Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood were tag team partners for half a decade. During that time, the duo held the NWA Tag Team Championship five times and became as close as brothers.
But Youngblood was battling a war against drug addiction that he couldn't win. He became unreliable outside of the ring, and then inside the ring. Eventually, Steamboat insisted the team be split up. Less than two years later, Youngblood would become another wrestling tragedy, dead at the age of 30.
In one of the most compelling parts of his incredibly candid interview with Wrestling Perspective, Rick Steamboat holds nothing back as he sadly discusses the struggle of trying to help a friend with a drug dependancy and how that addiction ultimately led to their separation.
That's not all.
In Part I of this interview, Ricky Steamboat discusses:
- How his junior college guidance counselor indirectly led him to professional wrestling.
- How he ended up in the AWA wrestling camp.
- How he got smartened up to the business, and who did it.
- Who he didn't tell about being smartened up and why.
- What AWA Promoter Verne Gagne thought of his first match.
- How Verne Gagne earned money off of Steamboat for years after he left the AWA.
- How Richard Blood became "Rick Steamboat" and what happened during his first night with the gimmick.
- A good deed done by ... Ole Anderson.
These topics and many others are addressed by Rick Steamboat in Wrestling Perspective #107.
Click Here To Order Issue #107 With Your Credit Card
Not sure you want to own Issue #107 yet?
Then read these excerpts below:
Rick Steamboat on quickly becoming a main eventer in Florida: "I wasn't a really good worker. At that point in time in my career, we're probably into about three-and-a-half, four months of wrestling in front of people that I could take instructions well. Whoever was the heel leading the match, I could take instructions well. It wasn't because of Rick Blood's work. It was because of Sam Steamboat's name that the next thing you know I'm wrestling main events."
Ricky Steamboat on teaming with Jay Youngblood: "A great, great worker. Lots of fire. He could sell his ass off in the course of a match. When it came to match time, he was right on, he was there for five years. He had problems mostly in the last couple of years we were tag-teaming with substance abuse ...99 percent of the time, he was there. He was on his mark. He hit his spots in every match. But every now and then ... you could see he was way off his feet."
Rick Steamboat on dealing with Youngblood as the substance abuse worsened: "The last year, it felt like I was babysitting him more than what an adult should for another adult. It just became too much for me to even try to watch him. We'd go to the hotel. I'd go to bed, and he'd be up until 4, 5 o clock in the morning wandering around the parking lot."
Ricky Steamboat on working with Ric Flair in the Seventies: "Flair went to Jim Crockett and said, 'I want to work with Rick Steamboat.' He had been in the business maybe a year-and-a-half longer than me, coming out of Verne's camp. ... Flair had come in and got real hot as a heel. He just really stood out. I came in and he wanted to take me in under his wing. The two of us together, we were like two peas in a pod. We just gelled."
Rick Steamboat on the real Nature Boy:"Flair has his way about himself. Sometimes he can be embarrassing. (Laughs) But you can't dispute how hard he works in the ring whoever he's with trying to get the match over. You can't dispute that."
Order Issue #107 today.
Click Here To Order Issue #107 With Your Credit Card
What Else Will You Find In Issue #107?
- Part III of our interview with legendary photographer Bill Apter.
- Bill Potshot Kunkel pays tribute to Fred Blassie.
- The Phantom of the Ring chronicles Fred Blassie's career.
Issue #107 is too good to pass up.
Order Issue #107 today!!!
Click Here To Order Wrestling Perspective #107
http://wrestlingperspective.com/107.html |
