Ricky Steamboat On Randy Savage’s Match Planning Behind The Scenes

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Ricky Steamboat spoke about how meticulous Randy Savage was when it came to planning out matches backstage, including the match they had at Wrestlemania III. Here are highlights:

On his match with Randy Savage at Wrestlemania III: “That match, 2-to-1 (ratio) is talked about the most to me. Why? We didn’t know it at the time, but we wanted to come across to the fans that we wanted to make it a championship match. I’ll give credit where credit is due as the two biggest icons in the business – Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan – they were headlining WrestleMania III and we were the match right before them. They had the world championship up for grabs and we wanted to make ours a championship match. So in laying that thing out, we sort of changed the blueprint to make it a championship match. We ended up with all of these false finishes – 20 false finishes in a match that went 17 minutes. Customarily back then there was an average of about seven false finishes in a match. We took fans on a wild ride and went back and forth throughout the match. The guys today tell me, ‘Ricky that match changed everything on how to structure things.'”

On Randy Savage’s match planning: “When the camera was on, he was very colorful. When it came to putting a match together, he was a stickler. Dot your I’s and cross your T’s. Make sure everything means something. A half a turn this way will make the opening that much better. He was A to Z and back down again. He was a perfectionist and more so than any guy I ever worked with. With me, if I made a suggestion then he was wide open to it. ‘[Savage voice] You know Dragon, that’s better than my idea. Let’s do that!’ It made me a better worker and opened my eyes to little things you take for granted. It helped me moving forward in terms of structuring matches. When we were putting this thing together, we didn’t know if we were ahead of the curve as we were just trying to put together a championship match. It was all about me trying to beat him for the championship and Randy was trying to hold onto it.”

On approaching Andre the Giant about the match: “I approached Andre about a month before out of respect because those guys were the headliners and I was asking if they were doing anything special so we knew to stay away from that. He was very cordial. Andre and I got along very well and were tag partners on a couple of occasions. He just goes, ‘No boss.’ At that time in his career he was hurting. His back, hips and knees. He told me they were gonna have a very laid back match and he left the door open for me and Randy. So that’s why we did what we did.”