Drew McIntyre Recalls Facing Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat In WWE In 2009

Drew McIntyre has spoken about how much he enjoyed wrestling Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat in his early WWE days.

Steamboat worked a brief program with Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 24 and Backlash before doing a final live event loop in mid-2009, occasionally wrestling with a 24-year-old McIntyre.

The former WWE Champion has spoken about how composed Steamboat was and how he learned how to be in the moment from him.

Speaking on the Out Of Character Podcast with Ryan Satin, he said: "It was absolute insanity. He only had a few matches (at the end). It was basically myself and [Chris] Jericho who had a couple of matches with him and that's insane to think of.

"I remember being in the ring with him and it was a sold out and limited crowd, maybe 1,000 people. He was so cool, calm, and collected. I don't take arm drags, I always go over awkwardly and it doesn't look good. I always tell people 'don't do an arm drag,' but I was wrestling Ricky Steamboat, so I was going to take an arm drag.

"At FCW, a year or two later, I was with his son [Richie] and I said, 'I remember back in the day, I would wrestle your dad' and it was just a year before.

"[Ricky] was so relaxed and the crowd was with him because he was in the moment and so present. I was thinking so much about not messing up and in my own little bubble. That's why they weren't responding to me and it took me a long time to figure out. I was out there so concerned about things I might do and not messing up, if you looked at my eyes you could see I was not present or part the match.

"It was very obvious and it was obvious that Ricky was part of the match and he believed in himself so they believed in him."

H/T Fightful