Quotes from Ricky Steamboat

I'm happy to see NXT grow. Everything they are doing, they are going in the right direction.

Things can be fast paced in the ring but I was very particular in knowing to be in the right time at the right place.

I learned early on as a baby-face you had adapt to their style. Ravishing Rick Rude had his own style and his own way with a little bit of some Ric Flair-isms. But I always learned to adapt myself.

The one moment above all that fans bring up from my career when they run into me is the Savage match. Here it is, 30 years later, and everywhere I go that's what people want to talk about.

I've been in the business over 35 years and had over 6,000 matches and I am helping guys who have only been in the business maybe a year or two and 100 matches. I am taking my 6,000 matches and passing it along.

When I went to WWE, the level of work I put out every night was just balls to the wall.

I have never, ever met a performer that was a stickler to critical moments and moves as they fit. Savage was a perfectionist.

I walked into Eddie Graham's office, he took one look at me and said, 'You look a lot like Sam Steamboat. We're going to make you his nephew - Ricky Steamboat.'

Wrestling has been a very big part of my life.

I started right off with this character-type guy and blowing fire from the get-go.

It takes two guys to tell a story, paint a picture, so our audience can be entertained and brought into the match. You need to suck people in emotionally to a match, and it takes both parties to paint that picture.

A lot of guys, if they're a face and they see their drawing ability start to falter, they'll turn heel and they're right back on top again. Same thing with a heel. All of a sudden they'll turn into a good guy. Ric Flair has done that throughout his career a number of times.

I'm not suggesting that every moment in the match has to be huge, but you've got to space it out to have a couple of really outstanding moments.

The phrase that I use a lot is you've got to connect the dots and keep connecting them up to the finish.

I don't like to use the word 'fake.' A lot of our stuff is choreographed. But there is a lot of physicality that happens during the course of a match and our careers. There's a lot of physicality that happens to us and you can't deny that.

The roar of 93,000 people was just... I had nothing to compare that to.

What was old can be brought back new, and I bring that to the table. I bring mannerisms, facials, body language, positioning.

You can have a good run for several years with one company and then be able to extend it with another.

I like to listen to the crowd, I really do. The crowd helps give me that extra boost of adrenaline.

The old-timers taught me about psychology. Whatever body part, for instance, you decided to work on, well, you worked on. If you're working on someone's arm, you don't go to the head with headlocks. You don't go to the lower body. If you start with a body part, you stay with a body part.

Part of my success was rooted in psychology.

I've got a bad back from being in the business for more than 20 years, but if I did have that opportunity, I'd love to have one more go-around with Flair.

I was in the business for 20 years and look at Flair. He was probably approaching 35-40. But today, if a guy has good 8-10 year run, he is either considered that damn good or lucky.

Without our fans, we wouldn't have anything. I owe everything I have to the ones that paid money. It trickles down to them paying my salary, so I'm always thankful.