Drew McIntyre Recalls Wrestling Ricky Steamboat In His Final WWE Matches

After retiring in 1994, Ricky Steamboat made a comeback in 2009 to work a program with Chris Jericho at WrestleMania and Backlash.

After his match with Jericho at Backlash, Steamboat did a live event loop with WWE, working with Jericho and Drew McIntyre, which are his final WWE matches on record.

Speaking to Ryan Satin on Out of Character, McIntyre was asked what it was like to step in the ring with Steamboat.

“It was absolute insanity. He only had a few matches (at the end). It was basically myself and [Chris] Jericho who had a couple of matches with him and that’s insane to think of. I remember being in the ring with him and it was a sold out and limited crowd, maybe 1,000 people. He was so cool, calm, and collected. I don’t take arm drags, I always go over awkwardly and it doesn’t look good. I always tell people ‘don’t do an arm drag,’ but I was wrestling Ricky Steamboat, so I was going to take an arm drag. At FCW, a year or two later, I was with his son [Richie] and I said, ‘I remember back in the day, I would wrestle your dad’ and it was just a year before,” joked McIntyre. “[Ricky] was so relaxed and the crowd was with him because he was in the moment and so present. I was thinking so much about not messing up and in my own little bubble. That’s why they weren’t responding to me and it took me a long time to figure out. I was out there so concerned about things I might do and not messing up, if you looked at my eyes you could see I was not present or part the match. It was very obvious and it was obvious that Ricky was part of the match and he believed in himself so they believed in him.”

McIntyre was just 24 at the time he worked Steamboat on the house show loop and had yet to re-debut on WWE television after working a couple of matches in 2007 and spending time in FCW.

McIntyre is now fully established on WWE television and will challenge Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship at Hell in a Cell on Sunday. You can view the current lineup for the show by clicking here.

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