Credit http://www.JimmyVan.com  

Part three of my exclusive audio interview with former NWA World Champion and WWE Intercontinental Champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat is now online at JimmyVan.com in MP3 and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link: 

http://jimmyvan.win.lowfathost.com/steamboat/part1/steamboat-120705-clip1.mp3 

Ricky's book, The Professional Wrestlers' Instructional and Workout Guide by Sports Publishing is now available in all major bookstores and online at Amazon.com. 

And don’t forget that my book, Wrestling's Underbelly: From Bingo Halls to Shopping Malls is now available at Amazon.com as well. 

Here is a text transcript from this 41-minute portion of the Ricky Steamboat interview. 

You were always billed as being from Honolulu, but you were actually born in West Point, New York. 

"That is true." 

And you're in Charlotte, North Carolina now.

Rick said he's a little north of Charlotte in Denver, NC, close to Morrisville which is the home of NASCAR. 

You're half Japanese. Do you know the language at all? 

"Scoshi... that means a little bit," Rick laughs. 

You were an amateur before you turned pro. How was your amateur background? 

"Went all the way to semi-finals in the states." Rick said he went to high school in St. Petersburg, Florida and wrestled there for four years. He was going to go to a college in northwestern and was talking about scholarship potential, as well as football potential in Kansas State. But then he went to St. Petersburg Junior College and didn't do any wrestling, but he was watching Florida Championship Wrestling.

 Your junior college guidance counsellor sort of led you to pro wrestling... 

"Yes, well I had that decision made because of the fact that I was going to get transferred to Tampa University and finish out, and I actually wanted to be a football and wrestling coach. And at that time, which was about 1973, at that time in '73 he was telling me that there was an abundance of coaches at the junior high and high school level throughout the state of Florida. A lot of northern coaches were coming to Florida and finishing out their teaching and retiring down there and there was a pretty long waiting list, even for someone like me that got right out of college and wanted to go into it. A lot of high schools would rather have a coach that had been coaching for 15 or 20 years rather than just somebody straight out of school. It was at that time my high school girlfriend in '73 went to Minneapolis, Minnesota to go to Northwest Orient flight school. That's where she ran into Donna Gagne (Verne's daughter)". 

So you ended up going into the AWA wrestling camp. Khosrow Vaziri (Iron Sheik) was one of the trainers, and a couple of the guys in the camp with you were Scott "Hog" Irwin and Buck Zumhofe. 

"Right, and Jan Nelson." 

Jan Nelson as well...

 "Yeah. Scott and Jan have both passed away." 

Tell us about the AWA camp. Ric Flair has said that when he went through he actually quit twice. 

"(Flair's) camp, along with Greg Gagne, and Jim Brunzell, and Kenny Patera, and The Iron Sheik went through that camp I believe; his camp was the camp before mine. First day of camp we had about 16 guys show up, and at the end of two weeks there were four of us left, the three names that you had mentioned, and myself. And it was the hardest thing that I ever went through in my life. I knew that I was going to go to Minnesota for about six months prior to going, and I trained really hard in Florida. I was weight training every other day, and also doing cardio running training. And I was running barefoot on the beach in the sand for about five miles a pop, and I was doing that every other day. But even with all that, going up there as fit as I was, I went up there probably weighing in the neighborhood of 240 pounds and about 12 weeks later I was like 202. I dropped like 40 pounds." Rick said the first three or four weeks it was all cardio before they even learned to put on a headlock. 

Flair said he had to train in a barn... 

"The year we trained in '74, that was the year that Verne had moved his office to a 20-storey building, so we were in the basement." 

And you had to run the stairs with somebody holding your feet. 

"We would run the stairs every day. We would run them, and then run back down, and then you would have a guy going across your back in a fireman's carry, and go up 20 flights of stairs, drop him at the top, run down, and then switch positions, he would then carry you... and then he would grab your ankles, and you would wheel barrel on your hands 20 flights and he would drop you, run back down and then switch positions." 

Flair said in his book that nobody ever smartened him up to the business when he was in the camp, and it wasn't until the end that he figured out how things worked. Was that the same with you? 

"Nobody smartened us up until... it was our last week. It was the last week, it was the 12th week. I believe it was a Friday. The four of us, I think we were going to wrestle that following Saturday. It was very close thereafter that the four of us... I was going to wrestle Scott Irwin and Buck Zumhofe was going to wrestle Jan Nelson, and our first match was in... we were going to Chicago. It wasn't until the last week or the last couple days that Khosrow actually smarted us up. As each week was going by, we started to talk about it and we were getting suspicious." 

Sheik was telling you guys to be loose with the holds and that helped you figure things out.

 "Well he would try to teach us to go from... like chain wrestling, go from one move to another move to another move. And if you're stiff and locked up, he says "I can't show you," so he said, just be loose so I can show you how to move the arm and move the leg and you can continue the rhythm. That is the way we were taught going over our drills over and over and over and over. Then we got a little suspicious. After about six or eight or ten weeks of it, we thought, how do you go from one hold to another when a guy really has it locked in on you real tight? That discussion never came about. We were huddled up together and sometimes we'd talk if Khosrow was 15 minutes late or if he went to the bathroom or something like that. "You know... we haven't been shown anything that hurts yet." Headlocks and top wristlocks and hammerlocks, all this kind of stuff you know? Even the figure four... if you apply pressure to the figure four, that's a legitimate give-up hold, it hurts like a son of a gun. But you'd lay on your back and you had to keep your legs real loose so he could show you how to apply it. And then one guy would get down and I would do it, then I would get down and he would do it, and we'd just go back, maybe 10 times apiece just applying the figure four."

You started in the AWA before you were sent out to the territories. You were known as Dick Blood in the AWA... 

"Yes. Yes." 

What was it like working under Verne? 

"He was okay. There was just one match, one moment when he really got pissed at me. I'm not copping out by saying it wasn't my fault; it really wasn't. We were wrestling in Winnipeg, Canada and I was wrestling against Mad Dog Vachon. And Mad Dog and Verne were coming back to Winnipeg to wrestle for Verne's championship, for his AWA belt. So I was just going to go in and have a match that lasted five or six minutes with Mad Dog. Well, that particular match was a 20-minute time limit, and it was like the first month that I was in the business so he was a heel and I was just listening to him. The match just went on and went on and went on, he just kept talking and I just kept listening and I just kept doing what he wanted me to do. "Okay kid, fight back," and then he'd cut me off. You know, "Sell, sell, keep selling, okay kid fight back," ... we went 19 and some odd minutes. Getting back to the locker room, Verne came into the locker room and there was a hall way. One side of the locker room was the babyfaces, the other side of the locker room was the heels. Verne came into the locker room, and he was just screaming, "What the hell do you think you're doing out there? I told you you only needed to go 5 or 6 minutes, don't you know I'm coming back with that guy?" and on and on and on. And from across the hall way in the other room, you could hear Mad Dog, "Verne Gagne! If you wanna yell at somebody, you come over here and yell at me! That kid was doing everything that I told him to do. It was not his fault. If you want to yell at someone, come yell at me." And I was sitting there going, *whew*. Other than that, Verne would come down and try to teach. He wasn't a yelling in-your-face type of guy. He was pretty cordial."

 WWE now has a dress code policy. Back in the day Verne always wanted guys to wear slacks and sport coats. 

"That's true." 

So it's almost like he had a dress code policy 30 years before WWE did.

"Ya, I mean most of the guys would come to the building, Larry "The Axe" Hennig, Baron Von Raschke, Billy Robinson, Mad Dog, all the guys would be wearing sport coats and turtle necks and slacks. Looking very, very professional. And I don't mind it back with (WWE) in the capacity what I'm doing now... I do not mind it at all. We all understand, or at least I do and the other agents that work with me, that this is the number one wrestling company in the world. It is the only really wrestling company in the world. You can go and wrestle abroad, you can go wrestle over in Japan and get some bookings over in Europe and stuff like that. But here in the States... and understand that this is... you can't get any higher than where we're at. So dress appropriately. No more wearing the gym pants, the Zubaz. You know the baggy Zubaz?" 

Yeah I think Animal is one of the guys that came up with those. 

"Yeah, which everybody... they're very comfortable. Look at where we are in our business. A lot of the other professional athletes too, baseball players, football players and stuff like that, they all dress pretty well when you see them travelling. They all dress up so we should also set the example." 

Your first territory after the AWA was Florida with Eddie Graham. Going back to Ric Flair's book, he talked about the contracts that Verne would make you sign giving him 10% of your gross when you went somewhere else. 

"Correct." 

Was that a problem with you, and how long did it last for? 

"No I paid it. When I went to Florida I paid 10% of my gross down there. I was only in Florida for maybe four or five months, then went to Atlanta and paid my 10% there. Ole Anderson was the booker in Atlanta at that time. This was getting in around 1976, towards the end of '76. After I'd been there over a year, he said to me, "Ricky, it's time to move on." I said, "Well I'm one of Verne's boys." "Oh, you're under contract with Verne, and give him a kick-back." I said, yeah. So he said, "Well you need to call Verne and tell him that you've been here for over a year and you've done good, but it's time for you to move on." So I called Verne up and then he called me back and he says, "Okay I've got a spot for you, I'd like for you to go to Vancouver, British Columbia." At that time in Atlanta, I had a good friend of mine, Dean Ho, who wrestled with Tony Garea in the WWF at the time. He had a referee friend in Vancouver and he called him up and asked him how's business up there. Because from Atlanta to there is like 3,000 miles. And the referee said the business is terrible, guys are only making $20-$25 a night. For me to drive all that way just to make that kind of money, he was suggesting for me to find another territory to go to. So I called back Verne and told him the situation and if there was another territory that he could send me, I would truly appreciate it. Well, this was the second time that he was really upset with me, you know, "You green kid, punk kid," and this and that, "You should understand that you've gotta pay your dues in the business," and on and on and on and on. So in so many words he said, "Okay if you're really not wanting..." and I said look I don't want to drive 3,000 just to go work five or six days a week for $25 to $35 a night. So he was telling me to book yourself. He said, "Book yourself then, and see how far you get in the business." So I went back to Ole with this and I told him the whole story about what Vancouver's doing, and Verne getting mad and telling me to book myself. He said, "Let me see what I can do," and a week or so later he called me up and said, "You're going to Charlotte, to Crockett Promotions up there." I went there, and six months later I was doing an angle with Flair."

 So Ole is the one that got you into Mid-Atlantic. 

"Yeah... that was 1977, March of '77 and it was about two years later... Crockett started going in and out of Toronto... believe it or not we walked into one show, it was either '78 or '79, and there in the locker room was Verne Gagne. He came up to me and said, "We need to talk." So we went into a separate room and he said, "I understand you've been doing pretty well here." And I said "Well yeah, I've been here for about two years now and started working an angle with Ric Flair and did well." It was around that time that Youngblood and I were tagged up and doing very well as a tag team. And he says, "You're making main event money now," and I said, "Yeah that's right." And he goes, "Well you owe me 10% for the last 2 1/2 - 3 years." My response back to him was, "Verne if you recall our conversation, your last words to me were for me to book myself and see if I can make it in the business." And I threw this line in not really knowing. The last line I said to him was, "And if you want to further this anymore, call Jim Crockett Promotions and speak to the office attorney, and then that's where we will take it from there." Not even knowing if the office had an attorney. Really, I didn't, I just threw that in. And that was the very last time I saw or heard from Verne Gagne." 

So obviously he never went after the money again. 

"No he flew from Minneapolis to Toronto there and just wanted to see if he could collect 10% from the last 2 1/2 years that he said I owed him." 

You changed your name to Ricky Steamboat, and you got the name from Sam Steamboat. 

"No." 

It was not from Sam Steamboat? 

"The Steamboat name did obviously derive from Sam. But Eddie Graham and Jack Brisco when I went to Florida after I left Minneapolis, Eddie Graham gave me the name." Rick said he walked into the Tampa office and Eddie looked at him. Verne had sent him a black and white 8x10 with Dick Blood written across it. Eddie said it was a great name, but it was a heel name and Rick was a young babyface. So Eddie told him about Sam Steamboat and said they would bill him Ricky Steamboat, Sam's nephew from Hawaii. "I said, Mr. Graham you can call me anything you want, I'm just happy to have a job." Rick told a story about his first show where he got into the ring and the ring announcer said Dick Blood wouldn't be able to make it due to flight problems, and Rick had forgotten about the Ricky Steamboat name so he approached the ring announcer and said, "I'm here!" and the ring announcer tried to shoo him away before introducing Dick Blood's replacement - Ricky Steamboat. "He walks by and he says, "Smile and wave to the fans, kid, smile and wave to the fans," so all of a sudden I just started waving, and the place just erupted. It wasn't like two months later that I'm working a main event with Mike Graham and Steve Keirn doing a six-man tag against The Hollywood Blondes and Humperdink as their manager. And it wasn't because of my work, it was only because of Sam Steamboat." Rick said that that was his first experience working any kind of main event. 

You were known for incorporating martial arts techniques into your matches. Dean Ho was your influence... 

"He was very, very instrumental in showing me how to do it, and when to do it and how to do it in the fashion of a work, and stuff like that. Yeah if it wasn't for Dean, I don't know if I would have ever done it." 

You had a background in martial arts training. 

Rick said his dad was in the Army and when he was a teenager the GI's were working out with martial arts and self defense and Rick would go to the gym after school and work out with them. "I actually became the throwing dummy," Rick laughed. "That is the limitation of my background, but I have to give Dean Ho all the credit because of the fact that he was the one who brought it to my attention. And because of my look, my Oriental look, he said, "You oughta use it, it'll fit you very good." While I was in that year in Atlanta, Georgia, even though I never started really doing it in the ring, throughout that year he was showing me and teaching me." 

The move that you did that was my favorite was the deep armdrag. Where did that come from? 

"Jack Brisco. Jack Brisco was doing that move in the late 60's and the 70's and I was watching him do it on Florida Championship Wrestling." Rick said Jack was the one that got air between his body and the mat when taking a guy over in the armdrag. "I started doing it but once again, credit goes to another individual, another wrestler." 

To this day on WWE television if somebody does it, the announcers say that it's Ricky Steamboat's armdrag. 

"Well at the time, you know obviously with pay-per-views and the way television was, Jack was doing it back in Florida Championship Wrestling but TV was just down in Florida." 

In Mid-Atlantic you feuded with Ric Flair, and that was the first feud that really made you take off. You were the new guy coming in, he put you over right away, and the storyline was perfect with Flair the womanizer who was threatened by this good-looking newcomer. Describe that first time working with Ric Flair. 

"Wow," Rick said. "He was snug. His punches and kicks and chops and stuff like that. He was living up to the image, obviously you have to realize what era of wrestling that was. That was an era in our business in which kayfabe was dominant. You know, make your punches look good, or stick 'em in, work tight, work snug." Rick said that that was what being in the main events was all about. He told a story about when he used to watch wrestling at the Armory in Tampa as a fan, and you could see that the opening matches were "getting by" but when the main event came on, you believed that they were really out for each other and kicking each other's ass. "Eddie Graham and Boris Malenko, Dean Malenko's father. They would have these Russian Chain Matches and they'd be bleeding and wrapping the chain around their hands, around their fists, and hitting each other in the head with them. And we would be sitting there saying, "Man, there's nothing fake about that, he's really hitting him," and so with that in mind, you could see a little difference in workmanship." Rick said that Flair introduced him to a tighter, more believable program because they were in a feud. "There would be times in which he would be sitting down in a restaurant eating and I would walk in and see him and turn around and walk right back out. Or if we happened to be in a public place passing each other, maybe we would knock shoulders and turn around and look, and maybe a word would be exchanged. We would uphold the integrity of the business so strong during that period of time of the business." 

During that same period you were a competitive bodybuilder. 

"Ya I did some shows during 1979, mostly local stuff," Rick said. "Mr. Southern States, which was taking North and South Carolina... mostly just local guys, nothing passed that." 

What's amazing about that is that you were training for those bodybuilding competitions, meanwhile you were going 60-minutes every night with Ric Flair. You couldn't have been consuming too many calories... 

"Very low carb, even during that time. And most of the time I was taking any kind of complex carbohydrate it was probably an hour or two before the show." 

You were big on fruit... 

"I was real big on fruit, and I would eat that maybe 15 minutes before going into the ring, a couple apples or oranges or pears. Maybe two hours before the match I'd probably eat half of a baked potato. That was my complex carbs. And that would be it... and then I'd have my proteins throughout the day. It would give me just enough to make it. Just enough to... but there were times in which during a long match, a 60-minute match with (Flair) I would get light headed and feel weak, and he would have to slap a hold on me until I could gather myself up again. But yeah we'd work 60 minutes. It got to be so... that was probably a real joy in my life with Ric for 60 minutes. I'll never forget the time that after I'd established myself with Flair as a babyface that Harley Race at the time was the World Champion and he came into our territory. Usually the NWA Champion at that time was in and out of territories, working territories for like a week or two and then moving on to another territory. And that was the schedule. And I'll never forget I was working with Harley Race for the very first time in Raleigh, North Carolina, I'll never forget, Dorton Arena. The booker George Scott was there and just before I was going on he said, "You're going an hour through." And I said, "Wow, really?" He said, "Yes, you're going an hour through with the Champ." I'd already had some hour matches with Flair at this time, but this was Harley Race, this was the World Champion. I was like, holy geez, you know? He said, "Don't worry, the old timer'll take care of you." So I just went out there and listened, we went through the hour, had a good match. It wasn't until about ten months or a year later that he swung back through the Carolinas again and sure enough, return match, Ricky Steamboat and Harley Race. And booker George Scott said, "You're gonna go an hour through." He said, "We can't beat Harley Race of course, but also we don't wanna beat you." So I went out there and as soon as I locked up with Harley... and I didn't know this, most of the time at that time of the business, heels called the match... I had worked with Harley in that hour broadway a year before, but just as we locked up he goes, "Kid you call this match." 

That's like a major sign of respect. 

"It was. It was. He had me call the whole match. Already in my mind sitting in the locker room, I remembered some of the trademark Harley Race stuff that he liked to do. But I never knew that... just as we locked up he'd say, "Kid, you call this one." I got weak at the legs for a moment, you know?" 

But you got through it fine. 

"Got through it fine, gave me a hell of a comeback in the last five minutes of the hour broadway. Bounced all around the ring for me. After the match I'm sitting in the locker room, we're the last match of course, I'm by myself. Harley is across on the other side of the building in the heel locker room. Referee came over to tell me while I was in the shower, Tommy Young said, "Hey, Champ says thank you very much, you called a good match." I thought, wow." 

Probably the best compliment you could have had. 

"Knowing the condition of our business at that time, knowing that kayfabe was so prominent. Respect for your senior workers in the business was always... yes sir, no sir, type of thing. The champ comes walking in, you immediately stand up, walk over and shake his hand. It was that type of deal going on. If there wasn't a chair, and he walked in you would offer him yours. That type of thing. So when I heard that from Tommy Young... that was a great compliment." 

You mentioned earlier Jay Youngblood. Aside from the feud with Ric Flair, you were probably the best well known at that time for working with Jay Youngblood, you guys were the tag champs and you worked together for four years. Would you say that he was your best tag partner or at least your favorite tag partner? 

"Both." 

He was known for having substance abuse issues. 

"Yes, that's correct." 

His problem sort of became yours in that you had to deal with them, especially as time went on and things escalated. What was it like at that time, you guys were tag partners in the ring and then outside the ring you had to take care of him. 

"I'm not painting myself as an angel... around 1981, I'm thinking 81'ish, 82'ish, doing drugs and drinking a lot of beer, a lot of alcohol, and doing uppers to get up for a match, doing downers to come down from the match. There was probably a period of time in my life of about 6-8 months where I don't remember getting any sleep. I saw myself on TV wrestling and I actually looked at myself physically. It was an awakening. I said, "Oh my God, do I look like that?" I was dropping weight, I got away from training, just partying all the time. That was an awakening. I just went cold turkey with it. Although he, Jay, continued. And it became a big problem between him and I. Going down the road, he would continue doing drugs. Going to the matches, and then coming back. That last year we were together, I tried to be his big brother. I tried to tell him, "Hey, you've gotta stop this. It's a dead end for you." He would try, it wouldn't work. He would try, it wouldn't work. Finally after a year, I went into Crockett Promotions, I said, "Look, I don't wanna be tagging anymore." It wasn't too long after that that Youngblood really fell off. Him and I didn't speak very much to each other. Loved him like a brother, would have tried to do anything for him as much as I could. I remember when I got life insurance for myself and for my family, he had a little girl, Rica, and was married. I said, "You know Jay, if something should ever happen to you or us, you've gotta have a little something for the family." So my insurance guy got him life insurance. Then when I heard he had passed away I called my insurance man. He had not heard, but I did because Jay had passed away while he was over in Australia or New Zealand, something like that. I told my insurance man to start getting the paperwork ready. And he said that about six months prior to Jay passing, he'd stopped paying his premiums, and it got cancelled out. That was tough, and it also sucked. You've gotta be kidding. He left a wife and a beautiful baby girl, and they had nothing." 

Part three of my exclusive audio interview with former NWA World Champion and WWE Intercontinental Champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat is now online at JimmyVan.com in MP3 and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link: 

http://jimmyvan.win.lowfathost.com/steamboat/part1/steamboat-120705-clip1.mp3