WWE Hall of Famer Ricky Steamboat was recently interviewed by Ring Rust Radio. You can check out the full interview at this link, and check out submitted highlights below:
Ring Rust Radio: I think any longtime fan of wrestling has great respect for your WrestleMania 3 match against Randy Savage, but one thing I've always been curious about is WWE's decision-making regarding WrestleMania
Ricky Steamboat: Well honestly, I don’t know the reason. I didn’t question them. I had thought that when I was looking at the bracket, I had Valentine in the first round and Savage was in the second round. I felt myself, what a way for me to pay it back to Randy for what he did for me at WrestleMania 3 and of course I would love to put him over right there in the middle. It was a surprise to me to know that that wasn’t going to happen. I don’t know if there’s politics involved, I never questioned it. Dropping the ball on a situation like that I think the fans would’ve really enjoyed to see a return type match between Randy and I even though it was only in the second round of the tournament. I was looking forward to paying him back and really giving him a good look.
Ring Rust Radio: Your match with Randy Savage from WrestleMania III is one of our favorites. Is there something specific that stands out to you about that match that perhaps fans may not be aware of or you feel goes overlooked?
Ricky Steamboat: A lot of Q&A’s that I do at appearances, comic-cons, or conventions, they always ask about that match and I’ll say that match was completely scripted and put together. The reason was Randy and I did not have any opportunity to work with each other leading up to WrestleMania 3. A lot of main event guys are able to work with their partner and fine-tune their match before a big pay-per-view, but Vince wanted my debut to be on that day. The only thing we could do was put together something that would work just from gut feeling. We didn’t know if it was going to work with the fans and we didn’t have a chance to try and fine-tune it. Thank God what we did put together worked. I think the biggest thing I wanted was to make it a championship match. That was my answer to Randy because he is asked, “What do you want to do Dragon?” So, I told Randy that we got to make it a championship match. He told me that I should go after his throat since he came off the top rope with the bell on my throat. I said what I kind of think is everybody would expect that. If we could have a moment in the match where I get a little payback and then let’s move on to making it a championship match. What I meant by that was we had 21 false finishes in a match that went less than 17 minutes, and I thought the story that we were trying to tell here Randy is that I’m going after your belt, and you’re trying to hold onto it. So, with all those false finishes and finally number 22 was the final 1, 2, 3. We were talking about my dive off the top I did and I think everybody again would kind of expect that so let’s catch them out of the blue. It was a simple he picked me up for slam and I hit him with a small package. A small package is probably one of the most prostituted moves or false finishes in our business. I think anything that we do at this point and time in the match is going to pop the fans. Where we had 21 attempts and worked in really good match. What surprises me is 31 years later and I still get people asking me about that match. 31 years later. I just wish Randy was around so we could share that moment a lot more often together, but he is not. That’s what I’m talking about with making a championship match. He’s going after me, I’m going after him, anytime you get the opportunity to try to beat the guy and cover the guy the fans are really going to go with it. I read somewhere, I can’t remember, memories not all that good with me anymore with being dropped on my head a few times. I read somewhere that they took a recent poll through the fans, old generation and new, and that match with me and Savage ended up being like second of all WrestleMania matches. That did surprise me because how many matches do they normally have on a WrestleMania? 10? You take that, times 34, that’s over 300 WrestleMania matches and we ended up number two which really surprised me. It really just popped me and really did that the fans thought so much of it. We’re just going by a couple of good pros that knew what they were looking for and Randy was very open to my suggestions for the two of us to put this together. If we had a chance to fine-tune it, like maybe have a handful of matches between ourselves it might’ve even been better. I will tell you this and looking back people ask me if there was anything we would’ve changed. I said yeah, and this is what I would’ve added: I would’ve added me coming off the top with my dive, and the referee gets down for the three count, and I would have had Savage kick out. That would of really threw a monkey wrench at the fans. For the fans to see the first time anyone ever kick out of my finish. Would you guys like to know the first time I was able to watch the match back? What was the of WrestleMania 25? That was the year I got inducted into the Hall of Fame and it was also the time when the company put out a three-disc DVD of my career. Of course, they gave me a bunch of copies and I sat there and I was able to watch that match. From 1987 to 2009, it was over 20 years before I actually watched the match that everybody talked about. There are times when I was watching it and trying to remember what was coming up next. There are several times during the match that blew me away because I couldn’t remember then when I saw it, it hit me was like déjà vu half a dozen times when I was watch the match. then I had to plug it and watch it over again the third time my memory came back to me altogether and I was able to call it and how everything was happening move, after move, after move. The first time I watched it like you guys, it blew me away and it caught me off guard several times.
