Revisited Rivalries - Ricky Steamboat vs Steve Austin
Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat. The name immediately brings to mind one of the ultimate babyfaces in the history of professional wrestling. When one thinks of his career, his feuds with ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage and Ric Flair will ultimately take the forefront. And while both are iconic in their ways, one feud that helped mould a future superstar while also being the last of his career will slip under the radar. From 1992 through his early forced retirement, there were two men that Steamboat would specifically find himself locking horns repeatedly. The first was the leader of The Dangerous Alliance, Ravishing Rick Rude, usually battling for the WCW United States Championship. But arguably just as, if not more important, was his feud with the rising star Stunning Steve Austin. The two would battle on and off for two years until a back injury ended his career, but it would inadvertently lead to Austin’s WCW exit.
Following a cartoonish second run in the World Wrestling Federation, The Dragon would return to World Championship Wrestling as the mystery partner of Dustin Rhodes at Clash Of The Champions in late 1991. In their first match together, they would defeat The Enforcers team of Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko for the WCW Tag Team Championships. They would hold onto the titles for a few months before being dethroned by the newly formed Dangerous Alliance duo of Arn Anderson and the late, great Bobby Eaton in a two-out-of-three-falls match. More importantly, this was part of the groundwork leading to the most fantastic War Games match of all time at Wrestle War 1992. Interestingly, the first match on record between Steamboat and Austin occurred during this initial reign, when the two battled for Austin’s Television Title on a January 1992 episode of WCW Worldwide. The match would go to a time-limit draw as was common for the TV title during that era.
Following the Tag Title loss, Steamboat would align with Sting in his battle against the Dangerous Alliance, and the next Clash Of The Champions would see the duo battle and defeat the team of Rick Rude and Steve Austin. The next few months would have a stronger focus on the aforementioned feud between Steamboat and Rude, but Austin would also duke it out with the Dragon from time to time. Perhaps the oddest of these was on an episode of Worldwide where the two fought to a time-limit draw in the Nintendo Top Ten Challenge Tournament.
By May, things had heated up, leading to Wrestle War, where the Dangerous Alliance, consisting of Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko and Bobby Eaton, faced off against Sting’s Squadron, consisting of Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes, Nikita Koloff and Barry Windham, met in the fabled War Games. As one could easily guess from the sheer amount of unbelievable talent in the match, it stands for many as the greatest of the match type, one still trying to be matched by WWE’s modified version and AEW’s Blood and Guts. Seriously, seek it out if you’ve never seen it and revisit it if you haven’t lately.
Following War Games, Steamboat and Austin would fall away from one another but still battle on the house show and B-show circuit from time to time, trading victories back and forth. It was clear by this point that Steamboat was seeing what so many others were, that Austin had all the tools and charisma to be a top guy. Following a brief detour in the tag division during The Great American Bash ’92 tour, Austin and Steamboat would again be ready to lock horns regularly.
Over August, Austin would attempt to keep a rattlesnake-like grip on the TV title, defeating Steamboat or dragging him to the time-limit draw repeatedly. Finally, at the beginning of September on the big Clash Of The Champions XX, which was also celebrating 20 years of wrestling on TBS, the two future Hall of Famers battled in the opening match in a No Disqualification match, which finally allowed Steamboat to get the upper hand and walk away with the gold around his waist. In an off-topic but interesting fact, Clash XX was also the last televised US appearance of Andre The Giant before his death.
Austin and Steamboat would continue battling around the loop on the house show circuit, while Steamboat would defend the title on Saturday Night TV against the likes of undercard talent such as Erik Watts and Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, before Scott Steiner, would shockingly dethrone him on an episode of Worldwide less than a month into his reign. Scott was still young in his career and mainly known for his tag efforts, so no one saw it coming, but it allowed The Dragon to move back into his on-and-off feud with Rick Rude before finding himself entrenched in the tag ranks once again going into 1993.
As Steamboat and his new partner, the former Dynamic Dude and future Franchise, Shane Douglas, began tearing through the tag ranks en route to winning the NWA/WCW Unified Tag Team Championship, a familiar thorn in the Dragon’s side would reemerge not too long after. Stunning Steve Austin would find himself famously slotted into a tag team that he did not want to be a part of, but along with his new partner Flyin’ Brian Pillman, would enter one of the most pivotal periods of his career, with both men making the best out of what they initially deemed a lousy situation. Soon, the teams of Steamboat and Douglas would be battling all over America against The Hollywood Blondes, in most cases with Steamboat and Douglas winning. That said, many of the matches over the next few months were usually dubbed by the fans in attendance as the best matches of the night, a testament to the talents of all four men.
Perhaps the most intriguing of their battles back and forth occurred right before Cowboy Bill Watts had been ousted as Executive Vice President of WCW when he brokered a deal to bring in Jim Cornette and his two top tag teams for special appearances. At a Worldwide taping in February of ’93, Steamboat and Douglas would team up with The Rock N’ Roll Express to face The Hollywood Blondes and the original version of The Heavenly Bodies consisting of Stan Lane and Dr. Tom Prichard. Less than a month after this match, another episode of Worldwide would see the Blondes finally get the duke and the titles.
Shortly after this time, the unfortunately injury-prone Douglas went down with an injury, leading to several singles matches between Steamboat and either Pillman or Austin, with some of the house show matches being 20-minute Iron Man bouts in a bit of foreshadowing in a cage. Soon enough, the decision was made to put Steamboat and Douglas under luchador masks and become known as Dos Hombres. This would culminate in a big steel cage battle between The Hollywood Blondes and Dos Hombres at the first Slamboree – A Legends Reunion.
In the final match between Austin and Steamboat for quite some time, The Blondes sneakily defeated Dos Hombres in the cage, finally snuffing out the feud between the four men….except one of the four wasn’t actually in the ring. Due to both Douglas’ injuries and backstage machinations, he was not present for the match and Steamboat’s partner was The Z Man, Tom Zenk, under the hood.
From here, Austin would continue his run with Pillman, while Steamboat would quickly bounce back from the loss, defeating Paul Orndorff for the TV Title and entering a feud with Lord Steven Regal for the title. Following the return of Ric Flair from his brief exodus to the WWF, the decision was made to elevate Steamboat back to the main event picture, trying to recapture the magic from their legendary 1989 feud. It would, unfortunately, be brief as the tides of WCW began to shift upon the signing of Hulk Hogan. Hogan would immediately be slotted into a program with Flair for the strap, while Steamboat would be bumped down the card to the United States picture, currently held by his old rival, Stunning Steve Austin.
Following the dissolution of the Hollywood Blondes and a brief feud with Pillman, Austin was seemingly being pegged as the next “guy,” but this would all change upon Hogan and his regime entering the company. Despite that knowledge, Austin and Steamboat knew they could always be the best match on the card and went about tearing it up from town to town on the house show circuit, with Austin always walking away with the title.
The duo’s last televised match would be on August 24th, 1994, at Clash Of The Champions 28. Once again, in a No Disqualification match, where Austin couldn’t weasel his way out to keep the gold, Ricky Steamboat would defeat him to become the United States Champion for the last time in his career. This was also the time that Austin had switched from his flashier ring gear to simple black tights, albeit usually sporting the words “Dragon Slayer” on the rear, an obvious ode of things to come for his appearance going forward. The two would continue battling it out on the house show circuit until an unfortunate in-ring injury caused Steamboat into forced early retirement.
Steve Austin vs Ricky Steamboat at Clash Of The Champions 28.
Many would think of this as the end of the story, but Steamboat and Austin would come face-to-face in a WCW ring one more time with the United States Championship hanging in the balance. At WCW Fall Brawl 1994, WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel and Ricky Steamboat would enter the ring to announce that Steamboat could no longer compete, bringing an elated Austin to the ring to once again claim his championship. Steamboat would then reveal that Austin would still be defending the title that night against a debuting Hacksaw, Jim Duggan, who barreled through Austin in 35 seconds to win the title.
A somewhat deflating end to a career-defining feud for one man who would become the biggest star in the business, in addition to the last feud of one of the all-time greats. Soon enough, Austin would be gone from WCW due to a combination of a poorly-timed injury and seeing the glass ceiling in the ‘new WCW’. At the same time, Steamboat would enjoy his retirement while also lending a hand in training future superstars.
Looking back on the feud, there are flashes of brilliance that show what Austin was destined to become and, as Steamboat recalled in an interview, the desire to learn from one of the most outstanding in-ring technicians the sport has ever seen was evident. In a 2019 episode of the “In The Room” podcast, Steamboat spoke of Shane Douglas and Steve Austin in glowing reverence.
“[Shane Douglas] was a young man that was eager to respectfully learn. You could see his eyes light up; that was the light bulb clicking in his brain. He was very coachable, like a sponge. Austin was the same way. I said to the office that [Austin’s] got it and you need to do more with him. It wasn’t too long after that he moved to the WWE and became ‘Stone Cold’, and the rest is history.”
Anyone familiar with Steve Austin’s WCW run is likely already familiar with how influential this feud was for the young up-and-comer. One could argue that Ricky Steamboat may be the most influential part of Austin’s WCW career outside of Paul Heyman. They were intertwined through several years, including Austin’s time in the Dangerous Alliance and The Hollywood Blondes. Looking back, Austin's tutelage in the ring from The Dragon and most likely behind the scenes helped line him up for his forthcoming monstrous run as Stone Cold.
Without the Dragon, the Stunning one may never have become Stone Cold.
