Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Ricky The Dragon Steamboat (Nov 1986 – Oct 1987)

Background

Randy Savage signed with the WWF in June 1985 and debuted on the July 6 Championship Wrestling. Billed as "the top free agent in pro wrestling," he heard offers from Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart, Mr. Fuji, Johnny Valiant and Freddie Blassie on Tuesday Night Titans, turned them all down, and chose Miss Elizabeth as his manager on the August 24 Championship Wrestling.[3] Television never said so, but they had been married since December 30, 1984.[10]

Savage met Ricky Steamboat for the first time on pay-per-view at The Wrestling Classic on November 7, 1985, one of three men he beat on the way to the final.[3] On February 8, 1986 at the Boston Garden, he won the Intercontinental Championship from Tito Santana by knocking him out with a steel object stashed in his tights.[3] George Steele developed a crush on Elizabeth on the January 4, 1986 Saturday Night's Main Event, and Savage beat him at WrestleMania 2.[3]

Steamboat joined the WWF in 1985, beat Steve Lombardi in his debut, and soon became "the Dragon," trading his jacket and trunks for a keikogi.[2] He beat Matt Borne at the first WrestleMania and spent late 1985 feuding with Don Muraco and Mr. Fuji, who hanged him from the top rope with his own karate belt until Tito Santana and the Junkyard Dog made the save.[2]

In 1986 he feuded with Jake Roberts, and on the May 3 Saturday Night's Main Event Roberts attacked him before the bell and gave him a DDT on the unprotected concrete floor.[2][18] Vince McMahon and booker George Scott were adamant that the spot happen outside the ring.[2] Roberts said he told them "it'll f***ing kill him," argued with Steamboat until match time, and found him completely out when he tried to lift him afterward.[15] Steamboat left on a stretcher while his wife watched from ringside.[18]

Build-up

The angle was taped at the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, New York on October 28, 1986, and aired on the November 22 Superstars of Wrestling.[18] The same episode carried the results of the Honky Tonk Man's "vote of confidence," in which 603,272 fans voted against him and 71,111 for him.[18] Nobody watching could have known the two stories would meet seven months later.

Savage beat Steamboat by count-out at 7:03 after crushing his throat against the guardrail with a double axe handle from the top.[18] He then came off the top rope with the timekeeper's bell onto Steamboat's larynx, and Steamboat was taken from ringside on a stretcher.[18] "From the time he dropped the bell on my throat until WrestleMania, we had a three-month buildup," Steamboat said later. "If you drill into their heads week after week and it goes for three months, people will have a better, fond memory of why these two guys are having this blow-off match."[1]

Steamboat sold the injury on television. "I would show up for TV, and we would do those backstage skits and stuff with the doctors and trying to learn how to talk," he recalled.[1] In his vignettes his voice came out as a rasp, and every word looked like a struggle.[14]

The return came on the January 3, 1987 Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC. Savage beat Steele by hitting him with the timekeeper's bell, after Steamboat had come to ringside during the match as a surprise for Steele and been escorted away.[18] After the bout, as Savage prepared to come off the top with the bell onto Steele's throat, Steamboat came back to the ring to make the save.[18]

Around the same time, Steamboat said, the two men started meeting in a hotel room to put the WrestleMania match together.[1] They also wrestled constantly. Through January and February, the house show records list Savage against Steamboat in arena after arena, from the Meadowlands to the Cow Palace.[19]

Most of those matches ended without a clean result. In Vancouver on January 22, Savage won by disqualification at 14:00 when Steamboat used a chair. In Fort Myers on January 27, Steamboat was disqualified for elbowing referee Dave Hebner, who had tried to stop him from hitting Savage with a chair.[19] When Savage did win, it was usually with a roll over and a handful of tights, as at the Spectrum on February 14.[19]

One night the plan nearly broke. At the Rosemont Horizon on February 20, Steamboat pinned Savage with a small package and the referee called for the bell, before Savage reversed the move or kicked out and the planned finish fell apart.[19] By March the program had moved into tag and elimination matches, with Steamboat often teamed with Steele, Roddy Piper or Tito Santana against Savage and his partners.[19]

Savage kept costing him. At Madison Square Garden on February 23, Steamboat lost an elimination match to Harley Race after Savage reversed his inside cradle behind the referee's back, though Piper later pinned Savage.[19] At Joe Louis Arena in Detroit two days earlier, Savage confronted Steamboat on the ring apron and was forced away, then challenged him from the commentary table while referees held Steamboat back.[19] A Superstars taping in Dayton on March 10 included an Update segment devoted to the WrestleMania title match.[19]

The match itself went on the card beneath Hulk Hogan against Andre the Giant. "Savage and I, when we got together, we wanted to make it a championship match, understanding that we're on the undercard behind Hogan and Andre for the world title," Steamboat said.[1] George Steele, who would be in Steamboat's corner, was less patient. "They had been talking this match for three months. I was sick of it, because I don't talk matches."[1]

The Matches

WrestleMania III took place on March 29, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome. The WWF announced 93,173, a new indoor attendance record, but later research puts the crowd closer to 78,000.[4][19] Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura called the card.[19] Savage came out with Elizabeth and Steamboat with Steele.[19]

Before the match, Savage promised to "put you out of wrestling for good," and Steamboat answered in his interview with Okerlund: "This Dragon is made of fire! This Dragon will scorch your back!"[1] Steamboat said that riding out on the cart, he forgot all his stress and "was in awe of all the people in the stadium."[1]

Savage had asked for his referee. "Randy went to Vince and said, 'I want Hebner to do my match,'" Dave Hebner recalled.[1] Steamboat opened by going after Savage's throat, lifting him in a chokehold, then moved on to his signature arm drags, which Savage had built high spots around.[1][6] "I had him in a chokehold up in the air, but that was the only time throughout the whole match," Steamboat said. "We wanted to make it a championship match."[1]

Savage answered with his over-the-top-rope choke, jumping to the floor with Steamboat caught across the top rope.[6] Lanny Poffo said his brother was most impressed when Steamboat took a big bump outside the ring and later went over the guardrail into the fans.[1] After Steamboat scored four pin attempts in 23 seconds, Ventura told viewers, "This is one of the greatest matches I've ever seen!"[1]

After four more pin attempts, Steamboat was thrown into Hebner on a reversal, and the referee went down. Savage hit his flying elbow from the top rope with no one to count.[1] Rather than wait, he grabbed the bell and climbed again.[1] Steele took the bell back, Savage kicked him, and Steele shoved him off the top, and Savage landed hurting his back.[17]

Savage picked Steamboat up for a slam anyway, and Steamboat rolled him into an inside cradle as Hebner came to.[6][19] "Randy picked him up, and then, all of the sudden, one simple small package, 1-2-3," Poffo said.[1] The time was 14:35.[19] It was the first time the Intercontinental Championship changed hands at a WrestleMania.[4]

"The roar of 93,000 people was just ... I had nothing to compare that to," Steamboat said.[1] Dave Meltzer rated the match four and a half stars, and it was voted Match of the Year for 1987 by both the Wrestling Observer and Pro Wrestling Illustrated.[13][19] Ventura later went further: "For me, it was the greatest match I ever saw. Ever."[1]

Aftermath

There was never another televised match between them. For about a month after WrestleMania, they kept the feud going on house shows in steel cage matches.[1] One reign listing shows Steamboat defending the title 26 times, including fourteen cage wins over Savage between April 26 and May 30, while Savage beat him twice by count-out.[7]

Then Steamboat asked for time off. His wife Bonnie was expecting their first son, Richard Jr., and the request did not sit well with management, which had been grooming him as a long-term champion.[2] "Back then, whenever you had that championship, the company was looking at you pretty hard and grooming you to be the next champion," Steamboat said. "But it was short-lived, because I wanted to be there when my son was born."[1]

The plan was for Steamboat to drop the title to Butch Reed, but Reed did not show up.[2][9] According to Honky Tonk Man, Hogan suggested him after a chance meeting with McMahon, though McMahon had someone else in mind.[8][9] Honky had arrived in late 1986 as a fan favorite, been booed, and turned heel under Jimmy Hart after losing that vote of confidence.[9]

At the Superstars taping in Buffalo on June 2, 1987, in front of 14,000, Honky pinned Steamboat at 3:53 by reversing an inside cradle and grabbing the bottom rope for leverage.[19] The match aired June 13.[19] Honky was meant to be a transitional champion until Jake Roberts failed drug tests after WrestleMania, so he kept the belt for a record run.[9] Steamboat's son was born about a month later.[2]

Savage won the King of the Ring tournament in Providence on September 4, 1987, and turned babyface when Honky called himself "the greatest Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion of all time."[3][19] On the October 3 Saturday Night's Main Event, Savage beat Honky by disqualification when Bret Hart broke up the pin. Honky, Hart and Jim Neidhart then beat him down until Elizabeth ran backstage and brought out Hogan, forming the Mega Powers.[3][19] At WrestleMania IV, Savage beat Ted DiBiase in the tournament final, with Hogan's help, to win the WWF Championship.[3]

Steamboat came back for Survivor Series in November 1987, but management was still bitter, and he got no meaningful feud.[2] He beat Rick Rude by disqualification at the 1988 Royal Rumble and lost to Greg Valentine in the first round of the WrestleMania IV tournament.[2] He had hoped to face Savage in the second round. "What a way for me to pay it back to Randy for what he did for me at WrestleMania 3," he said.[5] He left the WWF shortly after and returned to the NWA on January 21, 1989.[2]

Behind the Scenes

The most famous thing about this match is how it was made. "Back in the day, more often times than not, you would get the finish of the match and the rest you would call in the ring, but we wanted to make this one special," Steamboat said.[1] "We were using the yellow legal pad and writing down steps. And it got into like 100-something steps," he recalled. "I would say, 'OK, I'm at step No. 55, it's this and this. Now tell me the rest of the match.'"[1]

Steamboat said a match normally had six or seven false finishes.[1] How many this one had depends on who is counting. In one interview Steamboat put it at 21 false finishes before the final pin, and in another at "like 22."[5][1] Other tallies come in at 20 two-counts or 19.[6][14]

Steamboat said they tested ideas at house shows: "If we got a pop from it, I would say, 'We're going to use that in the pay-per-view.'"[1] In a 2018 interview he told it differently, saying they had no opportunity to work each other before WrestleMania and built the match on gut feeling.[5] The house show records support the first version, listing dozens of their matches in January and February 1987.[19]

Hebner rehearsed with them. "We went to the [WWE] office [in Stamford, Connecticut], where they have all the rings set up. We worked our butts off a month before to go over everything," he said.[1] Gene Okerlund thought McMahon and Pat Patterson had input early, "but somewhere along the line, I believe that Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat made the final decisions as to what they were going to do on their own."[1]

Savage set one rule for the referee. "Randy said, 'Here's the deal. We're not going to put heat on the referee. Dave, if the man's shoulders are down, you count to three, and I don't care if it ruins the finish,'" Poffo recalled.[1] Steamboat called Savage a perfectionist: "I have never, ever met a performer that was a stickler to critical moments and moves as they fit."[1]

Steele saw that perfectionism around Elizabeth too. He said Savage had her rehearse her ring entrance "probably 150 to 200 times so that she wouldn't show too much leg," and called him "the most jealous man I had ever met," adding that "there were times when he would lock her in the dressing room."[1][10] Jerry Lawler has told a version in which Savage locked her in a closet, and Poffo has called that a fabrication.[12] Bushwhacker Luke said Savage confronted him two weeks after catching him looking at her: "Nobody looks at my Liz."[11]

Steele also needled Savage on purpose. He would tell him "I'd have some runs with some of these young broads out here," and Savage would flare up, "so I had him right where I wanted him. When he would come to the ring, he would be fired up."[1] Steele did not want to be in a corner at all. "The only thing I liked about the match was I got to stand across the ring and look at Elizabeth," he said.[1]

Backstage, Steamboat remembered "old-timers like Arnold Skaaland and Gorilla Monsoon patting us on the back and saying, 'God damn kid, what a match.'"[1] Then came the request for time off. "When you say, 'I want to take a vacation because my son is being born,' then Vince says, 'OK, you have to lose the belt,'" Poffo said.[1] Steamboat has implied he was also punished for outshining the Hogan and Andre main event, and in one interview said Hogan was mad at him for it.[2][7]

Legacy

"We knew we stole the show that night, but we never thought it would get us the recognition that it did, and it seemed to grow each year, each day and each month," Steamboat said.[1] In 2016, WWE.com ranked it the second greatest match in WrestleMania history, behind The Undertaker against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXV.[1] Steamboat said a fan poll had it second too, and that the result surprised him.[5]

Okerlund, 46 years into the business, called it "one for the ages."[1][16] Chris Jericho wrote in Undisputed that "ever since I first saw Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat holding that title when I was in high school, it was my biggest goal to one day be the champion just like him."[16] When he feuded with Steamboat in 2009, he wanted to recreate it: "I wanted to pick Steamboat up for a body slam and have him roll me up for the pin, the exact finish of his famous WrestleMania 3 match vs. Randy Savage."[16]

Not everyone ranks it first among their own matches. One reviewer, going back through 1980s footage, wrote that it isn't even the best Savage and Steamboat match of 1987 and preferred their February house show brawls.[17] For Savage, the match became a standard he chased. Poffo said his brother "always tried to top that match with everybody he ever wrestled and couldn't even come close," and that "it just broke his heart."[14]

Steamboat's WWF exit led to his 1989 run of NWA title matches with Ric Flair, starting with his title win at Chi-Town Rumble, and in 2009 to a WWE Hall of Fame induction. In the WWF/E, he was a one-time Intercontinental Champion, and this was the reign.[2] Savage went on to two WWF Championship reigns and four in WCW.[3]

Savage and Elizabeth divorced on September 18, 1992.[3] Savage died on May 20, 2011, when he suffered a heart attack while driving near his home in Seminole, Florida, and entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015.[3] The match that made both men's reputations went into the collections that tell their stories, from Macho Madness to Ricky Steamboat: The Life of the Dragon.[19]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. Brian Campbell, "WrestleMania 3: An oral history of Randy Savage and Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat" — ESPN, March 2, 2017. https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/18802068/oral-history-wrestlemania-3-randy-savage-vs-ricky-dragon-steamboat
2. Ricky Steamboat — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Steamboat
3. Randy Savage — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Savage
4. WrestleMania III — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_III
5. "Ricky Steamboat Reveals Why His WrestleMania 3 Match With Randy Savage Was Scripted Move-For-Move" (Ring Rust Radio interview) — Fightful, May 6, 2018. https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/ricky-steamboat-reveals-why-his-wrestlemania-3-match-randy-savage-was-scripted-move-move/
6. Luke Norris, "WWE WrestleMania Flashback: Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat" — FanSided, March 24, 2017. https://fansided.com/2017/03/24/wwe-wrestlemania-flashback-randy-savage-ricky-steamboat-wrestlemania-3/
7. "Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat's Intercontinental Championship Reign" — The Wrestling Insomniac, February 25, 2025. https://www.thewrestlinginsomniac.com/2025/02/ricky-dragon-steamboats.html
8. "How Honky Tonk Man's Intercontinental Title Reign Began" — WWF Memories, July 5, 2016. https://www.wwfmemories.com/2016/07/05/how-honky-tonk-mans-intercontinental-title-reign-began/
9. The Honky Tonk Man — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honky_Tonk_Man
10. "Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth: Their Tragic True Story" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/randy-savage-miss-elizabeth/
11. "'Nobody looks at my Liz' — Details on Randy Savage confronting a WWE Hall of Famer for looking at Miss Elizabeth" (Bushwhacker Luke interview) — Sportskeeda. https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/news-nobody-looks-liz-details-macho-man-randy-savage-confronting-wwe-hall-famer-looking-miss-elizabeth-exclusive
12. "Allegation That Randy Savage Locked Miss Elizabeth In The Closet Not True" — Ringside News, May 18, 2021. https://www.ringsidenews.com/2021/05/18/allegation-that-randy-savage-locked-miss-elizabeth-in-the-closet-not-true/
13. "Dave Meltzer Star Ratings: WrestleMania 3" — IWNerd. https://www.iwnerd.com/dave-meltzer-star-ratings-wrestlemania-3-iii/
14. Marc Madison, "Ricky Steamboat vs Randy Savage: Their Unforgettable WrestleMania III Classic" — Pro Wrestling Post. https://prowrestlingpost.com/ricky-steamboat-vs-randy-savage/
15. "Jake Roberts Recalls Reluctantly DDTing Ricky Steamboat Onto Concrete Floor" (The Snake Pit podcast) — Wrestling Inc., May 6, 2023. https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1276883/jake-roberts-recalls-reluctantly-ddting-ricky-steamboat-onto-concrete-floor/
16. "How Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat Inspired a Generation at WrestleMania III" — Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2696005-how-randy-savage-vs-ricky-steamboat-inspired-a-generation-at-wrestlemania-iii
17. "Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat, WWF WrestleMania III (3/29/1987)" — HANDWERK match reviews, January 5, 2024. https://handwerkreviews.wordpress.com/2024/01/05/randy-savage-vs-ricky-steamboat-wwf-wrestlemania-iii-3-29-1987/
18. 1986 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/86.htm
19. 1987 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/87.htm

Further Listening

• Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard — WrestleMania III episode
• Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story — WWE documentary (2014)
• The Honky Tonk Man — RF Video shoot interview, on the Buffalo title change