Enter the Dragon

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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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13821 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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