Ricky Steamboat Quotes

Once you learn how to work inside the ring - once you learn how to tell a story - then you can come to a big company like the WWE and learn the extra stuff, like the video, the pyro, the music, and that adds to everything you can do.

There's a positive side to film and television, the sense of feeding into the theater... Your fans will follow you, hopefully, and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.

Pro wrestling is not fake; it's sports entertainment. We go out there and we perform, and a lot of what we do out there is real, but we're not going to insult anyone's intelligence - there is a predetermined winner. It's just the fans don't know who it is, and that's what makes it so intriguing.

I get a lot of influence from pro wrestling. People are like, 'Oh, it's fake.' But it's not about whether the guy wins or loses, it's about how he entertains you the whole time you're watching.

You learn more discipline in the theatre than you do in movies or TV. You're on stage every night and you have to sustain your energy level tor several hours.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Ultimate Warrior had a hell of a gimmick, but wrestling is about so much more than that. You have to be consistent, work main events every night and have matches that people really believe in and want to see.

I've worked my entire career to try to broaden the perception of the WWE. A lot of folks think because we're so entertaining and oftentimes have such wild and well-defined characters that it's all we are. It has kind of been my life's work to tell the public that's not true.

Every day I wake up I am thankful and every night I am very thankful that I've made a career out of the phrase 'Let's get ready to rumble!'

Sometimes I wrestled in front of very small crowds for very small amounts.

So, there's plenty of good heels in the business. I don't see guys who can get fans to rally behind them like I do. It's hard. It's the hardest job in the business and I'm doing it every single night.

I loved being a Funkadactyl and was looking forward to us evolving together.

Fans watching need to be able to connect the dots in your match and the story that you're trying to tell.

I'm one of those wrestlers that leaves everything to the audience and to the fans. I never plan anything, and you will never see Alberto Patron planning in the back what he is going to do in the match.

I wouldn't go to pro wrestling. It's not really my thing. I'm a fan, but I think every sport could take some notes from the WWE - how they've progressed and stayed relevant for such a long period of time.

I loved wrestling, and I wanted to go out and entertain people and all that stuff, so I get trained, and when they decided, 'Hey, you're ready for a match, and you've got to start thinking about a character,' I was thinking this guy and this guy, and they go, 'No, no, no - you're a Muslim. You've got to be a bad guy.'

I think being a WWE Diva is a tough job; there's lots we do that's not seen on television, constantly working and trying to better ourselves.

I knew how to upset the people, and I did it in such a way that it was believable. That's how I made a living at it for 20 years. I don't regret a thing I done or said in wrestling. Nothing.

I once said that I never wanted to be a good guy or the 'baby face,' as we call it in the wrestling business. But you know, it is what it is, and I'll be whatever they want me to be. At the end of the day, we work for the WWE fans.

Wrestling has progressed to the point that the fourth wall has been broken. People would enjoy more seeing what is behind the superhero that they watch on TV.

I think a natural evolution for me would be to try to transfer over into the film and TV world and start playing different characters. Hopefully, that way, I can keep entertaining my fans that are fans of me, in different avenues and different spotlights. It's a natural evolution.

When I was in England, I did a lot of wrestling and moves. Over here, they were like, 'You don't need to do that much. Save your body. Become an entertainer rather than a wrestler.' And I wasn't used to wrestling on TV and in front of huge crowds, so it was a big adjustment.

I study entertainment and apply it to myself to one day become the greatest WWE superstar we have, and it's a lot of work. So I write jokes and material every day... you have to keep people's attention, one way or another.

Everything we do in the 'Woken' universe is so fantastical that wrestling fans, especially younger kids, who only know Matt Hardy from tag team matches or Team Xtreme or whatnot, they need to learn what I am before we can start expanding.

As far as the community involvement is concerned, I don't necessarily think that being a babyface or being a heel really affects that because, at the end of the day, people know that we're entertainers. We're very forward about that.