As PWMania.com previously reported, Ricky Steamboat declined an invitation to wrestle Ric Flair at the “Last Match” event in Nashville, Tennessee. Steamboat stated the following reasons for declining the match at the time:
“I don’t want to tarnish the memory that the fans have of me. It’d be a good payday, sure, but I don’t want them thinking, ‘Maybe he should have stayed retired.’”
Steamboat has since changed his story and told Bill Apter of Sportskeeda.com the following:
“Initially, when Conrad (Thompson), who is the promoter, when we talked, I drove to Nashville and we had a sitdown. I was still training pretty good and feeling pretty good, and I said ‘okay.’ We hadn’t signed or sealed the deal on the money part of it, but what put the nail in the coffin is, about a week after that, I found out that Flair was wearing a pacemaker. All these years and I never knew. I immediately said, ‘I don’t think I want to do this.’ I don’t want my legacy to be that I was in the ring if he happened to pass away or something went wrong. I didn’t want that. I’ve done some interviews after that, when they found out I said ‘no,’ but this the first time I’m coming public with this. I didn’t want to throw Conrad or Flair under the bus, so I threw me under the bus. It’s like one of those old-time boxers, they get in the ring and after about the third round, when his legs are gone, everyone is sitting there saying, ‘he should have stayed retired.’ I used me as the reason.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to Jeremy Lambert for the transcription)
