Ricky Steamboat: Wrestlers Today Do Moves In The Ring Just Do To Moves

Ricky Steamboat echos a complaint a lot of old school wrestlers have against today’s generation: guys are doing moves without an actual story.

Speaking to AMBY’s Alicia Atout, Steamboat became critical of the wrestlers today who don’t know how to tell a story in the ring.

“We have a lot of good athletes today and a lot of good wrestlers. But to me, I feel they do a whole lot of movement in the ring and it’s just to be doing movement in the ring,” he said. “I do seminars and I teach and I say, ‘Do you guys know how to tell a story?’ Because in every match there’s a story. A lot of them don’t know how to get to first base without the story. They’ll go out there and do 100 things, and they’ll do them well, but does any of it tie in to tell the story? They just go out there and put together stuff. Does it all connect together? Not really. They’ll do something to the head and neck, then the leg, and then the arm. They’re all over the place. They’re not connecting the dots.”

Steamboat isn’t the first, and likely won’t be the last, to share these thoughts. Ric Flair recently criticized workers for kicking out of finishers too often. Jim Cornette famously rants about the “old school mentality” any chance he gets.

The Dragon is arguably one of the best to ever step foot in the ring, but there remains a huge disconnect between the athletes of today and the more tactical wrestlers of the ’80s. 

You can view the full interview with Steamboat and Atout in the video above.