In a recent episode of The Business Of The Business podcast, Big Time Wrestling co-promoter Steve Perkins discussed several topics, including the upcoming in-ring return of WWE Hall of Famer Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, how it came to be, and how it took time to convince Steamboat to make an in-ring return.

“So, and some of it I’ll get into it as much as I can, but obviously everybody had heard about Ricky possibly getting back into the ring for Ric Flair’s Last Match and it didn’t happen for whatever reason, and you know, it’s probably a myriad of reasons that most of the internet doesn’t get right but didn’t happen, but that allowed me to know that hey, Ricky’s not against this, Ricky’s capable of doing this.

This was close, because Ricky’s agent was a friend of mine, Tony Hunter, who’s an agent for a lot of guys too. Bret Hart and I happened to be in Knoxville for a Comic Con and I was there with Bret, I just started asking Ricky questions and Ricky wasn’t adverse to doing it and I just went to Ricky and said, Ricky, this night is going to be about you, this is a night about Ricky Steamboat, we’re going to do it at the Dorton Arena and that’s just a historic place for Ricky Steamboat, it’s a historic place for Jim Crockett.

The amount of one-hour draws Ricky and Ric probably had there is, you know, insurmountable, the number of times they probably went 60 minutes and it’s just a historical building and a great place and I said Ricky, it’s going to be a classy thing, it’s going to be all about you and we’ve got a hell of a lot of talent that’s going to want to jump on board and be around this, so I took quite a bit of time to convince him and come to terms on it, but it’s going to be incredible.

I know in my head who’s committed to be there, and it hasn’t fully been announced because we’d love to get promos filmed first, but the talent on the card doesn’t end with Ricky Steamboat, it could be Ricky Steamboat in one match, and you could take the ring down and go home and everybody would get their money’s worth, because I don’t know if you’ve heard, I don’t think Ric Flair could have been more correct about it, but when Ric was asked on his podcast about it, Ric said, hey Ricky Steamboat wouldn’t be getting in the ring to do this if he wasn’t going to do it right and wasn’t going to look like a million bucks. Ricky trains, Ricky works out, Ricky doesn’t have carbs after lunch, Ricky takes his body seriously now, so I guarantee no one will be disappointed by Ricky Steamboat in the ring.”

The full interview is available at this link.