10 Wrestlers Who Quietly Retired

7. Ricky Steamboat

Ricky Steamboat dropkick Steve Austin WCW
WWE.com

The treatment of Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat at the end of his career was nothing short of shameful. After twenty great years associated with World Championship Wrestling, Steamboat was fired via FedEx by then-President Eric Bischoff. This came as Steamboat was dealing with being told his back was in no shape to allow him to perform again.

As a result, one of the greatest wrestling babyfaces of the 1980s retired quietly in the night, winning his last match against 'Stunning' Steve Austin before giving up the belt and moving on to pastures new. Steamboat would be instrumental in the early days of TNA, as well as acting as an onscreen mentor to CM Punk in Ring of Honor.

Steamboat returned to the ring for a couple of matches against Chris Jericho in 2009 that were far better than they had any right to be.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.