Ricky Steamboat Reportedly Requested Ricky Starks Assault On AEW Collision

Ricky Steamboat requested that Ricky Starks attack him on last week’s episode of AEW Collision, according to a new report. Starks snapped and attacked Steamboat following his loss to CM Punk, a match for which Steamboat was the special outside official. Steamboat had shoved Starks’ feet off the ropes at the end of the match and counted the pinfall for Punk.

The Ringer’s Cameron “Ceehawk” Hawkins appeared on Nick Hausman’s Haus of Wrestling podcast and noted that Starks specifically told him that Steamboat requested the assault.

“A bit of a Collision note,” he said. “So, in the original finish, like after the match, Ricky Steamboat was gonna chop Starks, and that was going to be it. Ricky Steamboat pulls Rick and Punk into a room and tells them the finish that we saw. It brought Rick to tears because he appreciated it so much. So, salute to Ricky Steamboat for making a good thing, a great thing.”

He added, “[Starks and I] talked about how things go and, you know, especially after the match, I was like, ‘You killed it.’ He was like, ‘Cam, this is what happened,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so cool.’ Yeah, man, salute to Steamboat. That’s dope. Because think about how cool and how physical and how visceral that was; Ricky Steamboat’s idea, and his whole thing was, ‘Look, man, this is supposed to make you look good. Not me.”