Aside from being a great overall athlete and one of the premiere baby faces of his time, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat is known mostly for possessing the best deep arm drag in the wrestling business.

The fact that this is captured in his new three-disc set from WWE Home Entertainment, “The Life Story of the Dragon” proves that it is a success, but several missteps along the way make it a DVD that isn’t as special as his storied career was.

The main reason why the documentary section of this collection falls flat at times is because Steamboat himself is such a decent person. Make no mistake about it, Steamboat does not have the dangerous past of Jake Roberts or the inspiring story of Brian Pillman. Instead, he’s just an extremely hard worker that carved his own path to success. Hearing his story, you’ll understand he wasn’t like anyone else in the business. However, it’s not the most entertaining story told and as a result, you’ll prefer to watch some of the excellent matches featured on discs two and three rather than hearing the Steamer discuss his life.

Nevertheless, while the dozen or so matches are chock full of drama, featuring everyone from “Cowboy” Bob Orton, Roberts, Ric Flair and Rick Rude, there’s no reason why some of his earlier matches with Flair, before he went to the WWE, shouldn’t have been included.

As well, many of the matches are long and of the epic variety. The fact that Steamboat doesn’t and never did exactly have a finishing move doesn’t help the pacing of some of these matches, which while being a testament to his prowess in the ring, don’t exactly have as much action as you’d like.

It’s almost impossible to knock any match the guy participated in, but after seeing what feels like three dozen knife-edge chops in a match, it doesn’t take Mike Tenay to tell you these matches haven’t aged as well as they could have.

Nevertheless, after watching, you’ll see what an impact Steamboat had on a business he never exactly fit into.

Because of that, the set is worthy addition to any WWE fans’ DVD library, even if it isn’t as enjoyable as it could have been.

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