Athletes - Ricky Steamboat

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Ricky Steamboat

	Athletes - Ricky Steamboat

Richard Blood (born February 28, 1953 in West Point, New York), better known by his stage name, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, is a former American professional wrestler.

Career

Ricky debuted in 1976 in the American Wrestling Association and became one of the greatest professional wrestlers of the 1980's and early 90's. He took the name Sam Steamboat, Jr., from older Hawaiian wrestler Sam Steamboat, to whom he is not actually related, and also wrestled for a time under his real given name before settling on the name Ricky Steamboat, by which he would be known for the remainder of his career. He went from the AWA to the Mid-Atlantic territory of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1977. There he captured the United States Championship three times and the World Tag Team championship six times (once with Paul Jones and five times with Jay Youngblood).

He was brought to the World Wrestling Federation in 1985 where he feuded with Don Muraco, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and "The Macho Man" Randy Savage. At WrestleMania III on March 29 1987, Savage and Steamboat competed in what many wrestlers consider the best match in WWF history in which Steamboat captured the WWF Intercontinental Championship. It was after seeing this match that Chris Jericho decided to become a wrestler.

Several weeks after winning the Intercontinental Championship Steamboat asked WWF owner Vince McMahon for some time off to be with his wife Bonnie who was expecting the birth of their first son Richard Jr. This did not sit well with WWF management as he had been molded to become a long-term Intercontinental Champion. He lost the belt on June 2, 1987 against the Honky Tonk Man. His son was born later that month.

Ricky came back in time for the 1st annual Survivor Series in November 1987. However management was still bitter over his impromptu sabbatical from his first WWF run and he was not pushed nor given any meaningful feuds. His last major WWF appearance was in WrestleMania IV in April 1988. Shortly thereafter he announced his retirement.

Ricky Steamboat made a triumphant comeback in January 1989 and returned to the NWA where he had a legendary series of matches with "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair. He ended up capturing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Flair in February. Aside from several rematches with Flair, he was also the last NWA World champion to defend the belt in All Japan Pro Wrestling in a match against Tiger Mask II (Mitsuharu Misawa). He lost it back to Flair in May.

After losing the NWA title in late 1989 Ricky again ventured into semi-retirement. Ricky did return briefly to the WWF in the summer of 1991 wearing a dragon man costume and blowing fire before his matches. He was not promoted as a major star as it seemed there was still some bitterness from his first run with the company. Theories also suggest that since he had won the NWA title (the WWF's main competitor at the time) that he was purposely buried to give the impression that he won the title in a smaller less competitive league than the WWF. The highlight of that run was at Summerslam 1991 where he wrestled in a 6-man tag-team match with "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith and The Texas Tornado. Shortly therafter he again left the WWF.

In November 1991, Steamboat made a surprise return to World Championship Wrestling (the new name of NWA superterritory, Jim Crockett Promotions, after its purchase by Ted Turner). He captured the Unified NWA/WCW World Tag Team championship with Dustin Rhodes and Shane Douglas on different occasions. He also captured the Television & United States Heavyweight Championships. While feuding with "Stunning" Steve Austin in 1994, Ricky Steamboat took a bad bump off the top turnbuckle and serverely injured his back. He retired for good in August 1994.

Steamboat is widely regarded as one of the top in-ring performers in modern wrestling history, and is one of the most respected and well-liked wrestlers in the business. Notable stars such as Austin, Bret "The Hitman" Hart and Ric Flair consider Steamboat to be one of their greatest opponents. Flair's only, minor, criticism of Steamboat is that he never worked as a heel since the beginning of his career, though this statement could also be seen as praise since it attests to how well Steamboat played the babyface role.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ricky Steamboat ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Ricky Steamboat; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay