Ricky Steamboat was one of the biggest stars to ever wrestle. His WCW title victory over Ric Flair at the 1989 Chi-town rumble in 1989 and his win over Randy Savage for the WWF Intercontinental at Wrestlemania 3 are legendary, but this article will be about Ricky Steamboats lesser known brother Vic.

Vic Steamboats first wrestling appearance with on Mid-Atlantic TV in 1984.  During this appearance Vic Steamboat was working at his brothers gym, when Black Bart, Ron Bass and JJ Dillon entered the gym and roughed up Ricky Steamboats younger brother.

Vic Steamboat`s actually in ring debut in December of 1986, when he wrestled for Eddie Grahams Florida Championship Wrestling in its final few months. Steamboat got pushed right away

Steamboat teamed with Stan Lane and Mike Graham defeating The Sheepherders and Sean Royale in A series of matches. Steamboat would later form a successful tag team with Kendal Whindham to defeat the Sheepherders, The Shocktroops, Hacksaw Higgins and Kareem Muhamad, Jack Hart and jerry Grey, and jerry Grey and Sean Royale, before losing to the New Breed in a match to crown the vacant Florida tag team titles.

Jim Crocket would officially buy Florida Championship Wrestling in early 1987, and they did not bring Steamboat in. Steamboat would lose to Lex Lugar and be on the losing side of a six man tag match against the horseman, right before the promotion closed for good.

In the summer of 1987 Steamboat would briefly wrestle in Memphis. He teamed with Alan West and Mark Star to defeat the tag team the Rising sun featuring Akio Sato. Steamboat would also defeat Boy Tony on A Memphis card, before the two would wrestle again in a few months later in Vic Steamboats WCCW debut. A match that Steamboat also won.

After beating Boy Tony In his WCCW debut, Steamboat would get A strong push with victories over Tim Brooks, Eric Embry, Brian Adias and A draw against Al Perez. After going to WCCW with a strong push Steamboats push ended, and he left after losing A match Mike Golden. While being moved down the card Steamboat suffered loses to the Thing. At the end of 1987 The Thing got fired from WCCW and the two would debut in ICW in early 1988 and continue their feud.

After arriving in ICW, Steamboat and the Thing would continue their WCCW rivalry, this time with Steamboat wining. Early in his ICW run Steamboat would team with Arnold Skalland`s son George. Steamboat got his big break in ICW when teamed with Joe Savoldi to win the tag team titles twice as the S and S express, taking the name from Joe Savoldi`s successful tag team with Steve Simpson in Portland.

After teaming with Eric Sbracia and Frank the Angle, Steamboat became the top guy for ICW when he beat Tony Atlas for the companies title in September of 1990. The match is infamous for two reasons. The first was because Atlas returned to drop the title to Steamboat after fans seen him wrestle on WWF TV as Saba Simba.

The other reason was because ICW aired the match on their TV program thirteen weeks in a row. The match airing on ICW TV for literally three months straight, is something that fans laugh about over 30 years later.

Two months after winning the ICW title, Steamboat would appear on a card for WWC in Puerto Rico when he challenged Kin Duk(Tiger Chung Lee) for the Caribbean title. Steamboat won the match by DQ, but he failed  to win the title.  Steamboat lost the ICW heavyweight title to A returning Tony Atlas, before trying out for the WWF as Jesse Bolt. Steamboat won his two WWF matches against the Brooklyn brawler, but was not signed by the WWF.  

Steamboat would briefly wrestle in Japan for Wing in 1992. While wrestling for Wing Steamboat teamed with Ricky Santana(iceman)to wrestle Ivan and Vladimir kolloff to A double DQ, and later wrestling Santana to a 30 minute draw in a singles match, before returning to ICW for the rest of the year.

In early 1993 Steamboat would leave IWCCW to wrestle for Tony Rumble`s Century Wrestling alliance, where Steamboat would wrestle until he retired in 1999.  While wrestling for the CWA Steamboat would win the companies heavyweight title from the Iron Sheik, the TV title from Knuckles Nelson and teamed with Ray Oddessey to beat the fellow ICW alumni The Undertakers, who changed their names to the Troublemakers for the tag team titles.

Vic Steamboat had one more brush with the bigtime in October of 1996, when Steamboat lost to horseman Arn Anderson with Woman in Andersons corner on WCW Saturday night. Steamboat had a lot of offense in the match and the commentators Dusty Rhodes and Tony Schivani really talked Steamboat up, without mentioning his brother. I am not sure if this was A tryout? Or if Steamboat was treated well, because Kevin Sullivan had a lot of respect for him? But Steamboat was allowed to shine in the only WCW match that he ever had!

Vic Steamboat has been living the quiet life since leaving wrestling. He doesn’t appear on social media, only occasionally popping up at a convention. Steamboat wasn’t a legend like his brother Rick, but Steamboat had a very successful wrestling career in his own right, and entertained fans for 13 thirteen year.