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Jeremy Hartley: What prompted you to want to get into this whacky business of professional wrestling?

Ricky Steamboat: I grew up in Florida and and my fiance at the time went to Minneapolis. Minnesota to a Northwest Orient Airlines training school. Her room mate at college was Donna Gagne...

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: ...Verne Gagne's daughter. I guess, through conversations, Donna telling my fiance that her father was a wrestling promoter, my fiance telling her that I had a pretty good amateur background...Florida State Champion and so forth and so on...so Verne asked for a resume and I sent it on up there, he gave me a starting day on his next camp. Basically, that's how I got into the business.

Jeremy Hartley: Now, this is interesting. I've talked to a few people that have trained under Verne Gagne...how was that? I mean as a young kid training in that type of situation..?

Ricky Steamboat: Well, when we went through the camp there was Buck Zumholf, and there were two other guys who've passed away - there was Jen Nelson and another guy was Scott Erwin.

Jeremy Hartley: Now just to stop you there - Scott Erwin was, I believe, the guy you had your first match against..?

Ricky Steamboat: That's correct. Kozrow Vaziri...

Jeremy Hartley: Oh..?

Ricky Steamboat: The Iron Sheik!..was there, he had just come over from Iran, I guess he might have been the country for a year. Weighed about 180 lbs. Iranian National Champion, Pan American Games Champion...just put us through about 5 hours a day of training, calisthenics - the hardest thing I'd ever been through in my life. I went up there weighing 242 lbs. at the end of about ten weeks I weighed 224! Hey but I was in great shape..!

Jeremy Hartley: I'm sure. A lot of guys they talk about being in "mat shape", or "ring shape" if you will and, for example "football shape" etc. I did some amateur wrestling - nothing major - but in your situation, what was it like, coming into professional wrestling with your amateur background. Did you ever get discouraged and think, "What am I doing here?"

Ricky Steamboat: I never questioned, "why am I here?" - going through all of this - back in the early 70's there was more of a mystique on wrestling, whether the business was on the up-and-up. And being brought along through the business, even through the first year of wrestling with old timers. Going through the training camp - you know they did not really smarten us up until the last week of the ten week camp.I don't know - I've been brought up in sports, have a very competitive nature and always thought that, "if I get through this camp...I'm gonna give it a shot" and never was one to be a quitter - and you know I think about 16 or 17 guys came out for the camp but only four of us finished. The other guys just got discouraged or they just fell off by the way side. Or they were asked to leave, "Hey look - you're never going to make it..." You know - pukin' everyday. And I told myself...

Jeremy Hartley: Yes...

Ricky Steamboat: I told myself, Jeremey, 2-3-4 weeks down the road if they had come to me and said, "Why don't you come back next year..." - there would be no "next year".

Jeremy Hartley: Right...

Ricky Steamboat: I was going to give it my best shot - my one shot, and fortunately I made it through.

Jeremy Hartley: You know, on a related question, you said that you weren't really "smartened up" you were probably working with guys who meant to test you, to put you through the paces. When did you receive that first "vote of confidence" from the old pros, when you felt like "yeah, I think I can do it...but now some of these guys in the business think I can do it."

Ricky Steamboat: Never not once through the camp. Everything that I was asked to do I did. We were in the basement of Verne Gagne's office building - I mean he didn't own the building - he just had a floor. It was 21 stories - we would run stairs everyday. That's 21 flights up and 21 flights back down. Then we would "wheel barrow" - that is, somebody grabs your feet and you go up 21 flights of stairs on your hands...

Jeremy Hartley: No..!

Ricky Steamboat: ...and come back down then switch positions and run them again. And then we would fireman's carry - meaning hoist a guy up across your shoulders - across your back and carry them up 21 flights of stairs - drop him and then run back down where he would hoist you on his back and run the stairs...

Jeremy Hartley: Oh man..! And you said that was about five hours a day..? At least..

Ricky Steamboat: Everyday. After the first couple of weeks, I guess with Verne and Kosrow weeding people out the guys they thought weren't tough enough - always painting a picture that it is the toughest sport in the world and you have to be a tough competitor to be able to deal with it. During the first couple of weeks we would probably spend four hours and thirty minutes calisthenics and thirty minutes in the ring. Then as the weeks passed by the calisthenics grew less and we began spending more ring time - learning how to take backdrops and all that kind of stuff.

Jeremy Hartley: Now of course Verne had his own territory at the time. Was it like some of the schools they have now where they would give you matches when training was over. Was it up to you guys to sort of carve your niche or did Verne help you make contacts and break in?

Ricky Steamboat: Well the deal with Verne was after you finished with camp you would work his territory. The four of us probably worked it for about a month. Then he would send you to other territories, my first territory after leaving Minnesota was down in Florida with Eddie Graham - but he would also have you sign a contract so that 10% of your gross money that you made would be paid back to Verne.

Jeremy Hartley: Wow! So that was a nice guarrantee for Verne I guess...

Ricky Steamboat: Well, I only made $14,000 that first year...

Jeremy Hartley: Okay, so you wrestled in Florida for Eddie Graham - what was that like? I've talked to some guys who have wrestled in that organization - what was it like for you?

Ricky Steamboat: I don't want to say that it was less professional then working for Verne, who was real strict, but Eddie was really a great guy to work with and to work for. Whenever you travel down to Florida the whole mentality, way of thinking is different. You go up to Connecticutt then drive to Florida and you just notice that everything is different. People are wearing shorts and tank tops and flip-flops - you know people are more laid back. More relaxed - maybe the high humidity and the heat would have something to do with it. But Eddie had a great mind for the business and would come up with great ideas and angles - the State itself was just a more relaxed atmosphere.

Jeremy Hartley: Who was with you in that territory at the time? What were some of the matches that you were involved in at the time?

Ricky Steamboat: I was teamed up with Mike Graham and Steve Keirn was there, Buddy Colt, Don Muraco, of course Boris Malenko...

Jeremy Hartley: So you wrestled in Florida - where did you go to next?

Ricky Steamboat: Georgia...

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: Georgia Championship Wrestling

Jeremy Hartley: And was that Paul Jones...

Ricky Steamboat: No, it was a lady...

Jeremy Hartley: Anne Gunkel...

Ricky Steamboat: Anne Gunkel. Also with Jim Barnett - you know Georgia Championship Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling were tied in together with each of them sending tapes back and forth...so I wasn't in Florida more then a couple of weeks when Barnett wanted me to go to Georgia - and I said, "Well, I grew up here, and my family is here and I've just been away a while in Minnesota...I'd like to hang around here longer then just two weeks.He was pretty persistent and in about three months Eddie moved me to Georgia and I stayed there for about a year.

Jeremy Hartley: ...and that was nineteen seventy...

Ricky Steamboat: 1975.

Jeremy Hartley: So at that time you had guys who ran their own territories but would share their talent. If a wrestler needed work they would send him to a different territory and I guess it meant that not only were you learning from the best but you were being exposed to a lot of different wrestling minds...if you had to sum it up about the territory years, what would you say was the thing that helped you the most?

Ricky Steamboat: I don't know how to really sum it up except to say that Verne was a little more business-like - he liked more guys in sports jackets and things like that, but I think as a rookie, as compared to today, that it gave me and all the guys who came along in my time and before my time opportunities to work different areas, where you could work with different wrestlers and learn different things, different styles - do different things. A promoter would have a #1 guy and would use him as long as he was drawing a lot of people and making a lot of money for the promoter. As soon as his popularity would falter...if he was a heel they'd turn him babyface - if he was a babyface they'd turn him heel to draw the people in. If not, maybe one promoter would call another and say, "Hey I got a guy up here that's getting ready to move on..." - they had a great network for keeping in touch with who and what and this and that. That would always keep each territory fresh and live with TV. Pretty much television would just stay in their designated territories, and moving around like this a guy could not only learn but, if he could get main event status he would have that main event status in a number of territories. I think the great learning experience that I got from the different territories I worked in was a big help.

Jeremy Hartley: One of the things you just mentioned was the difference between the babyfaces and the heels. You were pretty much a babyface throughout your career - nowadays they seem to change back and forth every week. I always got the feeling that they put that on you because they trusted you could make it believable.

Ricky Steamboat: Uh hm, that is true, and you've also noticed a difference in the fans. The fans are "hurrahing" the heels sometimes more then some of the babyfaces...

Jeremy Hartley: Would you say that part of that is due to the art of interviews being lost...I mean in your era was the fact that you could talk a good match, that your opponent could talk a good match - and that was a big majority of the battle before you even got into the ring. Right..?

Ricky Steamboat: Right. I've known guys that looked terrible, maybe would wrestle five to seven minutes, but had the gift of gab on the mic. They'd keep their main event status and keep their heat...you know that. today, is lost...Television has changed things a lot. You know we used to use TV as a venue for the live show - of course we'd still have the same kind of television matches - they'd go three - five - seven minutes then when you'd get to the house shows you'd have your twenty - thirty - 45 - one hour "broadways" (an old carny term for a one-hour show) and that is something else that is lost. And I think another reason why was because...you look at the promotions on both sides whether it be WWF or WCW - on a pay-per-view they'll load the card up, almost everybody on the show is considered a main eventer, maybe they'd have a couple of feature matches - but the promoter's got so many guys - and you've got a certain length of time that you're on the satellite so matches are customarily going shorter. As opposed to when we used to do the live shows - so what if the matches got out at 11:30 at night? Many times I worked with Flair and the promoter would say "...look, we only need twenty minutes tonight guys..." but the match was going so well, that sometimes we'd put in 59 minutes and thirty seconds just to really throw a monkey wrench into the fans...

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: ...you know, their all thinking we're going "broadway" then all of a sudden we'd "do" the finish. But instead of twenty minutes - the match was going along so good we'd do the finish and actually it worked out better because everybody that's sitting there watching it is thinking that we're going to go to a one hour draw - then with 27 seconds left to the end of the match they hear "one-two-three..."

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs) You know it's funny that you mention that because I remember a match - I believe it was in Louisianna that you guys pulled that off and it was on National Television and the amount of reaction from the fans was amazing...(here an audio excerpt from a Flair/Steamboat in 1989 is played...)

Ricky Steamboat: Right!

Jeremy Hartley: That was in '89 and you were holding the Title at the time...

Ricky Steamboat: Even something like that, Jeremy, has been lost... I'm sure that Bret Hart could still do a one hour "broadway" you know but I don't know about the newer guys into the business - I don't know if they have enough ring psychology to carry a match for an hour. I mean, twenty or thirty minutes into the match they would probably start panicing - that's an art form which is slowly being lost in our business too. I was always the one that if the agent or the promoter said, "look Ricky we only need twenty minutes tonight..." and if I was first main event the other guys would always dread it because they'd say "Steamboat's going to be out there for 45 minutes..." If the promoter gave me the green light, and it was okay with the heel - shit we're going 50 minutes tonight..!

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs) And did it become almost a one-upsmanship on yourself everytime you'd go out there and work a specific program, it was, "Okay, what can we do now - you know, we worked for forty minutes - can we bump it up to sixty?" And still make it a sort of personal best thing...

Ricky Steamboat: You know that no matter how long you're in a match. Whether it is twenty minutes or thirty minutes or an hour - it is those last five to ten minutes where you really want to make it shine. Some times it was difficult, you were at the fifty minute mark and you know you're going to go "broadway" - and you say, "Okay, we gotta cook it now..." and you know you gotta smoke it now - it's when we'd really start picking the pace up - knowing that you've been involved for fifty minutes and your tongue is hanging out, you're wheezing like a son-of-a-gun and thinking, "...how am I gonna pull this thing out of my ass for the last ten minutes?"

Jeremy Hartley: Right! And I'm sure that it depended largely on who you worked with on a given night and that kind of thing, but you always seemed to bring out the best in the folks you were working with, which we talked about earlier.

Ricky Steamboat: It seems as though they wrote it a few times that if you look at the people who had great matches - the other side of the coin was Ricky Steamboat. It always seems that I was the common denominator. They could talk about Don Muraco but then they'd say, "...well who did he wrestle against - oh yeah, Ricky Steamboat. Jake Roberts, oh yeah, that was Ricky Steamboat - Ric Flair, oh yeah, that was Ricky Steamboat..." Randy Savage - that's a classic match then there was a very scientific match for the WWF with Bret Hart. You know, the Hitman - people would come to me and say, "Oh yeah, you had that match with Bret Hart, what a match...yeah that was at the Boston Garden - that was with Rick Steamboat..." I learned early in my career that I should try to adapt to the guy that I was wrestling. You always found out it was easier to do that whether then go out there and try and pull teeth and say, "Well, we're going to do it my way..." If I could interject a few things in the course of the match, which would be some things that I would consider "my way", that's fine but you have to find out what the other guy wants to do and simply take it to the 10th degree and really shine - that's how I've always worked. Guys would always go to promoters, heels, and say, "Can you hook me up with Steamboat? Can I work a program with him?" I had a great match with Lex Luger - who everybody thought it was like pulling teeth to have a good match with him...

Jeremy Hartley: Right! That was in the summer of '89...

Ricky Steamboat: Summer Bash, or something...

Jeremy Hartley: Right, the Great American Bash. Right, Flair and Funk were in the main event...

Ricky Steamboat: Right. Ive got a lot of respect for Lex, The company wanted me to do a job right in the middle, and Luger spoke up and said, "No, he doesn't deserve that..." and if you remember that match, as it went on I actually chased him out of the ring with a chair - he took off running up to the stage - to the platform.

Jeremy Hartley: Now, so this is really interesting, he seemed to really respect the wrestling history then, is what you're saying, or...

Ricky Steamboat: You know what it was Jeremy? He was having such a hard time being a legitimate heel in his matches because he was so mechanical in the way that he did things in the ring that I was coaching him along all of his matches. It was helping him out and maybe his lightbulb was starting to come on - a little bit of ring psychology, you know, he'd body slam me and as he bent over to pick me up I'd say, "No, no, no...go over there and yell at that fat lady sitting in the second row..."

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: (laughs) ...so I could sell the body slam and then he would go over there and get some heat with somebody at the front row, you know, then he'd come back over to me and he'd do something else and I say, "Okay, now go over to that other lady over there..." you know?

Jeremy Hartley: And he really seemed to take what you were doing very seriously and really wanted to learn.

Ricky Steamboat: Yep. I told him, I says, "You look great, interviews are not too bad, but as soon as you step into the ring it's all over" I said, "Lex, there are just so many times that you can flex and pose..."

Jeremy Hartley: Right!

Ricky Steamboat: ...and, you know, I would talk to him in the locker room about psychology, "...why were you doing this..?" The reason, and he'd start to see it, you know. I mean, he'd say, "Nobody would take the time out to tell me this stuff - nobody would take the time out to help me." Well this is the way the business was carrying along for so many years because the old timers did it with me when I started..."

Jeremy Hartley: Right!

Ricky Steamboat: A lot of the guys thought, you know, even if they went to the promotion and said, "I want to work with Steamboat..." Well I'll tell you what, they all knew in the back of their minds that they had to get in shape - and some guys that you would never see in a gym, or on a treadmill or a stair stepper - if they were working a program with me - they'd go to say, Columbus, Ohio, and they'd go to the gym there the next thing you know the heels in there, the guy that your working with - you never saw him before. And it always would put a grin on my face. You see that's out of respect, or maybe they just knew that they better get in shape because every night their working with Steamboat and their going to be putting in thirty-plus minutes...

Jeremy Hartley: Right (laughs) You know I was thinking back to the time you were in the World Wrestling Federation, and of course there were guys like the Iron Sheik who were also there - Don Muraco was there - Harley Race was there - JYD was there - all these guys - the Funks... But yet they were still trying to push the super heroes and so forth. Did you guys ever just kind of sit back and say, "Wow! Here all of us are, we could be doing these great matches and we're kind of forced into doing, maybe, five minuet matches and so forth - and imagine how it would have been had all you guys been given a chance to really shine...

Ricky Steamboat: But Jeremy, the answer to you question - I was never really put...I got along so well with the agents like Strongbow and them guys that they knew one of my fortes - part of my style was thirty minutes, forty minutes and even though sometimes in the locker room, you know, in front of the guys, Strongbow would say, "Steamboat, hey, you know we only need twenty tonight..." he'd say that in front of the guys...but then I'd go out in the hallway and bumb into him and he'd say, "You know I was just kidding..." He'd say, "Kid, I know you can go out there for forty minutes and give these people a hell of a show..." and when he said that he meant, "You're doing our company justice. These are the guys who are going to go out there and bullshit them for seven minutes, and we need somebody out there who can give them a legitimate match", tell a storyline and show the psychology behind it so that they can go home, so that when the WWF comes back into the town then at least maybe one match out of the eight was something to bring them back, you know...

Jeremy Hartley: Well, and a classic example, 1987, WrestleMania III - you wrestled Randy Savage - I would say, arguably...and I will say this again, of course, I couldn't see the match (Editor's Note: Jeremy is blind), I could just hear what they were talking about, but just the intensity that I could hear without even, obviously, looking at it - it had to have been the best match on the card. And you were not the last match on the show - obviously it was Andre and Hogan, but if you talk about just straight wrestling and being able to tell a story - it was your match with Savage that made the card. (Jeremy plays some audio from the match in question at this point - Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura were calling the action as only they could and the crowd is getting louder and louder as the match goes on - Steamboat wins the IC Title)

Ricky Steamboat: You know, we got voted - that was the best match of the night, then the best match of the year, then the best match of the decade...

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: It was just a sixteen minute match, and McMahon stressed to us - you know Savage and I were wrestling each other around the country building up for this pay-per-view - and you know, we would go out and have thirty - forty minute matches, you know, and McMahon would tell us, "Look, I know you guys have been putting in time out on the road - the feature match is Andre and Hogan - don't you dare go out there and go thirty minutes and leave them with about four minutes..." you know?

Jeremy Hartley: Right!

Ricky Steamboat: So it was stressed to us...so we put together...our match was sixteen minutes, and I think it was like twenty-two false finishes. And that was what made everything so different, you know twenty-two false finishes in a sixteen minute match, that's what made it. And then everybody afterwards...that was a big program at the Silverdome and there was a big banquet afterwards. I was sitting at one table and Savage was sitting at another table, of course we still had to kayfabe each other - but everybody who was coming into the banquet room was going up to Savage, coming up to me...and old timers, marks, whoever they were saying, "God damn! What a match you two guys put on! Nobody was going over to where Hogan was sitting, you know. For some strange reason I feel like maybe I got a little heat because of that match and because it maybe upstaged the feature match. Lets see, how did they say it, it was printed that "Hogan and Andre drew the show, Steamboat and Savage stole the show..." Some of the wrestling magazines just went nuts, we really did get a lot of comments about that match. Also some of the classic matches I had with Flair in 1989 when we feuded for the (NWA) title. But you know something, Jeremy? I've had some great matches that I would even consider equal to Savage that nobody really saw, other then maybe it was at a live show with, you know, Jake "the Snake" Roberts. Even with Don Muraco and Fuji on the sidelines.

Jeremy Hartley: So who worked with you, besides Verne Gagne and some of those guys to help you become the ring psychologist? Did you just pick up on what a lot of the guys were doing? Did anyone take you aside and say...

Ricky Steamboat: I'll throw a name at you. It was when I was in Georgia for the year, traveling with this guy almost everyday, either he rode with me or I rode with him. He worked the WWF, and he only worked the NWA that one year when I was there. His name was Dean Ho...

Jeremy Hartley: Oh yeah...

Ricky Steamboat: His real name is Dean Naguchi, he was Tag Team Chapion of the WWF with...

Jeremy Hartley: Garrea wasn't it..?

Ricky Steamboat: Tony Garrea. And you know, Dean liked me, my mother is from Japan, his family is from Japan but he grew up in Hawaii, um...actually, I had some martial arts background when I was a teenager - I was taking it when the Bruce Lee movies were real popular, I was like thirteen - fourteen years old and all that kind of stuff. So Dean was using it throughout his wrestling career and when I came to Georgia...he took a look at me as Ricky Steamboat and of course he knew Sam Steamboat, up in Hawaii, very well. He said, "Instead of doing the punches and stuff like everybody else, why don't you do what I do?" And I said, "Well, out of respect for you. I didn't want to do it because you do it. Here I am a rookie and you've been around the business, I don't want to do anything..." "Well," he said, "I'm going to teach you. I want to show you how to do it, when to do it, and the times of the match and all that kind of stuff."

Jeremy Hartley: Uh huh...

Ricky Steamboat: I would say that he gad a real big influence, probably the most influence in my early career that carried me through the rest of it.

Jeremy Hartley: Now this is something that a couple of people have mentioned to me and I'd like to get your thoughts on this...when a promoter in a certain territory, stuck a belt on you it was like they were saying, "Hey, these are our family jewels - you're going to represent us, our company..." and it really meant something. Of course now, both organizations, your lucky if you even know who the Champion are - they're just decorative ornaments. So what did that mean to you to get your first title from an organization? I'm sure that you really had a lot of pride in that, and even when you won your last United States title, no matter what the belt meant to the organization at that point, you still probably looked at it as, "Hey, I'm carrying the family jewels..." at that point.

Ricky Steamboat: Well you know, my first belt was the TV Championship out of Jim Crockett promotions in North Carolina (Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling), and even the old-timers during that time, in the seventies, knew that the United States Heavyweight Champion was the number one contender and he was wrestling against Harley Race when he came into the area. Even the guys felt that winning a belt sort of put you a level above everybody else. You know, it really really meant something, you know, even though we knew among the guys that it's "just a work" - and if you could perform and put butts out in those seats for those promoters, they would say, "Hey, if we drop the strap to this guy there's no telling what he could do for us. But it's like the family giving you the nod, "We're going to let you carry this football, and whether you score a touchdown or you fumble on the five - the ball's in your court and it's up to you." And you would customarily see guys that didn't have a strap and when they did get a strap they would work harder, they would come up with better ideas. Their performance level was enhanced - it did have a meaning. And that's sort of diminished over the years. I could see it in the latter part of my years where a guy would have some sort of a belt and would just toss it in the trunk of his car. Whe I had a belt, it was...when the strap was given to you and you walked back to the locker room, the babyface side, right? Holding the strap, the referee - coming over from the heel side, would bring over the velvet bag that the strap went into, okay? This was the meaning...

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: Sort of passing the torch, you know?

Jeremy Hartley: That's right...

Ricky Steamboat: You took your strap and you put it in the velvet bag and that was placed in your wrestling bag. I don't know, the respect of the way we were and the meaning of how strong we kept the mystery - you get...I'm sure you hear this a lot, Jeremy, "You know, I saw him kick him, but it kind of didn't even look like he touched him..."

Jeremy Hartley: Right!

Ricky Steamboat: But then five minutes later in the match, "Did you see him drop that knee on him? My God!" Always, in the back of their minds they have this mystique about whether the business is legit or not but that was one of the big things that kept them coming back.

Jeremy Hartley: Right. Well, and I use this analogy all the time - the magician trying to weave his craft - that's also yet a guarded secret and it meant something to be a wrestling fan, that's what I was thinking about as for as the territories and keeping the business a guarded secret...you mentioned something where they were trying to kayfabe all the time - the heels would stay away from the faces and so forth, and even...didn't that hold true with traveling as well?

Ricky Steamboat: Oh yeah. I've been in situations where we'd walk into a restaurant and there were heels sitting down in the restaurant, and even though we knew that we would be sitting at another table, if I had an angle going on with one of those heels, most times we'd turn around and walk out of the restaurant and go find someplace else to eat. Nowadays they all sit together. Sometimes you'd pull into a gas station and they'd be filling up with gas on the way home and you'd just pull through, you wouldn't even stop - just roll through and go on to the next gas station - or go across the street or the one on the other corner.

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: If you did walk in and sit down in the same restaurant, even though you were at another table, the family run business, the promoter would find out about it and you'd be called into the office. They'd say, "Look we just did this big thing with you and Flair, and Flair was sitting down having dinner..." and you know they would have the spies out there of course, and the promoter would probably find out about it even before you made it home that night...

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: ...you'd be called in and told, "Look, you got on TV and cut an interview saying that the next time you saw him you were going to take his head off and then you calmly sit down and eat in the same establishment!" Crockett would look at me and say, "Kid, do you get the point I'm trying to make here?" "Oh yeah, yessir, yessir..."

Jeremy Hartley: Right! Well, and would you say to that that kind of helped the camraderie...I've started going to a few of these things - the Cauliflower Alley reunions and all these things and it just seems to me that within the next twenty years we're not going to see things like that anymore.

Ricky Steamboat: No...

Jeremy Hartley: You know, guys would have more of a camraderie because of the things that you all had to deal with I'm sure.

Ricky Steamboat: Yeah, many times we had to go out of our way just to uphold the integrity of the business where today you don't have to - so I guess it gave you more respect for what you were trying to accomplish, the art form part of the business. I'm sure these old timers when they go to places like the Cauliflower Alley...you know I've been invited for every year now and I'll make it to one. Things have come up...you know, my son, who I've helped coach in amateur wrestling here in the last five years. One weekend I was taking him to a national tournament, stuff like that has popped up - but I'm sure that the old timers, you know, they probably talk about just what you and I have been talking about - how the business was and how it has changed and how it was better then and not now. You know, the people on the promoter end in today's world would probably say, "Well, look at the numbers that we're doing..." You know...

Jeremy Hartley: Yeah.

Ricky Steamboat: You can't dispute that, but...

Jeremy Hartley: It's a different breed of audience though.

Ricky Steamboat: That's true too but I also think back to fact that we had the style and class of guys that we had, and if we presented the business with the same amount of promotion that we would have in hand. I mean they're spending major money in promoting these wrestling shows - whereas the way we used to do it in the territories it almost brings you back to 1950's black and white boxing, you know the way it used to be done. If you could take the revenue that these promoters were spending to put out the product, but do it with the same "kayfabeness" and the same integrity, there's no telling what kind of numbers you'd be doing.

Jeremy Hartley: We were talking about making things believable and so forth, and I can recall one time when - even with this little episode you'd give it some crediblilty - I can remember you were involved with Jake the Snake Roberts in a nice little heated program there. He had his snake and you had your...you know what's coming next...

Ricky Steamboat: Oh yeah, it was a monitor lizard. I had my "dragon"...

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: Yeah, at one time I had South American Kamen which is a crocodile, and at other times I had a monitor lizard. The damn things weighed about 50 pounds, they had their mouths taped shut and the tape was painted the same color as the skin so you couldn't really pick it up on TV...

Jeremy Hartley: Uh huh...

Ricky Steamboat: But I had nothing to do with it they had handlers and trainers that would...you know, Jake would carry the snake everywhere he went.

Jeremy Hartley: Right (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: We were the main event on a show on the USA network where it was Roberts and his snake, and the snake was in his corner and I had my dragon in my corner and the winner of the match would be, you know like - Roberts...every time he'd beat somebody he'd put that snake on them...

Jeremy Hartley: Right (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: ...and the twist of this whole thing was that I beat Roberts I'm putting the dragon on him. Well, just because of that little mystique there we drew some hellacious ratings on that particular show.

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs) Now you brought it back, I mremember, in a match against Lex Luger, I believe at one of these shows. Now, how did that come about? Was it just some sort of a thing that was just dropped in at the last minute..?

Ricky Steamboat: Yeah, well that was when I was working for the NWA in 1989 and they just thought...actually, I thought...it was a pay-per-view show...that it would just add a little bit more too Ricky Steamboat, because the fans had just finished seeing me doing it with the WWF and you know actually, I think that was my last match with them at that time, when I did the match with Luger...

Jeremy Hartley: You know you mentioned your son, talk about your son for a little bit.

Ricky Steamboat: You know, I've been coaching him, he has finished five years, he started out when he was about five-and-a-half, he's starting his sixth season now...

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: He has been North Carolina State Champion four out of five years, last year he got runner-up. We have been to Columbus, Ohio for the Tournament of Champions, a National tournament, he has won that one. He has also taken a fourth and an eighth at the tournament. Actually, when he goes there are about 62 kids in his bracket, and he has wrestled as much as ten times in one day - ten matches. So I'm real proud of him. We just started back to practices this week. We have a full matroom here at my health club - this is my fifth year...actually starting my sixth year of coaching. We have about 16 kids in our little wrestling club and a lot of them have been with me for...oh - four or five...three, four, five years. Two years ago we had nine of my kids qualify to go to the State...this has been the best year I've had. But two years ago we had nine of my kids qualify to go to the State Championships and out of the nine kids we had six came home as State Champions and the other three took a second or a third - took a silver or bronze.

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: So the wrestling club here is well known around the State of North Carolina. Whenever we walk into a tournament we are Lake Norman Youth Wrestling, everybody goes, "Oh my God! Here comes Lake Norman." And you hear some fans...they'll announce, you know, Bobby Smith from the Rhinos wrestling Richie Blood from Lake Norman..." and the parents of the Rhino's going, "Oh my God! We've got one of those Lake Norman kids..." We teach the kids...I mean it's a different kind of sport, and you have to be a tough kid to do it. But you know, Jeremy, you wrestled amateur a little bit, you know - a lot of the coaches when I go around the State, they ask, "Well, how many kids do you have?" and I say, "Well, we have 15. How many do you guys have..?" "Well, we have a squad of forty-five." "Well, how many coaches do you have?" "We've got three coaches..." Well we have fifteen kids right now, and including me, we have six coaches. We give real good one-on-one individual attention you know, and that's why our kids are good.

Jeremy Hartley: Uh huh...

Ricky Steamboat: I've got a heavyweight, Brian Laver, he played a dual scholarship - he got a scholarship in football and also in wrestling and he wrestled for Klemson. Ephram Hawkings who wrestled for Kentucky - three times All American - he wrestled under Fletcher Carr, I don't know if you remember the Carr brothers - two of them wrestled for us in the Olympics. There were nine brothers in the family and they all wrestled - they're all National Champions and then All Americans. And Ephram Hawkins wrestled for Fletcher Carr - now how do I know Fletcher Carr, who coached at Kentucky? Well Fletcher Carr was wrestling at Tampa University when I was going to High School in St. Pete, and I used to drive across the bridge - drive across the Howard Franklin - to the University and work out with Fletcher - and he was the one who got me ready for the State when I won the State in 1971. That's one of my coaches, Ephram Hawkins, three time All American. Danny Hoy who wrestled for Virginia. Chris Wuff, three times NCAA National Wrestling Champion out of New York - he's one of my coaches. Joe Labotta, who wrestled in High School and College, a heck of a wrestler - every summer I take a half-dozen of my kids to West Virginia - we go to a wrestling camp there - It's called Kenny Churtow - Chertow wrestled for us I think in the '88 Olympics - and he's got the best little kid's wrestling camp in the country. They come from as far as California and Minnesotta to West Virginia. Joe, who is one of our coaches, is an instructor at Churtow's camp. He goes up there in the summer and coaches.

Jeremy Hartley: Wow!

Ricky Steamboat: He's a take down artist, and I talk to a lot of the other coaches throughout the State, they have these wrestling clubs, and I say, "Well, what's you amateur background?" and they say, "Well, I wrestled in High School. I wrestled two years." And then they start listening to my coaching staff. Now, I may be the head coach but these guys have amateur backgrounds, or an amateur status that beats me hands down...but we all get together collectively and we say, "Okay, what are we going to work on tonight?" You know, top and bottoms, take downs, this and that...that's why these kid that belong to this club do well. We just...we got a great coaching staff. It's all volunteer, we don't charge anything and we do have tryouts. But you've got to be a special breed of a kid because this is a very elite club. The coaches can pick out if a kid is going to be good or not. Even if he's never wrestled before but he gets out there and he fights to stay off his back. He's fighing, you know, with his teeth gritted...my kids are very very aggresssive.

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: Very aggressive. They'll establish from the first thirty secons of each match that they are the agreesive ones while the other kid is mostly doing back pedaling. And I say, "Look guys, your standing out in the middle of the mat. The match is over. The referee's in the middle of the circle, he's got one hand on you and the other hand on the other kid across from you - they make the announcement, 'The winner of the match...', you've got sixty parents in the stands, their all looking down at you. Now you tell me - how much fun is it when they raise the other guy's hand and you look across over there and you see they raised the other hand? How much fun is that?" And all the kids say, "Oh that's no fun..." I mean I've seen kids break down, you know, just lose it...and I say, "Well, if you want your hand raised, this is what we gotta do..." But I get a real joy out of it, and it's the way that I give back to the community. And we've furnished a room, we've built a room with heating and air conditioning and lights. The parents help a lot. We do car washes out in front of my health club, we raise money. We buy all the shoes, the wrestling shoes, the singlets, the warm-ups. The wrestling club does a banquet at the end of the year which is paid for with fund raising that we have here and sponsorship. And I tell the parents, "If your not going to get involved then you might as well not have your kid enrolled." It's not the kind of thing where they just drop the kid off. We do carpools but it's not the kind of thing where, when we go out to Raleigh or around the State, you can't just decide that , "...well, it's Saturday" ahnd turns around and go home and watch football.

Jeremy Hartley: Well, and that's something I noticed in researching your career, that although you had the lights and the big cities, the big belts and all that stuff that goes on with wrestling. You were able to really keep stuff in the family. I remember you taking your son to the ring, your young son - and that was just something...I mean, how did you do it? I mean you here stories of guys that just weren't able to do it, but you were always able to do it. Even obviously to this day...

Ricky Steamboat: Well, maybe this is one thing that the other guys never realized that is that when it's all said and done, the famous line, "...when the smoke's cleared..." and all you have to fall back on is your family. All the hoopla's gone. You know, every year that I'm away from the business is a nother year of being away from being on television - and I'm going on my fourth year now - maybe because of my physical look, you know, I look Hawaiin, oriental, and people can still point me out in a crowd but slowly it's diminishing. I get a lot of, if I'm with somebody and I'm introduced to somebody else, it's, "Oh yeah, I remember the name..." you know. But the bottom line is that when it's all said and done, and ten years from now, you know, when I'm 55. What is left but your family?

Jeremy Hartley: Well, That's good advice...

Ricky Steamboat: Also Jeremy, some of the best moments of my career, I was able to arrange to have my family there to witness it and to share some of the highlights.

Jeremy Hartley: That's right...and even be impact players in some of those moments. I remember your wife on a few things and uh...

Ricky Steamboat: That's right...

Jeremy Hartley: ...and that's something that, as I said before, in the next twenty years, I don't think you'll see that. Most of the guys don't have families anyway.

Ricky Steamboat: Sure, you heard recently with Flair making his comeback the last few weeks...

Jeremy Hartley: Right.

Ricky Steamboat: I didn't see it but I heard that he had his son on TV taking down Eric Bischoff. Well, his son got into wrestling because my son was wrestling. Richie's been wrestling, I think, 2 years longer then Reid - Reid Flair. But I started bringing the family values into the wrestling business, first in the WWF but then it carried on into 1989 - I had the same thing going on with Flair, and it just...when I heard that the other day I just sort of sat back and grinned...

Jeremy Hartley: (Laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: ...I thought, "That son of a gun..." Maybe he's pulling the last rabbit out of his hat. 'Cause Flair, who for twenty-some years has always been a womanizer, always been the man about town, with the babydolls and all that...now in the twilight of his career he falling back on family values.

Jeremy Hartley: Right.

Ricky Steamboat: But getting back to what you asked me about just a minute ago - it's the last thing you've got.

Jeremy Hartley: Right. And this is something, you have your web site, your ricksteamboat.com here - have you spent a lot of time reading comments from the fans? Did you ever expect it to explode the way it has right now?

Ricky Steamboat: Well, Spunky Stinson is head of that for me, everything that she gets she sends to me - most of it is faxed over. I run my health club here and I'm here probably twelve to fourteen hours a day - but everything that she has faxed, letters that have been sent in through the fan forum, I take the time out to read and respond then its sent back to Spunky. Every year I order probably thirty 8x10 black and white pictures and they are specifically for fans. I carry them in my car, have them here at the club, I've got people who are passing through from out of State that saw my name on the health club and they've stopped in - I give them autographed pictures. And a lot of them say, "God! Your so neat about this..." and even my employees when they ask me, "...can you do this?" I say, "You know something guys, look around you..." and they glance around - I've got a huge health club. "Without my fans I wouldn't have any of this - without my fans I wouldn't have the house that I have on the lake. So, if in the slightest little bit of me giving them an 8x10 picture that costs me, because I buy a bunch of them, a dime. And for me to take a few minutes out of my day, it is nothing compared to what these people have given me.

Jeremy Hartley: That's a refreshing view on a business that has sort of made a turn where the fans are more alienated, although I think the new breed of fan is doing it to themselves to a certain extent, I mean with everyone trying to say that they know the ins and outs of the business - they're alienating themselves from the guys such as yourself who have "protected" them for so many years. So, I mean, what can they expect, right?

Ricky Steamboat: That's right...everytime I send my reorder in they say to me, "Oh, its that time of year isn't it Ricky..." And I say, "Yep, another three hundred of them or so, send 'em up..." And the people who write in to the health club they say, for example: "We were driving through to Florida and we stopped off at your club. Unfortunately you were not in. Was wondering if we could get an 8x10 and get an autograph." You know, and I send them pictures, I get a thank you note back. Bonnie's got correspondence all the way from Europe of people that she's kept in touch with.

Jeremy Hartley: Now you mentioned your wife Bonnie, and a lot of people have seen little glimpses of her and so forth but she was a very instrumental part of your later career and has really been an inspiration to you, if I'm not mistaken here. You guys have sort of become a great "tag team" as it were.

Ricky Steamboat: Well, you know, I've always been a little bit more of a softy when it comes to agreeing to do this or agreeing to do that, Bonnie would be more of the investigative type, and make sure and check things out. But I guess we work well together. Sometimes she can get a little hard nosed about it and say, "Rick, we are not going to be doing this because they are clearly just taking advantage of you." And maybe my light bulb didn't come on when I was approached to do whatever it wasa I was asked to do. But then she brings it to my attention and then my lightbulb does come on...it may be kind of dim...

Jeremy Hartley: (Laughs) Well, I can completely relate to what you are saying because besides doing this as a hobby I own an Internet service company, I've been in this position for a number of years, and with some people, if you are nice to them they will do whatever they can to try and take advantage of you, and you have to have those people to say, "You need to be a gentleman here but come on, you've only got so much time in your life and..."

Ricky Steamboat: Yeah. Bonnie actually...and a lot of time we are the opposite but there are a lot of things where her idea or her opinion is, she is completely looking at it from another angle. And it could be something that would never, ever in a thousand years, have crossed my mind. And many times I've said, "Boy, I'm glad you brought that to my attention..." there's no telling what I might have gotten us into.

Jeremy Hartley: (Laughs) Well, like I said, we all need that no matter what walk of life we are in. Now here'a a question, and it may not count by the time your son Richie is in his twenties, but supposing that he wanted to get into professional wrestling, what would you say to him? You always hear, or maybe not always, but you do hear guys who are wrestlers and fathers say, "You can do anything you want except get into this business..." (laughs) and I can remember hearing stories from Ted Dibiasi, whose father, before he passed away in the ring, said, "Hey, do anything you want, but please stay out of this business because it's not worth it ..." Of course, the rest is history as far as Ted Dibiasi was concerned - but what would you tell your son if he really though about and said, "Hey, I want to get into this business..." I suppose it's sort of a soul searching question but...

Ricky Steamboat: (there is a long pause at this point) You know, first of all I'm going to put a time span on it, and I mean by "time span" that he gets his education, gets his college degree and whatever that may entail. And I know that Bonnie would probably answer before really thinking about it, "Oh no way, no way...my son's not going to be doing that..." but, as long as he would fulfill his committment to finishing his education and whatever, getting his degree or whatever, and then if he wanted to try it...but I think the two of us, him and me, would have to sit down and say, "Okay, we're going to give this a shot..." and if he wanted to do it we'd have to put a time span on it, like three to five years or something. Not to go so far along that the next thing you know you're approaching your forties, you know you're 38 years old and you've spent 18 years trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you know? And that's never coming about for you no matter how hard maybe dad tries to help with the influence of the Steamboat name and whatever connections I still have, and by that time it's to the point where people are saying "who is that? Because you know something else Jeremy, one thing the business has taught me, in some ways you need to be streetwise and it's helped me even with business dealing here in my health club. As I said earlier, there were some things that I overlooked that Bonnie picked up on. You know Bonnie is also a partner here at the club and there are a lot of shrewed characters and people in the wrestling business. And ones that would take advantage of you in a heartbeat, smile and pat you on the back at the same time. So maybe my radar, or maybe my guard is up when people come into the health club and want to approach me about some scheme or scam that might be health related or something that would make you a million dollars in thirty days - that type of deal, you know? I think maybe the business has taught me that, and if anything with Richie, he would learn some of those things that really you just can't learn through everyday life.

Jeremy Hartley: Right. It is a whole different world out there and all you need to do is just read some of the things and talk to some of the guys and there just seems to be that you have the world at large and then the world of wrestling and the world of business, and it always seems to be just a little different then the other two. You know, lastly, before we kind of wrap this up...I know that you have other things...

Ricky Steamboat: Yeah, we've been at this over an hour...

Jeremy Hartley: (laughs)

Ricky Steamboat: Time goes by when you're having fun...

Jeremy Hartley: You know, every time I do one of these things I never quite know how it's going to go, I'm still...I'm sort of a self taught interviewer, a self taught broadcaster, and it's not only being 23, there's still a lot that I still have to learn. I kind of have to approach it from kind of a humble perspective and let the interview run it's course. If it runs for five minutes it runs for five minutes and if it runs for an hour it runs for an hour. I never try to put any time frame on it. It's something for which I have always been kind of a stickler because with each person it's an individual and some of them want to talk more then others - you have to adjust to that as you go. To adapt. But there was something that you had on your web site that you had mentioned and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting on a couple of folks that are no longer with us. One being, of course, Junk Yard Dog and the other one being "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert.

Ricky Steamboat: I didn't know "Hot Stuff" that well except for the time in 1989 when he was...well it was still NWA before it changed to WCW, you know. He was working in the office a little bit - he was just an okay guy - I never knew him on a personal level, or if he had any problems in the past with the family or with substance, you know? I did not know. Uh...JYD, oh...what can I say about JYD? I knew JYD for a long long time, many many years. I really cried when I heard about his death. Really, a guy who if you were on the good side of JYD the man would give you his heart. He would give you his heart. It's too bad, and I'm sure a lot of people knew that he had a substance abuse problem. But he was pretty smart to the business too, and at times he would...well, I don't want to use the word "retaliate" but in some situations a promotion tried to take advantage of him in situations because he was black, you know. But Bonnie loved him, she got along great with JYD - with us, with Bonnie and me he was always a straight shooter, didn't feed us a bunch of bull, didn't try to tell us something to make us happy, and have us know that it was a lie.

Jeremy Hartley: So do you ever keep in contact anymore with any guys in the business either today or from when you were wrestling?

Ricky Steamboat: I'll tell you every Christmas we get cards from the Hart family. I speak probably once or twice a year with Austin, you know "Stone Cold", used to speak with Flyin' Brian and get Christmas cards every year from him and his family. I only knew Brian, and I guess you really know a lot of the guys just from the time you spent on the road. He was a pretty carefree guy, he was a real nice guy, Flyin' Brian, but to answer your question, the answer would be "No" because they are on the road all the time. Even when they come into Charlotte, I'm about thirty miles North of Charlotte. Most of the guys they fly into the airport and they go over to Flair's Gold's Gym here in Charlotte. They'll work out down at his place. maybe sometimes it's out of respect...

Jeremy Hartley: Right...

Ricky Steamboat: ...so the only thing I really miss, Jeremy, is the time I spent in the ring. All the other aspects of the business I do not miss. The politicing, the back stabbing, the...on and on and on... The ring time is what I miss, that was the fun time. And you know I still wonder to this day, because I'd hear, even when I was in my prime and I'd hear guys complain because the promoter would say, "We need twenty minutes..." and they'd say, "twenty minutes?? How am I going to last twenty minutes?" I would always sit in the locker room and...now, I see it now, when I remind myself of those comments I say, "Buddy, you really don't know what you're going to miss out on in life." You just don't realize that until you actually get out of the business. You know, because you hear old timers talk and they...a couple of sixty year old guys talking about the matches they had, you know twenty years ago, so what it boils down to is what do they miss? It's the ring time. And it might be the same guys who complained about being in twenty minutes, you know? I loved it, oh man.

Copyright 1999 - Jump City Productions.