WWE: Top 10 Superstars To Never Be World Champion
By Tim Sherry
credit: wwe.com
5. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat
When Ricky Steamboat was signed to the WWE in 1985 at 32 years-old, he already had a resume that most pro wrestlers would dream of. He’d spent the previous eight years wrestling in Jim Crockett’s NWA and managed to capture every title belt that federation had to offer. So when he brought his talents to the WWE, many believed they were looking at a future world champion. A natural baby face, in fact, maybe the best baby face to ever lace up a pair of boots, Steamboat took the company by storm. His flying ability and pin-point wrestling technique turned heads, and along with his charm and likeability, he quickly became a popular figure in the company.
He used that initial success to defeat Randy Savage in what has become known as one of the best wrestling matches in WWE history at WrestleMania III for the Intercontinental Title, and it looked like the era of The Dragon was just beginning. So when he dropped the belt just 65 days later to The Honky Tonk Man, it left the fans in shock. Reports surfaced afterwards that Steamboat asked for some time off to spend with his wife who just gave birth to their first child. Call it revenge or bitterness from management, Steamboat dropped the belt and never got back anywhere near the top of the heap again where he belonged. Want to know how badly he got demoted? In his first two years in the WWE, 1985 and 1986, his combined record was 259-28 (cagematch.net). In 1987, the year when he asked for time off, his record was 58-43. And he really only took about six weeks off to be with his family. A bit of an overreaction from the company, maybe?
Steamboat left the WWE in 1989 and joined WCW briefly. But in that brief stint he battled Ric Flair over the NWA Championship in some of the greatest wrestling matches in the history of the sport. At that time WCW valued in-ring action over mic-skills and overblown characters and that may have exactly the reason why “The Dragon” never reached the next level in the WWE. Steamboat got his deserved induction in to the Hall of Fame in 2009 but with such immense talent, one has to wonder what might have been.