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Ricky Steamboat On CM Punk: ‘He’s Got The ’It’ Thing’

Originally posted on Wrestlezone
By Jayakrishna Dasappan | Last updated 9/26/23

WWE Hall of Famer Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat is one of the most experienced wrestlers of all time. He recently had heaps of praise for CM Punk. The veteran also revealed that former president of WWE Talent Relations, John Lauranitis did not see the potential that the Second City Saint had.

While Punk and Steamboat had never had a one-on-one match against each other, the two had shared the ring a couple of times.

During an interview with Sportskeeda‘s Bill Apter, The WWE Hall of Famer revealed that the first time he met CM Punk, he was impressed.

“He (CM Punk) was working for… yeah I am sorry, it was Ring of Honor. And they brought me in to be a special guest referee and he was working with Samoa Joe… I’m gonna say 12 – 15 years ago. And they brought me in as a special guest referee for the match… the main event match and they were going to do an hour Broadway. So I was the third guy in the ring and I was there and I listened to CM Punk lead the whole match for the whole hour.

“That told me right there that this kid’s got it. The psychology part, you know, what to do? When to do it? Why you do it at this time? And why you do it in the beginning and not at the end? So forth and so on. I mean, he had all the nuts and bolts connected and that impressed me,” Ricky Steamboat said.

Ricky Steamboat played a part in CM Punk getting signed with WWE

While speaking in the same interview, the WWE Hall of Famer shared another interesting experience. He stated that John Lauranitus did not see what he saw in Punk. Thus, The Dragon urged Lauranitus to give him another chance and this time he asked him to have a 15-20 minute audition, and as a result, Punk got hired.

“At that time I went to John Lauranitis through talent development and said, ‘you need to take a look at CM Punk and get him up here for an audition.’ And John said, ‘oh we’ve had him up here a couple of times.’ And I said, ‘well what’d you do?’ and he said, ‘we put him up in the ring with one of our regulars for about five minutes, you know, didn’t see much.’

“I said, ‘well, I was in a match. A referee for he went through an hour of Broadway and he called the whole match and this kid has the ‘I got it.’ He’s got the ’IT’ thing… I think you should take another look and maybe put him in with one of our better topper guys. And let him do a 15 or 20-minute audition instead of a three to five-minute quickie, in and out.’ And so they got him up and he got in the ring and then got hired.”