Ricky Steamboat Quotes

The whole wrestling art, it's a whole form, is performance, and that's what makes it so exciting to do.

It's good to go out and entertain these people, and you've got them on the edge of their seat, they're standing up. Then you know that you've done your job, you've entertained them. My way of entertaining them is going out and wrestling. Everyone's got their different ways.

There are no tough guys in wrestling.

A guy like Ric Flair at 49 could go out and do his character. A guy 49 going out and doing Goldberg again - I don't know what the odds are.

As you evolve, you learn that wrestling is not necessarily about stunts or spots. You need to go out and show the audience that they can love you for the persona you are - not because of the risk you're willing to take or the jeopardy you're willing to put your body in.

I love wrestling, and I love telling a story to the audience.

Wrestling is to go out there and perform and make people believe that either of the performers in the ring can win - either the bad guy or the good guy.

I don't want to spoil this for anybody but wrestling, sports entertainment, is 'pre-determined.'

I've always liked being on the performance end of it. I've come up with different ideas, but as far as being a creative writer, I'm not sure about that. I've always liked the performance end of it and wrestling, getting in the ring in front of a live crowd.

Sometimes you experience magic out in the ring.

When you go into a 'WWE' ring, you know you're going to compete. You know that things are going to hurt. It is a dangerous, dangerous place. No matter what people think or say, it's a very, very dangerous thing.

To portray something that you're really not, it's like a little escape, and I love to act and to be dramatic. I feel like the wrestling ring in WWE is the perfect platform to do that. It's totally acceptable.

When the fans were watching my dad, you could never tell if this was real or is this fake, and that's what made him so special. Every ounce of energy went to being The Nature Boy.

The cool thing about WWE is it's like entertainment boot camp. You're performing in front of a live audience, a different audience every night. You're doing promos in the ring. You're doing talking segments in the back. You're wrestling. You're performing. It's everything all rolled into one.

Obviously, wrestling is a lot of fun, and I love it. But on the mic is where I have the most fun.

In the grand spectrum of things in WWE, you are wrestling for that camera and that camera and that camera - and all the cameras they have - and you have to make things work that way because, through that camera, there's a million people watching.

Johnny Valentine's the one who said, 'I can't make them believe that wrestling is real, but I can make them believe I'm real.' It would take him forever because he was just stinkingly boring for 30 minutes of the 40-minute match, but he would let people hit him as hard as they could, and he would hit people as hard as he could.

Even though MMA and pro wrestling are very different, at the end of the day, it's all about entertaining. They are amazing athletes who go out there and give 100 percent.

'Heel Turn 2' is about a person who's in a match, and he's playing as though the match were real. But it is real! If you're standing in the middle of a ring, and you're playing the villain, and everyone is booing and throwing things at you, that's real.

WWE is a space where I thrived, and I loved, and I still do. I love connecting with an audience; that is the greatest thing about going back to WWE.

We really do have a lot of personality in WWE. You have to, to be in this job. You showcase a lot of personality.

When I first joined 'Dancing with the Stars,' I did not want to do it. It's not what I like, it's not what I believe in... the judges are fake, this is fake, that is fake... there is not a lot of reality.

We take pride in making our Knockouts Division about wrestling, not about looking pretty.

Amateur wrestling, you can go by instinct. Pro wrestling, you have to memorize, and you have to go by what moves you said you were going to do. Sometimes you have to feel the crowd and do the moves at the right time and know the timing and tell a good story.

The cool thing about pro wrestling is we do a lot more acting as far as characters in general than MMA. I know a lot of people like the MMA fighters because they like the rugged look.