"Absolute" Ricky Starks is a professional wrestler currently working with All Elite Wrestling. Starks has become a very popular name while working in AEW and has been a part of some high-profile matches, really breaking through after becoming a member of Team Taz alongside Brian Cage and later Powerhouse Hobbs and Hook. Starks has been becoming a main event-level name with his feuds against the likes of Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Chris Jericho.
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Many fans can quickly know about Ricky Starks since he has become All Elite, but some fans might not have known things about him outside AEW or even his wrestling career. Let's take a look at a few things you should know to call yourself a true fan of "Absolute" Ricky Starks.
10 NWA Television Championship Tournament
Ricky Starks would start to make his name in the world of professional wrestling with his time in NWA. His breakout moment was the NWA Television Championship tournament. Starks would make it to the finals during the NWA Hard Times show where he would face Trevor Murdoch.
Starks also would have standout matches with Matt Cross and Tim Storm during the show and a first-round victory on NWA Power against his current AEW co-worker, Eddie Kingston.
9 Touring With Dramatic Dream Team
Ricky Starks would get his chance to tour Japan with Dramatic Dream Team for a month in 2019. During this time he would have some great matches against the likes of Mike Bailey, Daisuke Sasaki, & Toru Owashi.
Starks would embrace the comedy aspects that DDT is famous for. He would have a video come out of him dancing and twerking in the ring while his team gets fed up with him and leaves him behind.
8 Decided His Future Around Seven Years Old
Ricky Starks grew up as a fan of professional wrestling by watching the likes of The Undertaker, The Rock, and Mankind on television. Starks would decide around the age of seven that wrestling is what he wanted to do with his life.
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Ricky would start his wrestling career around the age of 22 and got the chance to work local shows around the Texas area in 2012 before joining NWA and later AEW.
7 Favorite Wrestlers
As mentioned before Ricky Starks grew up watching WWE in the Attitude Era. He has spoken about his favorite wrestlers being Mankind, The Undertaker, The Rock, and many other names of that time frame.
Many fans have also drawn comparisons between The Rock's character and the way Ricky Starks presents himself on television. Starks has tried to distance himself from those parallels admitting that The Rock wasn't his biggest inspiration.
6 SmackDown Match Against Jinder Mahal
Ricky Starks would get a few chances to work alongside WWE including on-screen character roles and a few matches. One of Starks' earliest appearances with WWE was a match on SmackDown against Jinder Mahal.
The match was a two-on-one handicap match featuring Robbie Barnes. It would last 39 seconds before Mahal put both Barnes and Starks in a camel clutch and submitted both of them.
5 NWA Velocity Haunted Havoc
One of Ricky Starks first wrestling matches was a match at the NWA Velocity event Haunted Havoc. Starks would have a triple threat for the event facing off against Jaykus Plisken and Big Ricky.
Starks would lose the match but would impress the crowd as he was asked to come back and even got a Fatal Flyers Championship match against Seph Anunnaki at another NWA Velocity show just a couple of months later.
4 Inaugural NWA Television Champion
During that finals match Ricky Starks had against Trevor Murdoch at NWA Hard Times, Starks would win and become the inaugural NWA Television Champion. During this title reign, he would defend against the likes of Matt Cross and Zicky Dice.
He would drop the belt in a rematch against Zicky Dice on season 3, episode 3 of NWA Power. Starks would only hold the championship for a total of two days and just a couple of months later leave NWA for AEW.
3 Career Before NWA
Ricky Starks had a decent career before making his way over to NWA or even AEW. His wrestling career would mostly be with local events in the Texas era. He also worked four matches as enhancement talent for WWE including losses against Mahal, Kane, Big Cass and Enzo, and The Revival.
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Starks would also have an on-screen moment where he got bullied by Ryback during his 2013 feud against John Cena. Ryback would slap Ricky Starks and even slam him through a table.
2 Final WWE Appearance
Ricky Starks would make his final appearance with WWE on an episode of Monday Night Raw. Roman Reigns would come out of the crowd and refuse to leave the ring until he makes another memory in the ring. General Manager Kurt Angle would then have Reigns arrested before Lesnar came out and attacked him.
Starks would appear as one of the U.S. Marshals who came out to arrest Reigns. Starks would put handcuffs on Reigns before being beaten up and stomped on by the current Head of the Table.
1 Meeting The Undertaker
Ricky Starks would talk about how he met The Undertaker and even got on friendly terms with the Deadman. Starks said he was working out at a gym in Texas when Undertaker would come in with a camera crew filming his "Last Ride" documentary.
Starks talked about how he would get the chance to speak with Undertaker and would see each other at the gym every so often while proceeding to make small talk with the legend.
