Ric Flair On His Chi-Town Rumble Match With Ricky Steamboat, Where Steamboat Ranks Among All-Time Greats

On a recent edition of To Be The Man, Ric Flair discussed his Chi-Town Rumble match with Ricky Steamboat, where Steamboat ranks among the all-time greats, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Ric Flair on his Chi-Town Rumble match with Ricky Steamboat: “I don’t think from the time after several years of working each other that we ever had anything that wasn’t as good as Chicago. We both wanted to deliver the best product, and we both worked out extremely hard. He was in amazing condition. You don’t ever see a match where we sat in a hold for any period of time. We didn’t have to catch our breath. We just went at each other, and he let me hit him as hard as I could and vice versa. It was a war.”

On his first impressions of Steamboat: “That’s when [Jim] Barnett was running Georgia, and Jim Crockett was running Mid-Atlantic. They needed another babyface in North Carolina. So, Crockett gave up One Man Gang and we got Ricky Steamboat, and the rest is history. I guess it’s been that way forever, but when you were a young kid coming up, especially like me when I started or when Steamboat started, it was really hard to even get a place next to a veteran guy or big name. It was a different time. You didn’t get booked in that position.”

On their chemistry in the ring and where Steamboat ranks among the all-time greats: “We never talked about anything. He trusted me, and I always trusted him. He listened, and he just knew where to be. In my mind, he will be one of the top three professional wrestlers of all time. Even though he only worked side. There’s no one like him now. Not even close.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit To Be The Man with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.