The Truepenny Show

While this series has looked largely at the forgotten teams of times gone past, this edition deals with one of the world’s most underrated tag wrestlers. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat is better known these days the man who built the Broadway Church with “Sixty Minute Man” “Nature Boy” Ric Flair in their classic series of the late eighties over the NWA title. He is perhaps most widely known as the man who crafted, alongside “Macho Man” Randy Savage the Wrestlemania III Semi Main that will live on as the apex in wrestling quality for the early days of WWF expansion. This article though will look at what got him there, and the things he did after. His rise to prominence in the Mid Atlantic region alongside “Number One” Paul Jones, his mercurial tag team with Native American Jay Youngblood, and the swansong to his tag team career; his involvement in the development of the Hollywood Blondes, his teams with Dustin Rhodes and Shane Douglas.  Steamboat was born Richard Blood Junior, in Wes...

For loyal listeners to the Truepenny Show you will know we take great pride in our academic approach to discussion.  Each show has a wider subject but like any good University seminar we will soundbox out ideas and theories as we talk about matches and wrestlers. Occasionally we will spin off into flights of fancy. One such idea that floated and off repeated which was expanded upon by my colleagues, Chelsea Spollen, Marcus Green, Alex Watt, Alex Edwards and Si Heath (who is the absolute master of headcanon conspiracy),  was that of the story of Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega. Whilst giggling our way through what was next for the former Tiger Mask W, I floated a theory as to his sudden return and trip under a mask. It basically went like this; Kota’s run in the G1 Climax of 2015 ended in injury and disappointment. He then proceeded to resign from both his home promotion DDT and New Japan for whom he’d signed a unique two company deal. Feeling burned out he needed to move on h...