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The George South Online Museum

"Steamboat's Gym" sign

This is probably one of my all time favorite things. Steamboat’s dream was to always have his own gym, his own business. He opened his own gym (originally) called "Ricky Steamboat’s Mid-Atlantic Gym” in Charlotte. The neat thing was he and his brother had built all of the weight benches and so forth. Jay Youngblood actually helped him hang this sign. Jay had a juice bar inside the gym.

So when Steamboat got ready to move, I knew everything would get torn down and thrown away, so I told Ricky I’d love to have that sign. He laughed, and said “If you can take it down you can have it."  I actually had to get him to write me a note to give to the workers in the building that said I could have it so they wouldn’t think I was stealing it. So me and my kids, we backed my van up, and I climbed on top of the van, and it’s 7 o’clock in the morning, people blowing their horns at me, and I got it down and brought it home. It was the first thing that went up in this room. I put it up first and built around it. This was originally my garage, but when I hung that, man it was the beginning!

But this is special to me. I think about the angle they did on TV with J.J and Black Bart and Ron Bass, and they did it right at Steamboat’s gym. This thing is really special to me.

-George South

The above was transcribed from discussions Dick Bourne and David Chappell had with George as he took us on a tour around his wrestling room at his home in Concord, NC., August 20, 2003.