen in 15 years. I show it to them and the gratification I get is when I see them do it out there in a match.

A lot of guys would say that I was like a ‘damn chameleon’. It doesn’t matter who you are in the ring with, you can adjust and adapt.

I said we would have WrestleMania on Mars one day. I think that would be a match to see.

I started right off with this character-type guy and blowing fire from the get-go.

I think of myself as rarity in the business, and one of the reasons is that I wrestled my entire career as a baby face.

I can remember that my match with Savage at WM3 lasted less than 20 minutes.

Before, there were only four pay per views throughout the whole year. Guys who were doing soap opera storylines could build them up week after week. We had longevity, and that is one of the main reasons why people remember.

The phrase that I use a lot is you’ve got to connect the dots and keep connecting them up to the finish.

I’m back in the gym doing squats. I still do the old school stuff. I’m just not concerned about putting the weight on as much as just going through the motions to keep things lubricated and stretched out.

Part of my success was rooted in psychology.

I was one of the rare guys who never wanted to sign a contract.

You can have a good run for several years with one company and then be able to extend it with another.

I remember the first couple of years when I was coming up through the ranks, some of the old-timers would take me aside after the match and critique me.

I understand that wrestling now has changed as opposed to what it was when I worked, but I still think you can apply some of the things that I talk about and just put your 2018 twist on it and still make it work.

I worked with Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt. Those guys have come along and are doing very well now.