Ep. 374: The Lapsed Funk: Going National, The Flair Feud

You know, good for nothing eggs that being dumb. We did it our
way because we love it that way. We love it that way. And
I have this wonderful gun feeling and I've had it all my life. When
it's time to go, I think it's now. There's time to go.
It's the Lapsed Funk going national Part two and Boss. If you've experienced Tulkamania,
if you're Terror Funk, if you've headlined a couple of cities with if
you've worked NBC with him, and you've done your tour of duty through the
rock and wrestling era of the World Wrestling Federation, where else is there to
turn in the eighties for Terry Funk. Well, he could go to WCW.
Is Jim Hurd getting a budget in order down in Atlanta? Well,
I've got a pizza budget going on, but I'm not sure about like a
budget of for the wrestling stuff. And I have a question I do have.
I should say this, I do have. I do have a catering
budget. And he's going to be catering quite a bit to the Funker,
as it turns out, because there's an opponent down there who's just waiting for
someone like Terry Funk to come through and create a serious sense of momentum.
After Ted Turner and Turner Broadcasting purchase mid Atlantic CHAMPIONIP Wrestling and World Jim Crockett
Promotions in late eighty eight, the calendar turns to eighty nine, one more
year left to make an impact in the eighties, And of course it's nature
boy Rick mm not only the world champion at the time, but the booker,
the head guy in charge, essentially the entire heart and soul of what
was to become the NWA post Jim Crockett Promotions was Rick Flair put in pole
position and establishing a booking committee of course to Jim Hurden Company. And I
don't know what doll we learn so far in the lapsed Funk. When you're
looking around and you need a shot in the arm of your territory, you
need someone to come in and raise absolute hell and then ride out on his
horse sight unseen. I think you call the Funker. Yeah, that's probably
a good idea. And Rick Flair was well acquainted with Terry Funk and indeed
counted him among his idols. Flair talks a lot about Ray Stevens and Dusty
Rhodes being his idols. But it was a time period in the seventies when
Flair was first breaking in after training with Verenganga, where he was paired up
in terms of road travel partners with Dusty Roads and Dick Murdoch, who,
of course we're working AWA at the time, had a goat in their apartment
and a dina. So and wait, wait, I know they had a
goat and a diner. Yeah, the then Dusty went back to Boston and
had goat in a dina. But Flair was, you know, the young
rookie helping goat cheese omelet in a dina. He was the goat all right,
just breaking in. And you know this is the Dick Murdock and Dusty
Roads of the wrestler in that famous barroom brawl scene, those couple of Texas
cowboys couldn't be more Terry Funk asque sure couldn't be more Terry Funk. Adjacent
was the young Rick Flair in terms of traveling with those two and learning their
ways and learning their let's say, their culture. And so it made a
nice clean fit when Terry Funk is NWA World champion was making towns that those
that trio was making as well, and there was a fair degree in the
seventies of cross pollination between a young Ric Flair and Terry Funk, to say
nothing of the fact that right after the A W A and seventy five,
Flair goes to Charlotte George Scott as booker and Crockett Promotions and absolutely, you
know, set this career on fire such that he's in the conversation for NWA
World Champion. Really as soon as Terry Funk wins the belt, there's buzzed
down in Charlotte that Flair his time is coming, and it's coming much faster
than anybody might anticipate. In fact, when it came time for Flair to
Funk to drop the championship to Harley Race, as we talked about in our
NWA title episodes of The Lapsed Funk, there was no shortage of suggestion Boss
that it might already have been Ric Flair's time. That's how impactful just three
four years in the business, I believe it. And so there was a
chance for Rick Flair, a young Rick Flair, to see Terry Funk had
his absolute most sort of you know, traditional top pro wrestler sort of idiom.
Not the hardcore Terry Funk, not even the wild and crazy Terry Funk
that mixed it up with Hull Cogan NBC as we talked about last week.
But the Terry Funk of the seventies, the the you know, the the
prodigal son of the legendary Funk family, the power family in the business.
This only brother tandem to win the NWA Championship. And here on his podcast
that he used to have with Mark Matt and Ric Flair, flex on a
story he tells all the time when Terry Funk's name comes up in in addition
to when he passed away, this was a time that Terry Funk came by
the house when a young Rick Flair, just married, just breaking into the
business, had him over for a visit. And you can imagine where things
go from there. Oh boy, So we're Raleigh TV and Greg Valentine and
myself. We're bringing Terry back from Raleigh TV to Charlotte. And we were
drinking that Foster's Leger beer, right and we bought a bottle of grain alcohol
and we were pouring it, you know, or just be like we're crazy
the old days. And we came to a stop on Monroe on Monroe Road
in Charlotte, and Terry got out of the car naked with the world championship
belt on him, and this is like, now, this is seventy six,
seventy seven, maybe seven, yeah, seventy seven or eight, and
he's actually like direct traffic. There was no cars, but he was turning
like it was. It's two in the morning. So from there we take
Greg takes out and all the way home he kept letting Greg Greg Valentin tear
on fire in the car. So we get to my house and I had
a pit bulld and jumped over the fence. Came over the fence and jumped
and bit Terry and bit bit him right through his nose. I mean a
bad bite his nose. Yeah, bit through, bit through his nose.
They jumped on top of Terry. No wonder, drove me through the table.
No, no, this was later on. Yeah, so this so
he's the world champion. So we go inside and my wife is out for
the evening, and uh, I paid the babysitter to go in Meghan's room
and she was a little baby at that time and just staying there and Terry.
Terry came in the house. He took a knife out of the you
know the cannons to the hose knives, and put it bet s teeth like
he was a pirate, and crawled around my backyard tin he catched that dog.
Well, I had gotten sick, which I'd never do. And my
wife came home with one of her friends and opened the door and said,
well, this is my husband. I'm embarrassed to say, and let me
see. Oh yeah, and that's Terry Funk, the world champion, out
in our backyard. She took all my clothes, got my first stick,
and took all my clothes, threw them out in the front yard of the
house. Three o'clock in the morning, And the next thing I knew I
had a silver Eldorado. And the next thing I knew, I woke up
in the downtown or in Charlotte, which is sad to say. I remember
how I got there, and Funk was already gone to another city, and
I had to figure out a way to get back into my house. So
it was never a dull moment, seventies with Nature Boy and Terry Funk together.
Jesus, is it right? Is it not all there? Yeah?
Yeah, I mean Jesus thoughts on what you just heard? Uh, I
mean, I'm I guess I'm not surprised, really, right, there's always
something, but I guess I'm not surprised. I mean, Funk chasing the
dog and you know it's there's comedy there, But I can kind of believe
that Terry Funk really was trying to get back at that dog. I'm not
suggesting he would have stabbed the dog, but he well, but yeah,
exactly, but he flew off the handle. You know, he would come
backstage after if something went wrong in the ring, and he would throw chairs
and he would curse, and he would scream and he would break shit and
he was inconsolable. He would shadow box if a dog bites him on the
face and he doesn't expect it, because I've heard other versions of the story
where Terry kind of gets down on all fours like to see the dog and
the dog snips him that that'll piss him off, of course, And it's
like you want to be crazy, Like it's like Terry Funk wasn't going to
rest until that pit bull was more intimidated by him than he was roight pitbull.
Right, I mean, he'll just Chase and Chase and Chase and Chase,
and oh my god, I ended up at the downtown or there's always
a hotel name with Flair. There's always a hotel with Flair. Absolutely God,
So to put it mildly, Rick Flair and Terry Funk were already well
acquainted before Rick Flair became the nature boy we all know, and he absorbed
a lot from watching Terry Funk. In fact, in his book, Flair
says, the knifetch chops that have become such a big part of my routine
were largely inspired by Wahoo and Terry Funk. Hmm. So when they're kind
of programmed together in the mid seventies and in Jim Crockett Promotions. In fact,
Terry Funk was campaigning for that territory stop championship, the US heavyweight title
at the time that the decision was made to put the NWA World Championship on
him. That was the territory that he was he was camped out in at
the time. Flair rights WA, who was an incredibly physical wrestler who worked
in a very rugged style. It was never his intention to deliberately hurt his
opponent. He was just wahoo sometimes to get tired and hit you in the
mouth, or he'd throw you off the ropes and you'd come back to a
chop in the nose or ear while who also kept his blade taped in his
wristband, and the thing would come loose and Norfolk. Once he grabbed me
to the hair and went into his Indian war dance while his blade pierced my
eyelid. Jesus a normal business. As much as there's a lot of wahoo
in those chops, someone else deserves credit to Terry Funk. Flaire wrote when
he was the NWA World Champion, I watched him wrestle Paul Jones and Raleigh
one night. Jones grabbed Terry's arm and Terry started backhand chopping the guy.
A short time later, I began doing the same thing in my matches.
I also copied Terry's habit of holding onto the ropes with one hand and chopping
his opponent with the other. Whenever Terry came to town, I knew it
was going to be a fun night. And then he tells the story about
lighting Greg Valentine's hair on fire from the big seat. Terry Funk doing that,
which is just I'm sure Greg Valentine totally changed the expression on his face
when that happened, Mama. For Kelly as as as as hard as it
is, I'm sure he did change the expression on his face. Fucking stoned
stone and stoned face, and he was stoned as well. It's exactly right.
And I want you to meet my husband in the whole the whole scene
there. So that's Rick Flair's earliest impressions of Terry Funk. But you know,
Jesus Christ, can we will this list ever stop growing here in the
lapsed funk of everything we ever loved about pro wrestling that you go to the
guy who did it and he said, ah, that was Terry Funk.
Rick Flair's chops, for Christ's sakes, Yeah, I believe it, because
of course, while we throw chops, but they'd meet a lot of open
handed they'd be there'd be knife edge two. But the extra touch, which
is so Flair of holding the rope with one hand while you chop, right.
Yeah, yeah, we know how crucial that is that he does that.
And we've we've touched on Flair Funk before and it's going to be a
pleasure in the context of the lapsed Funk to really dig a lot more into
what these two did together in the magic they made in nineteen eighty nine and
what the raw material was that they had to work with. What you've touched
on the nineteen eighty nine we've covered in fact, the nineteen eighty nine Great
American Bash. The first time these two met in eighty nine, sure,
and that's part of the art of war Games, because there's a War Games
cage match on that show, and just boss, you're sort of you know,
it was a while ago, but what do you sort of recollect about
the dynamic and intensity between Funk and Flair. I remember it being a whole
it just it felt. If I'm not mistaken, I believe I remember it
feeling very different and very intense and like they were, you know, like
they were kind of taking it up a notch, yes, from from what
else was happening on the show, from what not only that, but what
maybe maybe what Flair even did, you know, like everything just seemed a
little more intense. One thing Flair's pointed out, and I think it's an
interesting point. You know, he gets the reputation of never wanting to be
babyfaced, because there was such a great heel and just always wanted to do
that routine and you know, live that life and cut that promo. One
thing he always says is, actually what I hated about being a babyface was
I didn't really have a hell of a lot of babyface offense. I didn't
have a lot of weapons I could go to. It made sense as a
babyface. All of my stuff was perfectly suited to feed a babyface and be
the heel, which of course is true. But he said what he loved
about working with Terry Funk was he was a guy who would stand in front
of him and let him chop him in a way that the chops became a
babyface move and the chops became an aggressive comeback move. Because Flair wasn't a
big, you know, Jerry Lawler punch guy. He wasn't a big hulk
up comeback guy. Flair didn't have a comeback. He never had to develop
his wrestling career. No one ever looked to him to be that guy,
even when he was a babyface in the Carolinas, and so Terry Funk actually
allowed him to use the moves that were in his repertoire, and people were
used to and wanted to see from him, and they could be received in
a baby face way because finally, here's someone who can soar for Rick Flair
chop instead of just return fire, Here's someone who can stumble through the ropes
and you know what I mean, and create this sense that Rick Flair is
a world being and he's actually kicking some fucking ass here. And Funk was
not shy about taking those hard chops, though he would lament them years later,
you know, with his tongue in cheek, but still definitely one of
his primary memories of working with Rick Flair in nineteen eighty nine was the solid,
stiff impact of those particular matches, And I think that's kind of what
you were putting your finger on their boss, remembering kind of a higher level
of intensity when these two got in there, and he was imble when leash
Ric Flair in a way that Flair wasn't accustomed to and really had very few
opponents that could you know, bring that out of him. Yeah, that
absolutely, And when we announced the Lapsed Funk Journey, this was almost the
first thing people started geeking out about, was that we were going to get
to the Flair Funk series in eighty nine, and not only Great American Bass
Match, which we covered before, and the wrussele War Wrangle to launch the
whole program, which we've talked about several times, including out of the Cinemat
most recently. It's it's as quintessential Terry Funk as it gets that whole angle,
but also coming your way here on the lapsed Funk the I Quick Match
from Clash of the Champions Troy, New York, the Knockout Special on tbs
OH that ended up marking the end of Funk's run for all intents and purposes
in the NWA in nineteen to eighty nine, with Rick Flair getting his hand
raised, high business having been accomplished, and Funk, you know, having
the eggs that he always thirsts for, the graceful eggs that he so thirsts
for. Though as we'll get to that's kind of been painted over with rose
colored glasses as the years have gone. At the time, Terry Funk was
not entirely thrilled with how it all went down with the Nature Boy, And
you know, the further along you got, the less you would talk about
that part of it, and the more it's all good in the hood,
but of course at the time Funk is finding reasons to be rankled, feel
just a tad disrespected, a tad jilted. And that's why it's always hard
to tell that line of work and shoot with Terry Funk as it regards his
great opponents, because you go back far enough, and he in a shoot
context is expressing real disregard and dislike, or at least a proclivity to point
out shortcomings or to say little verbal jabs. So his opponents, you know
who might think that, you know, Terry Funk is their best friend in
the world, can listen to an interview and go, you know what,
yeah, not so short. We heard it in Jerry Lawler's voice. That's
this guy actually hate me. Is that why this actually keeps going for thirty
years? Yes? All the Funker is never going to let you know,
well, because he's a worker. Yeah yeah, he don't make me play
the sound. Terry's a worker. He's a worker. He's a worker.
He's a worker. Terry's a worker. Oh I like that. I actually
don't have to play it. You incorporated that interestingly enough. When it was
time for Terry Funk to drop the NWA World championship because of the riggers of
the year plus campaign wasn't entirely clear who it should go to next. Funk
wanted to pass it along, of course, to Hartley Race, who really
never had a proper reign with the championship because he just served, as we
talked about, to bridge the gap between Dorry Funk Junior and Jack Briscoe due
to the nw WA power politics and Funk and Funk Senior not wanting the championship
to go to a fellow baby face in Briscoe right away and all of the
Shenanigans involved therein. But Terry Funk had a very close bond with Harley Race,
who of course booked for Dori Senior and Amarilla and really got his teeth
in the business down there and helped the Funks ushered into Saint Louis where he
was one of the top dogs. And so Terry Funk wanted the belt on
Harley Race, even though there was buzz that this kid out of the Carolinas
Rick Flair has all the tools and he could, you know, sort of
be a really fresh coat of paint, really young, youthful, vigorous champion,
and Terry Funk was while he was traveling with Rick, and while he
was, you know, fraternizing with Rick. He wasn't ready to anoint Rick
quite yet. Ah. Yes, as he says here Terry Funk, I
never cared about doing jobs, and that one in particular was about doing what
was right for the business. And that was the approach I'd taken in deciding
how I wanted to drop the belt to Harley. When the time came to
drop the title, I had wanted to see it go to Harley because I
felt obligated to him. I was the one who wanted it to be that
way. I didn't give the NWA a lot of notice that I needed to
lose the belt, and they hadn't really prepared anyone else by that time.
The closest they had to another candidate besides Harley was Rick Flair, by now
a top star in Crocketsmith Atlantic territory. But I felt like Flair would have
another time and Harley deserved a good run with it. I knew Flair would
be champion someday, but if it had gone to Flair, Funk wrote,
I'm not sure Harley would have gotten another chance at it. So when we
talk about star k eighty three. Boss. When we talk about how definitive
Flair Chasing Race was in terms of defining Rick Flair for a generation, it's
because Terry Funk didn't want to see it go straight to Rick. And so
you know, he was the one that put Harley in that position in a
lot of ways by saying, no, that's the guy that I'm going to
campaign in politic to lose the championship too. And then that was the rain
Funk losing it to Race. That was the definitive Harley Race rain that it
took us all the way up to eighty one when he lost it to Dusty
gets it back, and then Flair he lost it to Dusty before that,
and then Flair gets it in eighty one from Dusty yep, and then they
build Flair Race and we're off to the races in so many ways, So
again, Terry Funk setting in motion the definitive moments of every single wrestler that
he ever came in contact with. It seems like so crazy. All roads
lead to Terry, All revolves around the nucleus of Terry Funk. He says,
I knew Flair would be champion someday, but if it had gone to
Flair, I'm not sure Harley would have gotten another chance at it. I'm
not sure I could have said I was a good fair man if I hadn't
helped the championship go to the man who came close to getting the votes when
I ended up with it, that's right. Don't forget how close it was
Fritz van Eric mm hmm casting that tie breaking vote to get the belt to
Terry and sort of accede to the Funk family's wishes instead of Harley Race Who
was the candidate supported by I believe it was Eddie Graham and Sam Muchneck.
We touched We already touched on that earlier in the series. I wanted to
do something Funk rights to see that things were done right by Harley. It
was a pretty damn big deal for Harley, who started wrestling when he was
fourteen, to be able to be the top dog in this business. I
felt like it was important to Harley. I talked to Junior about and he
felt the exact same way that I needed to do right by Harley. I
never was approached about being NWA champion a second time, and if I had
been, I never would have taken it in a million years. I was
at a point and it was a point I was lucky to stay at for
pretty much the rest of my career where I could pick my own dates instead
of letting someone else set them for me. And that's the heart of Terry
Funk. He is a guy who showed a way where you can actually be
a total legend in this business, make a clean, good living in this
business, and call your own shots, and never really feel like you're under
the thumb of some shot collar hm puppeteering your every move. And Funk wanted
that so badly that even when he went national for a cup of coffee in
the WWF and the NWA in the nineteen eighties, it only lasted so long
because eventually the point came where that imbalance was presenting itself, where suddenly someone
else had more say over what he did and said how it conducted himself than
he did. And that's just not who Terry Funk ever allowed himself to be.
I really don't think that's a platitude. I really think that that it's
the only thing that makes sense to explain the career paths that he chose,
and the moves and decisions he made at critical junctures, whereas Rick Flair when
he got the NWA Championship, he was everything be damned, his health,
his domestic life, his marriage, his kids, everything, and he's owned
up to it. It was just like, I'm just going to completely grind
and obsess over being worthy of this championship, no one else being able to
match me after I walk back through the curtain defending the NBA Championship, and
that's just the way it's going to be. And Funk just he felt that
that was too much annuring to the benefit of someone other than him, and
he was right, and that's why, more than anything, in my opinion,
he deserves to be celebrated. He says, I was at a point,
okay, like I said, instead of letting someone else set them for
me, I was heading the rules with my ability to build up an issue.
I think I could have gone into any territory and been a good draw
even if I'd never held the world title. Besides, I'd gotten back a
much better prize than any wrestling championship. Of course, that being a reference
to being able to get back together with his wife shortly after relinquishing the top
spot in the industry, but of course Flair goes on to those great heights
as predicted. Flair has talked in several interviews about how, in addition to
you know, the colorful scene back at the house with Funk chasing his dog
around and all that, that, he used to absolutely hound Terry Funk on
car rides about, Hey, you think they'll ever make me a world champion?
Do you think? Do you think Oliver be the champ? Do you
think do you think they'll ever pick me? Over and over and over and
over again, and oh my god, and Funk doing the whole Oh,
one day, you know what, I want to go ahead, and well,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna go on ahead and say maybe one day,
maybe two days. It took more than two days. It was he wanted
to be exact when Rick Flair becames and way World heavyweight champion for the first
time, defeating Dusty Rhodes to become champion, and it was during that reign.
It's probably not the first time they met, almost certainly is not,
but in terms of surviving videotape, this would be the first Terry Funk versus
Rick Flair and w WA World heavyweight title match. It would be October seventh,
nineteen eighty one, and Boss, it's taking place in the ring of
All Japan Pro Wrestling. I invite you to consider a world where the nineteen
eighty one Brick Flair, the brand newly meant to champion, sort of still
unproven a little bit, is about to step into the All Japan ring,
which, of course the Funk family defined and essentially owned, to defend the
world championship against Terry Funk before the adoring All Japan public that loved Terry Funk
so much. So, we're gonna pull up Disc eight, all right,
Disk eight. I think that's a good idea. I think you should do
songs for each disc. It's time for Disc eight. Disc eight. It
is here disc aid will conquer my fear? Oh shit, where what's time?
Going to start? At the very beginning, Right at the very beginning?
All right, here we go, reve your engines. Before it was
Flair and Funk on TBS, before the nation pushing back in the scrappiest way
against Vince McMahon's national ubiquity. It was Rick Flair, newly minted world champion,
letting the former NWA World Champion Terry Funk. Take him for a two
out of three falls ride on home turf if you will. For the Funker
in All Japan, we're going to hit play here three two one play.
Not much in the way of audio to worry about here, because this is
essentially fan cam style without much in the way of a commentary. Look at
Flair, Look at him? Yeah, Sam, he's he's very very big
haired. Is young? Oh yeah, God, that's pretty much the star
KDD three robe the light Blue. Yeah, he just looks so young.
He looks like a does he looks like a child. Yeah, there's the
Funker in his collegiate letterman jacket. It looks like he's throwing out those coins.
Huge shootout to shootout his whole shout out to Fumisaido, who we played
a lot of clips from on the Al Japan episodes. Yeah, because someone
had found a video of Terry Funk tossing what seemed to be like candy like
you would at a parade route mm hm into the crowd, which he's doing
here before an All Japan match, And yeah, what's he doing is candy?
No? In fact, it was Terry Funk Forever commemorative coins that he
would have made up specifically for all japan cards and the fans. You know,
the only way to get these coins was to be in attendance at a
Terry Funk match and catch them when he threw them. So it wasn't it
was just it was fake coins, fake coins. But I'm sure they're worth
all. I'm sure they're worth something. Now it's the k fabe currency.
Ric Flair handed a large bouquet of flowers and keeping with the ceremonials around a
match of this import in Japan. I wonder what they did with the flowers,
like, you know, did they keep him or are they just fucking
like the moment they were out of the arena this fucking toss him in the
true I think that's pretty much. Yeah, I probably saw it in the
dumpster, let's be yeah, yeah right exactly. I mean I can I
can picture Flair like by the side of the arena outside just fucking pissing on
them. This is this is eighty one Terry Funk. This is the one
battling with the chic and Adula the butcher for his fucking life with screaming,
you know, young Japanese girls dressed like cheerleaders. Yes, begging for him
to survive and fight, fight through. There's the ten pounds of gold flare
hmm, taking off that coveted championship. It's being presented here. I think
this is the Buddhican. So this is not you know, this is not
the Terry Funk that Rick Flair feuded with in nineteen eighty nine. This is
not unstable Terry Funk. So it's fun to get a glimpse of Flair and
Funk doing it technically, you know, yeah, oh yeah, that's very
exciting. It's not the the blood feud style that they brought to TBS to
to and successfully so sparked the territory right all japan public wouldn't have expected that
of Terry Funk there. It's the introduction. Yes he hung, look at
that shit, all that fucking streamers and confetti and nowadays and with streamers is
here on twitch. Mm. There's Rick Flair. But again, kind of
a mixed career in Japan. I mean he would go over there and have
great matches. Yeah, but I never really sensed that the public like fell
in love with Ric Flair in Japan like Funk and Hogan. I do agree,
like, you know, you don't really hear about that that much.
And you hear about certainly some of the times and some of the more famous
occasions, but you don't hear the love like you know, you don't hear
how like he could just go over there and let me put it this way,
no albums being cut by Rick Flair in Japan. Yeah, yeah,
I feel like that there's little evidence that the Japanese quote unquote got Rick Flair,
you know what I mean, Like what above is in ring ability,
which of course is world class, made him such a resonance star in the
United States. You know, these promos, that style of promo just there
was no really there's no platform for them the way the Japanese wrestling scene was
set up, Like where's he going to cut those promos? Yeah, and
have like a studio television show going out on Saturday mornings where it was designed
to you know, build your character up. It was just matches and yeah,
you did interviews backstage with the media with a tape on your forehead and
a towel around your neck and talk about competition is tough in Japan. And
I woke up in the downtowner, never woke up in the never woke up
in the uptowner, I did hear, I did know that about Let's to
be clear about that. So Funk keeping a low base. They tease the
knuckle lock, but it's a coloradlbow tie up. Flair back to the corner.
Now, Funk keeping a low base, trying to shoot in on Nate
s who's got the under hooks. Just love being able to get just one
glimpse of how these two would work when put in this context. Yep,
you trying to Flair gets that. Oh look at Flair. Flair already got
to strut light strut, light strut. I mean, looks like the animated
Brick Flair from the Camp w W E thing this. Yeah, coller and
elbow to the top, wristlock they go, and it's a test of wills
and strength. He eventually he looks more like a Triple H is terror Rizon
at this point, Yes, he does. That is definitely one of the
things that that's crossing my mind right now. It's almost like from the very
beginning, Triple Ah realized he wasn't sit unless he was trying to, unless
he was trying to be Rick Flair or or and or Harley Race Terry Funk
with a decidedly Harley race wing outfit. Definitely, but the navy blue tights,
but the knee pads. Tap, that's it. It's over. I
saw Flair with a yank of the hair act that was probably you know what,
that was a signal. That tap was a signal. I'm telling you
what when Fun tapped that No, no, when when Flair tapped funk shoulder,
that was a signal for him for for for Funk to take a bump.
Very good, good eye. I'm telling Pallor an elbow to the arm
ringer ghost Funk, who's got a taped left fist. We'll see if that
comes into play. I look at that Terry hauling off with the point of
his elbow to the shoulder. Elbows galore, twist, full arm dragon twist,
as Tony Sheivoni would say, though there's no arm dragon, no arm
drag at all, full twist and hammer lock yep. I always love that
when you have your your arm barred and you try to arm drag out of
it, and yeah, the guy flips, but then he holds onto the
arm and so you flip a second time, so the guy maintains control of
Funk controlling the arm of Flare on the canvas. Pretty sure this one's on
YouTube, not too ar defined nineteen eighty one Terry Funk verst Ric Flair as
sex Fancam. You know, we've seen so many pristine quality ultipan videos from
the scenes and eighties to the point like you cannot believe you're watching. Yeah,
like, but think about it, Think about the fucking camera that this
person snuck into the arena essentially, Yeah, I mean, who knows,
it's a giant fuck It's gonna be a shoulder thing. You know, this
is the days of fucking you know. I don't even know if like VHS
tapes were a thing you could record on yet, I don't know. And
eighty one, I don't know how much Japan has always worked as strure they're
alway ahead of the game. Yeah, hell, this was probably like mini
DV for Fuxation. No shit, I mean that those the quality of those,
you know, real world, real world Tag League matches with Abby and
stuff. I unbelieving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it basically like HD.
Yeah, Battle of Wills here is. I don't know about HD.
That's a little, I know, extreme, a lot closer to HD.
Than you ever would have expected video to look like in seventy nine. Yeah,
I'm I'm, I'm, I'm gonna beyond that kind of a chicken wing
almost being converted into a camel clutch position here by Terry Funkus flares on his
knees, trying to find a way to get free, a lot of flash
bulbs going off media while covering this methoughtical You know, this is not only
get to w CW, No, not at all. No, It's gonna
be fast paced, high impact, and I feel like as we go through
the lapsed Funk, we run the risk of under representing this part of Terry
Funk's career for no other reason than the tape is fairly limited of his world
title reign, as we've talked about, but also, you know, his
most legendary stuff happens to be knockdown, drag out fights. And it's right,
it's not because he couldn't do this style. It's just because he was
so remarkable and so revolutionary with what he did with the Brawlin style that that's
understandably what most people remember and consider the essential Terry Funk. It's sort of
like, you know, you can't you can't take in the essential ric Flair
without the steamboat classics, right, and with Funk his version of that are
not technical classics. There matches that, you know, turn the violence level
up, in the intensity level up to a to a degree that people hadn't
seen be at Memphis, be at Florida, be at Japan. Now it's
Flair back in the driver's seat with those two arms hooked. What do we
call this move? It's like a bow and arrow. I don't know.
We just grab the guy by the wrists and I feel like I know it,
like if you're a moment well, it's like, uh, what's what's
that? Like? I think it's like is it a boone and arrow?
I don't know a boone and arrow? I feel like is and you've got
one where you've got him on the knees? Yeah, isn't that that's a
bone arrow? I think this is just I don't know. Uh, you
just go up behind the guy, grab him by the wrists and just pull
pull his arms back and like try to bring him together the wrists together.
Now Terry Funk has reversed it again, almost converting it into almost an abdominal
stretch position. Stepping over the knee of the nature boy. And this is
it, this is in the Funker's repertoire, if this is what the moment
calls for. Yeah, you can work a hold for eight minutes and hold
your attention. That's not a problem. Ye, not at all. In
fact, I like it. I like it quite a bit. Yeah,
I think you know he's when this is all said and done, I think
that's going to be. One of the coolest parts of Lapsed Funk is that
we really aid like an equal faith effort to engage this Funk than the one
ever Yes, Yes thinks about when we say we're going to do a tribute
show to the Ropes Flair looking for a clean break, see if Terry Funk
is inclined to give it to him, brother sort of grabs aside headlock,
Funk pushed off, hits the ropes, tackle down, goes Flair. Here
we go over the top and from the other end comes the Funker. Flare
back to his feet, tries the hip toss, blocked by Fog, who
sends Flare soaring through the air. Yeah, that's mind atlantic work rate.
We live to see Flare hip tossed and then arm dragged in successions. Yes,
yes, take that away from me, and I fuck, I might
not even be a pro wrestling fan. Funk now controlling the arm of Flare
on the canvas, target it in on that limbs here at the Japanese teady.
Hey, yes he did. Yeah, Flare using both boots to kick
off his back. Bunk loses grip on the arm and they both stand and
the people pop. Yeah, standing up because Terry's got the Duke's up hear
him? Listen. Yes, they're going nuts. I'm sure many of them
showed up thinking they might very well witness the crowning of a new world champion
here. Yeah, I suppose that's true. Huh. It's not like a
giant Baba hadn't found ways to peel the belt off, Jack Brisco when no
one just hanging out a little extra cash, you're frond, that's sam much
Dick wanted to taste off when he touched down, even though he was against
him doing it in the first place. Well, you know, Jack,
if you're gonna do it, I mean, we need to talk about my
percentage. I don't like the idea, but I'm obsessed with like people who
have pristine reputations in wrestling for being like honest brokers, like still being greedy.
I love it. Oh yeah, Like tell me a story about Hazano
and fuck someone on a payoff because nobody's because you listen, nobody's honest in
this business. I just feel like I feel like we're not close enough to
the truth until I hear a story like that in wrestling, You know what
I mean. I guess in life in general, but in pro wrestling in
particular, it's like you can't you can't feel right about actually doing something other
than a hay geography until you're like Dusty sing there's only there's only because like
you know, there's only one Tom Hanks that's exactly right, okay, and
that's why he's Tom Hanks because no one's got right right the flip side of
the coin on that guy. Ooh, that was a miscue there, Funk
sort of jumping out of the way to avoid a tackle a deep and wow,
this is a big elbow player right to thatadlog take over good stuff good
Yes, dare you say it? And dare you say it? Hard?
My god? Still love that about the seventy style at this level, like
you'd have holds and you'd have like slow, subtle jocking for position and then
an explosion of action. Yeah, and then and then and then if someone
feels like they're getting a little you know that they're that they're losing their momentum,
they slow it down. Now bring the other guy's gonna run away with
it if I don't do it right. Player is doing right now, get
back on the mat with the headline right, and he's trying to think about
what can he do to to you know, subdue this guy. It's it's
it's that kind of shit. I just don't understand. I guess I just
don't understand why people don't find that interesting. Yeah, why people don't think
that that's the building blocks of pro wrestling, like not just a style or
time and period. No, it is pro wrestling, it is, right,
it's not it's not pro wrestling until it starts from that place something else.
It's you know, an exhibition. Why people need all the flippy floppy
ship Like what's the like? What why is this not entertaining? I mean,
oh my god, wow, holy shit, how about that? How
often do you see Rick Flair send someone into the corner and they go inside
out? Even more dramatically than then Flare would fucking dumped and get dumped on
the fucking oh you hit through the ring post there, fans are just there,
They're not even There's not even a fucking barrier, not even a cheesy
rope. I know. Yeah, Funk not only went inside out of the
buckle, but he like he almost bounced off the other side of what's soaring
to the floor as well. That might be something else we can say he
crystallized in Rick Flair's mind. As you take a corner that way back in
and here come the chops, Flare throwing Bunk brought to a knee with a
stiff right by nature hook. Here we go, Here we go, Here
we go? Fair is the very Claire Wow. Do you see the flash
bulbs on that delayed Flat over the locked out Funk in trouble? Could Flair
take the first fall here? But again, that explosion of offense, that's
just great. It's like Funk zigged when he should have zagged. He ended
up getting that nasty ride in the corner, and then Flair just went nuts
capitalizing. That's how it should be. Pounce, pounce, Yeah, because
you had to be looking for the window. That's exactly right. Terry Funk's
struggling mightily, smacking his arm down on the canvas, trying to you out
the pain that the hold has been broken. Yes, it appears, Yes,
Terry Funk is conceived. He tapped world champion Rick Flair takes the first
fall here. Yeah, the altrapan public not accustomed seeing Terry Funk submit.
I'll tell you that that's a So he's given Rick Flair a lot of credibility
in front of these people by doing that. No bullshit DQ count now you
know, which, of course was something all Japan as we saw in a
lot of those dorientary tag matches. They weren't ashamed to use that. Yeah,
but like you know, again back then, they're they're they're just has
become this and I don't I don't really know what it what it it was
that that hurt count out victories and whatever. But there was such a thing
because I again I remember as a kid, you have a count out or
DQ, you're still happy that the guy you want one or not. You
know, like there's there there was something there is Jerry Lawler Terry Funk match
that ended in a in a count out yep, Lawler was content to beat
the shit out of Funk on the floor with a chair and then stand in
the ring and watch the ref count them mount And what so what was it
that made it not okay, like to make it disappointing that that was going
to be the way? Good question? I think as fans became smarter and
they started to see that as the booker shortcutting them instead of the logical outcome
of two people having a real fight. I think it's probably that. And
you know something else just came to mind. Look at Flair, go look
at as soon as the second pounced, he jumped on Funk and peppered him
in the forehead with shots. Jesus, you know you know what else though
too? I thought about it's it's when they started doing when they stopped doing
squash matches on on TV and started just having you know, real superstar versus
Superstar matches and you do DQ's on TV to set up a real finish on
pay per view? Right? Who tells you didn't see the real deal?
Right? And that's the problem that ten Bruno matches were DQ's anyway. It
wasn't like it felt ripped off, right, You are like, how many
fucking times have we seen world title matches in promotions because that just wasn't the
way you did business because the champion wasn't going to lose the belt there,
yeah, you know, but they ended on a It didn't always end with
the champion winning. It ended with the champion getting disqualified or counted out or
something. You know, there was a way to make the other guy look
look great. And it's pretty fascinating. We're talking about this in the context
of All Japan because it was Baba's decision to pivot in the early nineties to
an all clean finishes format that created all of those legendary All Japan matches with
Masau and Kowata and Kobashi and Tawei and all the rest. Because people actually
could show up to the mega matches and know that someone was getting pinned clean
that became there a key point of differentiation for them from New Japan was that,
you know, you could get a roster that would put each other over
in that way, and there Johnny Ace played a role on booking a lot
of those finishes. That's why WCW brought him in two thousand to handle finishes
because he was a guy who had a proven track record of having one guy
go over another and it not sort of killing the promotion or the marketability the
loser. Oh my goodness, geez, So quite a bit has happened here.
First of all, I'm fascinated. Flair played it really straight in the
first fall to get to pull ahead, and then the second the second fall
starts, he gets ultraviolent, just like a complete mania. Yeah, he's
like just trying to fucking kill. And he was chopping the shit and Funk.
Funk was hanging, you know, by his ass on the ropes and
then just took a header to the concrete and then he came back in and
now he's kicking Flair in the balls from the blind side. Referee kind of
admonishing Funk for it. But Funk can maybe a little plausible deniability there.
He's looking at the people he's fucking. He's strutting like Flair is Flairs throwing
a few struts in. There's getting a little two cocky, oh, by
the way, And there it is Funk holding one rope and striking with the
other, holding the rope with one hand and striking with the other. Flair
swim and back totally with Wow. Funk drops him with a huge left and
it's Funk stepping over with his leg locks admission. Oh he's look at that,
the spinning toe hold in the flashbulbs going off here in all Japan,
Flair, will he concede? Even a streamer falls hunt up of Rick as
he gives up, and that's it Flair And look at this Funk immediately but
punching the shit out of Flare on the canvas, even though we're supposed to
reach the rest period. That's good stuff, that's great. I love him.
Pro wrestling when guys have similar finishers. Yes, you know Kurt Angle
versus Ken Shamrock, Yes, please, you know it never happened, but
I know, remember remember the triple threat match we always dreamed about, which
was which was Kurt Angle versus Ken Shamrock and Chris Benoi Because he stole all
their moves. Oh, no, one's safe from chain grappling and no isolating
a limb, not at all. It's an The rest period is set in
Terry Funk and Ric Flair have both split a fall for the n w A
World's Heavyweight Championship here in Tokyo, and the Steaks couldn't be higher. It's
a hibachi, I was gonna say, And you know, we get that
some Wygo beef cut that right, the Flair big on the cell of the
spinning to the steakhouse afterwards, absolutely, oh my god, and knights,
Oh my god, knights and pungi that sounds. Here we go and Flair
is trying to keep his distance, you know, kind of swatting away at
Fund's hands, knowing his leg is compromised, throws a kick and they both
should have compromised legs, though should Yeah, Funk's kind of limp and it's
doing it, but Flair's is more fresh. Flare tossed violently through the ropes
to the floor by the Funker up above the people. Atomic drop. I
love how when they have like a single camera shot like, yeah, you
can't cut to the atomic drop, you just have to see you sore above
the heads of the people. Terry found taking this to a very violent place
in the third fall, this one. You know, we did get a
lot of technical give and take, but this one's more of a brawl than
I expected. Yeah, what's need is that it's evolved, though you know
it's evolved to it it didn't. It didn't start out that way, right,
there's desperation setting me right. Yeah, they're both they've both got bad
wheels. Funk grabs a sad push off tackle and both go down. Wow,
they're both nervous. Song's flying by mane the people. It really his
saying, Terry, is that what they're saying. Claire stumbles out to the
apron and Rick Claire is climbing the rope. Uh oh, we know what's
happening. Bunk cuts them off. Look at that. Look at that nineteen
eighty one, nineteen eighty one, and they're doing that perfect press lamb off
the top. Funk going back to the spinning toe hold, Flare trying to
kick off with he does Funk craw them up google one two, Funk kicks
out. Oh wow, I thought that was going to be it. He
grabbed tights too, I thought for shows. Back up right and an elbow
fucking double under hook's here. That's the signature funks who play. He can't
out fucking him. That drop to counter and Funk falls on top of Flare
arms and tangles one. Oh, here we go. Two. He hit
three, but Flair's foot it's on the bottom. Rope and the reft his
side. Nope, nope, nope, that's right Flare hanging out of the
title by the skin of his teeth. Funk comes up with his arm rights
like he won, referee informing Funk it's not over yet. There Funker Harry
Funk, looking like a Patrick mahomes Sunday with the call. They re engage.
Whoa, what the fuck? What? Terry just both flaired the ropes.
Terry jumps, puts his asses on the top and then they tumble out,
flips backwards and takes Rick Flair with him straight to hell because he doesn't
give a fuck. He didn't give a fuck, then he doesn't give a
fuck today. I sends double count out. Oh no, they think I'm
backing reft lane in the count. I send double cross, I send I
sense double Aha. It's like Funks ramming Flare in a furniture there at ringside.
We can't quite see. We're getting he's counting the referees, counting fast
twenty count in Japan. Of course, hey, Flare might be opened up.
There's busted Flair's busted referees outside now a restaurant again between him, because
this is just yeah, there's the sound Yeah, there's the bell yep well,
Flare throwing chops. They're still brawling, flashbulbs going lefts flying. Used
to work a lot for the photographers because we've talked about the influential role.
Oh yeah, magazines played in Japan way more so than the United States,
and so everyone was always jockeying to have the greatest action shot so that they
could be on the cover of the Japanese wrestling magazines. That's so funny.
A lot of the extreme things that like him and Foley would go on to
do in the death matches. Yeah, you know, really, the primary
motivation was, like, the magazines can't not put this on the cover because
it's going to sell that it's the most dampest thing you've ever seen in the
wrestling room. So the bell of Sounder, these two are still brawling.
They're back up on the apron now and Flare is throwing shoulders to the gut
of Funk from the apron, shopping away his bad hand as well. What's
going to take to stop this one? Flair's in there pepping them with shots.
They're still working here. It comes all japan personnel. Oh my god,
Funk just launched a chair from the bottom of the frame in at right,
the fucking head on the apron. Oh he never lands with those wild
No, he doesn't. I hope that was I hope that was on purpose.
So let's it pause. There quite a piece of business. Jesus,
that's wild. So that's Flair and Funk and in the nineteen eighty one context
for the World Heavyweight Championship. But it's time now to move to the definitive
feud. The definitive year nineteen eighty nine many considered kind of the greatest year
of wrestling ever, you know, pound for pound, match for match,
territory for territory, and Terry Funk playing no small part and making nineteen eighty
nine the legendary year that it was. Of course, this being eighty one.
Funk goes on to retire from Ultrapan in eighty three, comes back in
eighty four, but then sort of, you know, starts working a collection
of independence including going to Pro Wrestling USA as it started to get going to
counteract what Vince was doing. Goes to the WWF as we talked about last
time in nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six. Then does a lot of
work in Puerto Rico, which we'll we'll get to when we spend some time
focusing on Terry Funk's international exploits post the nineteen eighty three Ultapan retirement. Anti
also gets out, I think, mostly Puerto Rico, and you know,
does Wildside and tries to make the Hollywood thing happened, does over the Top,
and of course does Roadhouse. And we know how important a Roadhouse shoot
was to this initial brick flare angle in nineteen eighty nine. We we do
indeed talked about it most recently on the episode of Under the Cinemat that's available
now on Patreon, covering that film. But as Jim Hurd takes over in
November nineteen eighty eight and Ted Turner buys Jim Crockett Promotions, he makes a
phone call and it's uh, it's Jim Hurd for Terry Funk. That Atlanta
zip zip code showing up on the caller idea in Amarilla, No question about
it, that Terry Funk. Huh what they tell me that if I need
to pop the territory, you're you're just the man for it. I've heard
you're pretty good at uh at at getting in numbers. Is that? Is
that true? You get a good Uh, you get a good thing going
on there? Is that? Uh? You know, I'm not very familiar
with with you at all. Uh. Can you give me a list of
maybe your credentials. Oh, you won the NWA championship, it was Uh,
it's a top man of the business for a little while there. And
of course, my father and a lot of ways to find wrestling in West
Texas, and so I grew up under the learning trend. I'm sorry.
And your and your your father was was who who? Oh those dory functions?
I see, I see? I know you used to if I'm not
mistaken, mister Hurd used to be the television director at the television station,
used to broadcast wrestling at the Chase. Is that correct? Used to know
Sam much Nicking company? Well, I listen to be To be honest,
my passion lies in pizza. That's the title of his book, My Passion
Lies in Pizza. It's just him holding a pie on the cover. Stupid
smile. It's like, how can we make this book as much of a
stock image as possible? Well, your passion lies and and and what now?
Why I'm I'm a pizza man. Actually that's the title, and who
comes over in the transaction, not only Rick Flair, but Jim Ross.
Jim Ross had, you know, slowly but surely ascended to the top announcing
position at the tail end after Jim Crockett bought the UWF where I was working
for Bill Wattson and come NWA WCW, launching Jim Ross as the voice of
the organization, working out of the offices in Atlanta. And you know,
as he would say, when the booking committee would get back on flights when
they finished their business at the office and be at the airport for four o'clock.
Jr. Who was living there, would still be there by lamplight with
Jim Hurd and they'd go out for drinks and became a trusted advisor. Jim
Ross rather became a trusted advisor to Jim Hurd in those early days of w
CW, and to hear JR. Tellett most recently on his podcast with Conrad
Thompson Jr. Playing no small role and putting the bug in the ear of
Jim Hurd, that you know what we need right now in a territory like
this, in a position that we're in we need the funker. Well,
you know, I talked to Herd about a lot of things, and because
again you know, you know the dynamic there, the booking committee and all
that stuff. As soon as three point thirty or four o'clock came, those
guys are on planes to Charlotte or wherever getting home. And so that would
leave me with mister Hurd, which I didn't mind quite frankly. You know,
we had good conversations about football and sometimes about wrestling. But I told
him that I thought that Terry could help us, and I thought he could
help the roster, not just a match, I said. And plus,
he's got a great way of booking himself. He understands what he can do,
what he can't do, he can he'll do a believable angle. And
I think he's a fresh face, and he's got a great name, great
reputation. And at that time, you know, we were honoring the NDA
a little bit more and he's a former champion. So uh, but Terry
exceeded what I perceived he might do when he came to w c W at
that point time. He over he over delivered, in my opinion. And
do you remember the first time he would have caught a glimpse of Terry Funk
on this run on a show we covered m It's a pretense under which he
was brought in because it's illustrated by the wrestle Worredy nine finish. It wasn't
like Terry Funk came in as somebody that was advertised as wrestling for the nw
He was digitary, he was he was a judge and stuff like he was
judge for that match. But I don't recall what outside of that what he
is. The April second Clash of the Champions in New Orleans, Flairsteam vote
two out of three falls Raging Cajun Superdomin's Right against WrestleMania five, and it
was a night where the nw A was going to honor past world champions,
sort of like they did at Bad Blood nineteen ninety seven in Saint Louis,
and Uh, Terry Funk was among the former champions on hand. And not
only was he on hand to be honored at that clash, he provided color
commentary for the Flair steamboat match. He was on the car. I do
remember that shoulder the shoulder with Jim Ross. As a matter of fact,
yep, yeah, and damn good at Color so good. The fact that
after the Flare program was over in eighty nine, they started transitioning him into
an announcing role, sort of putting Terry Funk a little more, a little
closer than he was comfortable with to signaling to the national television audience that he
was done as an active wrestler without necessarily consulting him on on that portrayal.
But he came in if I didn't agree to this, I didn't agree to
what what's going on? Wait a minute? What are your suggesting that I'm
well, you're against Flair or I quit the business? Because did you?
Are you Wait a minute, mister Hurd, did you say is that I
quit match? Are you saying that? What are you saying here? I
just quit the match? Well, not Terry, you quit the business.
I don't know if you, but I know even not in the head a
few times, and I mean that's it does say that in your It does
say that in your contract that you know your your career will culminate in a
your time here will culminate in a quit match, and your time here on
earth will culminate in the UH the declaration that you quit the business in this
in this match. So when you said I quit the Flair, you said
I quit everything, not what what Wait a minute, mister Hurd, I
never said I quit the business. I said I'm gonna quit the match.
And I don't wait, how is what I think He's trying to say?
Where am I right now? I gotta wait, what are you saying?
I'm saying you're just another topping on the pie that Terry Funk. And he
goes, what the fuck does that even mean? He's already been insulted.
He just doesn't get it. And he was good on commentary and he was
straight laced, and yeah, that was part of why the turn on Flare
at Wrestle War was so impactful because the fans watching week to week had seen
and heard Funk play it totally straight, like he was coming into be an
announcer. You didn't expect him to have like a sudden outburst of physicality because
he was never presented to the audience as a wrestler. It didn't You didn't
smell angle coming, you really didn't. And when he was offering commentary for
the Flair Steamboat two or three falls match on TBS, he was very calling
it down the middle and sort of like, you know, taking on the
role of an enthusiastic fan who just was marveling at what these guys were doing
in the ring. I still remember, you know, him adding some real
gravitas. He was a great person to say, like, no, what
these guys are doing a special like I'll stake my reputation on praising these guys
like big time on the air, never once sort of as far as I
can recall, intimating or hinting that he's kind of pissed off at rick Flair
or wants the next shot after Ricky Steamboat or whoever might emerge champion and indeed
come wrestle wards. It's quite an issue for the Funker. But in terms
of bringing him in in the conception of it and and the dollars and cents
of it, here's Jim Hurd also with Conrad Thompson is Conrad, to his
credit, was able to track down the form of Pizza Man for probably be
his last interview conversations with Conrad where he talks about bringing in the Funker.
I paid Terry more money than he had ever made. He was at his
name, crazy name of his ranch, the Double Cross Range, the Double
Cross Rate, Double Cross Ranch, and and he can name that after double
Cross sure anyway, Terry. Of course I knew Uh, Terry's brother Dorry
when he was champion for Sam Mutchnick right here, and we can get into
one of the most important names in wrestling if you want to, at some
point, which was Mudsnick. But uh, the Dory Funk Junior was the
NWA champion at one time. And that's why. That's how I knew his
father, Dorry Funk, Sr. Who was one of the toughest guys you
ever want to meet. And uh, and his brother was Terry. And
Terry was the caboose of that family wrestlers out of Texas. And Terry was
a funny, funny guy and uh, and a pretty good wrestler. I'll
say, Jim pretty good, you know. I just I don't know if
he was good or whether he was bad or not. I think he he
was a wrestler. I can tell you that I knew that his brother was
a wrestler. So I assume that Terry. Do you know he named the
Double Cross Ranch after double Cross, That's what he says. No, really,
I thought he named it after did you know that he named the Double
Cross Ranch after two Crosses? You know, we named the Double Cross Ranch
after Groucho Marx? How does that work? Jim? Did you know that
he named the Double Cross Ranch after Hulk Hogan? Yeah, so I guess
it didn't go down to New York as cleanly as we were led to believe.
But yeah, heard saying he paid Terry Funk more money. I don't
know how he knows this than any than he'd ever made in wrestling before.
So there must have been a lot of zeros on that check man. But
here's the thing which no one seems to talk about. Terry Funk wasn't just
brought in to wrestle. He was brought in not just to wrestle and announce.
He was brought into book as well, So that salary was in contemplation
that he could help with the pencil. The same thing with N ninety three
when he kind of comes in and hears the pitch from Vince and says fuck
this and leaves right. You know, he's been around so long, he's
booked, he ran a territory, he knows the business inside out. He
knows how to show up in a territory and light it on fire. You
think he'd be a great booker, But Terry really never wanted to do that.
Although he took several meetings and several opportunities, and apparently even signed some
contracts indicating that he was coming to book, but he always got to look
under the hood and said, you know, this is not going to end
up inuring to my benefit, he says in his book. I also announced
the main event of Rick Flair versus Rickety Steamboat with Jim ros Steamboat was a
world class pro wrestler and a hell of a guy. Of course, Steamboat
and Funk had a really great singles match on a Clash of the Champions before
Funk tussled with Flair again. He was one of the few guys I know
of who never turned over the course of his career. They also wanted me
to do nangle with Flair, and they wanted him to serve as a member
of the booking committee. That appealed to me because I thought I would be
a chance to use some creativity. The booking committee was me, Brick Flair,
Jim Ross, Kevin Sullivan, Jim Cornett, and a few other guys.
They didn't exactly work together, though there's a lot of division and conflict
within that committee. I had no idea I was walking into a loaded situation
because the committee wasn't in agreement with herd. I walked into my first meeting
completely unaware of the problems. When heard talk to me about coming in,
he'd made it sound as if things were smooth as glass. I ended up
being the outside individual, almost alone compared to everyone else in there. What
was asked of me. I ended up being damned near nothing. It was
a pretty shocking situation. All I knew that on one side was Jim Hurd,
who had just signed me to one of the better deals I've had in
my life, and on the other was people in the business I knew and
respected. Not long after I started, Kevin Sullivan approached me before a meeting
and said, ASH need to no one thing. Who side do you want?
I said, what, I'm on the NWA side. He said,
no, that's not what I mean. I am on that side of Jim
Hurt's I'm on the n side. I'm on my side. I'm on the
double cross side, on the wild side. As a matter of fact,
out on vas just right now, Dad that's right, your piece of ship.
I want ahead and work with Meg Ryan. I want ahead and fuck
you right. No, I didn't say funk you. I said fuck you,
pal, I said fuck off your goddamn piece of ship. I thought
that was the most ridiculous question I'd ever heard. But my answer was not
the politically correct answer. But I'm not a dummy. I saw that the
best thing I could do for myself was to keep from falling into one side
or the other. So I love the idea of Jim Hurd paying Terry Funk
top dollars so he has some guy with crad to fight the people that are
opposing his ideas on the committee. Well, Funk thinks it's a great idea.
And what are you saying here? You deserve more respect than Terry Funk.
What are you saying? Funk's an idiots? Exactly. You just said,
Hey, Kevin Sullivan, Terry Funk just yeah, they Terry Funk,
Yeah, Terry. He just said, Arry, I want Kevin Sullivan just
said, let me tell you something. Kevin Sullivan just said, you're a
piece of ship. That's a good booking committee. Verbe that's a verbatim quote.
If you need me. I got it. I got it on record.
I can play it back for you. Know what else I got is
a is a loaded forty five. I'm gonna tell you something else I got.
I'll tell you what you want to know. You want to know something,
Terry. This is what I got to now. I'm not afraid,
not a problem. This is this is a this is my executive you know,
VP of wrestling firearm. It's my veto power right here too. All
right, this is it right here, and I've got this gun. All
right, I've got this firearm and right at your fucking ball sack, and
I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna double cross your nuts, yes,
with a pair of fucking bullets. What did he do? Exactly?
What how did this escalate? You didn't say a word. I want ahead,
just sat down, mister Hurd. I don't even know why. Why
are you I'm just you know the thing about this is, I just went
here. I just went ahead and came inside, and you told me that
that Kevin Sellan called me a son of a bitch, and now you're aiming
firearms at my ass. I didn't I don't even think I said anything in
response to what you said, Kevin Sullivan said, and suddenly it was my
problem. Suddenly it's my fault. What the lesson here that if you want
to survive in the NBA, you hope no one ever calls you an idiot,
because Jim Herd'll be pointing a gun at you. But I thought I
was the victim. I thought I was the vicky. Here's an example,
he said in his book of how little control over things I had. I
brought in a talented young man to wrestle, and even though he put me
over in his first match, I thought his talents were obvious, but they
never brought him back. His name Eddie Guerrero. Maybe you've heard of him.
I hadn't brought Eddie in to just do a job for me. It
wasn't like I was sitting around one day and had the brilliant idea to bring
it Eddie just so I could beat him up on TV. I knew he
was a hell of a worker because I'd watched in his early matches, and
I told her and the rest of him, this guy's got it. He's
really good. I thought the world of his work, and I was shocked
that he didn't get an offer after a match. I had everything I could
to get him in there, which shows you how much influence I had as
a member of the booking committee. So Boss, let's add another ornament to
the tree of people that owe their fucking lives to Terry Funk. Eddie Guerrero
does the generational lines know no bounds with this guy. No from fuck Hey
cheese, it's great, from Gene Kiniski and Louthaz to see him punk and
Kevin Owens to Eddie Guerrero to of course you know, Tommy Dreamer and Shane
Douglass and Nick Foley, and how about Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan. As
we've discussed, I mean, last two episodes. He's the He is the
single most important and influential wrestler in the history of the business. Say it
again, motherfucker, because we've reached the conclusion he is the single most important
and influential wrestler in the history of the business. Thank you, Boss.
Mission accomplished, but we sold her forward Eddie Guerrero's book. In nineteen sixty
six, my dad decided to escape the complete control of Salvador Lutarov in the
EMLL organization in Mexico, he'd been the NWA World Light Heavyweight Champion, the
most prestigious title in Lucha libre, for more than three years. Ludaroth wanted
my dad to drop the title to Ray Mendoza in a way that my dad
felt was bad for business. Rather than do as he was told, Dad
rebelled, leaving EMLLL and taking his title belt with him. He settled in
El Paso, and this is where the Guerrero's in El Paso start to become
synonymous, and began working all over the United States, mainly Los Angeles,
the Carolinas in Texas. He even worked a couple of matches for Vince Mcmahonsenior
in the old Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Of course, he continued to work in
Mexico, wrestling in border cities like Juarez and Tijuana. As he got older,
Dad began cutting back at his wrestling and concentrated on training and doing joint
promotion with who do you think Salvador Lutaroth did joint promotion with or Eddie Garrero's
dad, Gory Garrero did passo U fucking sew Michael's guy there? Oh,
not a bad guy you talking about? Joseel O Thario. Yes, no,
it would be Dorri Funk Senior. Oh, of course, that's how
far back the Guerrero's and the Funks go. Gory Guerrero set up shop after
leaving Mexico in al Paso, Texas and basically became a promotional partner of Dory
Funk Senior. Eddie writes they worked together all over West Texas and El Paso
and Amilla and other towns. When Dorri passed, Dad continued to put on
shows, mostly in Juarez, featuring wrestlers he trained, like my brothers Chavo
and Hector, as well as such legendary stars as El Santo and Buddy Rogers
Junior. I don't know who that is. Even into his senior years,
Buddy Rogers Junior. We wrote, yeah, even into his senior years.
Dad's whole world was wrestling, needless to say, it was also the world
where I was born and raised. After Chavo and his family moved out West.
Of course, his brother Chavo he was talking about, not his nephew
that we know is Chavo grog Joh. I would go out there every summer
to spend time with Chavito. Chavo and I actually got along better during those
trips than we did when he lived in Opaso. One time he took me
in Chavito, camping up in the Sequoia Mountains. The plan was to put
up a tent, but it was so freaking cold we all slept huddle together
in the van. Other than that, we had a blast hiking, swimming
in the river, sitting around the campfire. It's probably one of my greatest
and dearest memories of Chavo. My brother, Hector was working at Smoky Mountain
Wrestling at the time, so we decided I'll go live with him in Tennessee.
I really enjoyed hiding out in Tennessee. I worked with Hector wherever I
could, continued to gain experience with each show. While I was there,
I was invited to do the job for Terry Funk at a WCW house show.
I was thrilled. Not only was it WCW, but it was an
opportunity to wrestle one of the all time greats. In this business, a
lot of guys are called legends. Terry Funk was the real thing. But
Hector didn't want me to do it. He pointed out one of Dad's cardinal
rules, don't ever do a squash job. It's just not worth it.
But I was stubborn. I saw it as an opportunity to be seen by
the WW bookers, thinking that if they liked what they saw, maybe I
had a shot of getting hired. I called my dad and told him what
I was considering. He was cool as always. He didn't try to talk
me out of it and staid He explained to me that there were ways of
doing it without burying myself. Just because it was a squash job didn't mean
I had to come out of it looking like a loser. But when I
got to the arena, I was totally paranoid that I'd made the wrong decision.
I told Terry what I was thinking, and he was great. Don't
worry, kid, He said, you mightn't do a squash job. I'll
make you look good. That really gave me confidence. Instead of being afraid,
I was determined to do my best. More than just wanting to impress
the bosses, I really wanted to justify Terry's support. That is a key
lesson of funk YEP. What he did for these guys that were having crises
of confidence along the way was make them want to be worthy of the faith
he put in them, yes, before the audience and saw anything in them,
and he enlivened entire ECW locker room because he was that guy telling people
you've got something before the audience saw it, or even before Paulie or Todd
Gordon saw it sometimes. M hm. And that's key. That that that's
that's right back to the point you made about him being the most influential.
Yeah, because I don't think anybody's going to say that about Rick Flair.
I don't think anybody's going to say that about Steve Austin. No, I
don't think noybody's going to say that about Hogan or kind of Bruno. Bruno
made a lot of people in a way not like like, yes, he
made a lot of people, but did he make as many legends? Right?
And and not only legends, but we're talking about people who transcended the
business. Yeah, like he Terry Funk is responsible for so many fucking people.
He's like an indispensable part of so many people's stories. It's not like
he alone, yes, is responsible, But you take Terry Funk out of
the lives of all the top wrestlers of the seventies, eighties, and nineties,
and to some degree the two thousands, and you're not convinced that they
made it as far as fast as they did without that Terry Funk moment.
Ye all have them, including Ede Guerrero. We're just taking them off one
at a time here as we go on the lapsed Funk, starting all the
way back with Tito Santana when he was at West Texas, not sure about
himself and remembering a scene where Terry Funk tells him, you've got this and
do X, Y and Z and you'll be in a better position. He
was awesome. Eddie Guerrera wrote, he gave me room to get in a
bunch of offense. I also did a few high spots. I hit Terry
with a headsis or he caught me doing a top row planchia. That kind
of stuff just wasn't done in WCW at that time. I heard afterwards that
the bookers were impressed with me, but we're too apprehensive about my size to
give me another show. Would you like to see this match? Boss?
I think I would like to see this not serve more than anything else.
Really is a tribute to Terry Funk. A match like this, a story
like that, I think it might be a necessary step. I think it
might be time to toggle over to Disc fifteen. Disc fifteen fucking I went
to Disney World. The first time I went to Disney World. It was
the fifteenth anniversary, and I, for some reason, will never forget the
There was like you know, they had like a bunch of different dance shows
and stuff like that, and I just always remember the main like the song
for the main show at at the Castle fifteen yees, we have in a
party fifteen years. We're gonna party oh year long. Those yeah, those
songs have a way of sticking with you. Those gym all they hit your
breath at the right moment. That's right, we're looking for fifty seven to
fifty nine fifty seven. Eddie calls it a house show. It was,
in fact a TV taping this he doesn't know ship anyway. It was on
the Saturday Night TBS show Center Stage, Atlanta. Navy Canvas yep. Yes,
pre renaming the company WCW. All right, I'll look at that that
n W A TBS banner yep. I'm ready three two one play from Mexico
City, Mexico Eddie Girl. And there's a moment from Amello Texas. Oh
you shut up, you shut your fucking mouth, the fun from barking like
crazy, I'm getting my chefts off, and you fucking cunt, you under
you understand what Ladies and gentlemen from Amarillo, Texas. Terry funk Kid,
don't put the cowboy hat on? Yeah seriously, Well there he is a
man with a personality of a rattlesnake who will be in Richmond, verg your
original Texas rattle g and yellow underwear, white boots, that's about right,
making his debut here on World Championship Wrestling Coller and Elbow. Let's watch the
thing. Let's watch the Funker pay tribute to the man in the arena with
the dirt and blood on his face, the job or the man he committed
his decade a book coloring Elbow to the ropes and Eddie Guerrero swiftly ducks the
knife fetch chop of the Funker and Terry with his hands on his hips like
all right, we gotta we got a quick one on her hands here,
right, Eddie does look tiny, man, He looks like a a g
I joe against a hasbro figure Eddie, Eddie looking like fucking Hiroshi hasse here,
Yeah yeah again, Eddie Duck in the chops tumbles away chops and just
the face of the Funker telling the audience that this kid has got something he's
he's proving harder to get to than even a veteran like Terry Funk expects color
and elbow to the ropes. Now Funk with a single leg will keep Eddie
and his clutches, but it won't protect him from an Inzaguri Guerrerol Lands slips
to his feet. Terry takes a powder. Terry pop has got to be
very pressuret Jr. On the call. Obviously, that will break the momentum
and the concentration of the youngster his old school, making somebody you know fall
intoim its setting. It's great, Terry just crumbla on that table. Crack.
This is the post that Russell Worridy nine Angels Jr. Is discussing.
So we're gonna go back in time a little bit. In a moment the
corner off the lock up and Terry Funk open hands slapped to the chest to
Guerrero pinpoint elbows to the top of the head, corner to corner on the
whip coming up, Eddie kIPS up to the middle rope, climbs all the
way up to the top, back flips, look at that, and then
back rolls on landing, leaps into a drop kick, but ends up caught
in the catapult position. He's giving him the sorrow giant swing, I think,
so yep, look at that, turning Guerrero time and time again,
oh, jumping him unceremoniously. No idea. That was in Terry Funk's repertoire.
A lot leaner than he was in the WWF. Yes, got his
hands on some ship that melted away, fat but wearing pants. One thing
I did notice in the w w F matches against Hogan is his legs were
very underdeveloped, small legs. And now he's yeah, he wasn't a day
fan there, unless you're talking about you know, Turkey. That's right,
series of chops drops Guerrero Funk choking him across the middle rope. I've been
making no mistake. Terry Funk is, you know, conducting himself as a
guy that's Eddie Garro superior here. But he's he's picking his spots to make
Guerrero shine Funk misses the sit out across the ropes, end up all entangled
in the ropes and takes a massive drop kick Eddie Guerrero with an this time
a head scissor Funk going all over the place for the kid. Wow,
Jesus, it looked like a failed leg larried attempt and Guerrero crashes to the
canvas. Funk back on him now from the gut wrench shifts up to the
shoulder. Funk on the running start like a javelin. Oh Jesus, whoa
absolutely launches edde Guerrero the top to the mats on the floor, kind of
like what Hogan did to Savage your Restuminia five exactly what it was out after
him as the Funker, the bizarre mister Funk, I'll say, jr.
So you just call them heavy chops, puts Guerrero up against the post.
Funk gos where a wild larryot and clips the steel the stand hands and ask
lariat and Funk going bicep first. Oh no, Guerrero's climbed to the top
with Funk on the floor, It's time to soar. In nineteen eighty nine,
Wow, I want a plancha by Eddie Guerrero. I'm not going to
find many people of Terry Funk's stature and heritage in the business. We'll going
to take that for Eddie Guerrero. National team, not at all. Guerrero
went to the well, went too many times with the piscado attempt. Funk
side steps and Eddie Guerrero goes splat. Now Terry Funk's in the ring on
the running start, hits the ropes twice, three times. What the hell
is he doing? Four times? Five times in a baseball slide? That
holy shit, he fucking sends Guerrero over the guard rail. Time steam on
that one. Wow, that significant distance between a front row, if even
one exists on that side of the center stage. I mean, yeah,
guardrail even yeah, bar went flying into it. Now floor by the Funk,
Oh don't yeah, that Planche should have got him a job for sure.
Yeah, just considering how spectacular that was capabilities in nineteen eighty nine.
All the while Jr. Putting over you know how psychotic Terry is back in
a simple knee drop and front sends Guerrero for the one, two, three,
And then of course Funk goes over the rail and he's gonna fuck with
some people at center stage, fucking love. That's what he always does,
just goes out there and starts yelling at people, making you feel uncomfortable.
Know the look at this, My god, he's crazy. I did right
here, got file Driver and he stuffed him. He can say it,
just lack Flair. His neck just snapped and crumble underneath him. And we're
going to try to get Terry Puff over here. I'll get a promo too.
Here's how you can order a Wressell War. All right, I play
it. I get a break here. But he did show back up.
As I mentioned fans. Next week, I'm going to be busying with Rick
Flair's doctor about his injury, and we'll be following that report here next week
than the program. I'm sure Rick Flair is watching this program right now,
mister Funks hitting the sign of his world championship because Russell I am the best
in the world. Now, as simple as minded as you are, you
might be able to understand the story I am going to tell you. Daddy
was a wonderful person, but he understood life more so than the executives of
the NWA. You see, when I was a young lad, I had
a jackass, and I loved that jackass. But that jackass broke its leg.
And when that jackass broke its leg, my father took that jackass and
put a gun to that jackass's head and blew that jackass's brains out. Wow,
I said, Daddy, Daddy, why did you de merse of the
NWA? Can put him out to pasture? Now is a time to put
Rick Flair out to pasture. Now, I know I believe that the man
was injured. You say he was. Whatever the story might be or the
truth might be, Let's put him out to pasture and get to the top
ten contenders. Now, Rick Steiner is no longer a member. Why can't
I take his possession because of his injury? Who do I talk to?
Who is they? Who runs? Who is they? Who? Yes?
The top ten list? Is it you Ross? No? If it's you,
Ross me, I will get down on my knees and she'll beg to
you. Ross. I will beg to you to put me in that category
because I am the best wrestler in the world today. Why can't you and
you people out there realize that. Please, let's get this crazy. We're
all very concerned about the situation. Yeah, Jim, we are very concerned.
We are. So how about that Boss Funk on TBS WCW eighty nine.
It's great, I mean, it's it's it's what's expected. What's expected
is exactly correct. So what were they referencing? What is all this about?
The top ten and everything? We've played it one hundred times, covered
the show on our tribute week to Rick Flair. We played it when we
did the Roadhouse under the cinemat episode where the promo was, you know,
referencing the fact that Funk was on set of set film before showing up in
eighty nine to the NWDA demanding a shot at ric Flair's championship. It was
one of the great pay per views in the history of the business. Wrestle
Were eighty nine, Rick Flair wins back the World Championship in a rematch against
Rickey the Dragon Steamboat and that incredible concluding capping that incredible trilogy that they had
in nineteen eighty nine, sort of a creating an identity for the post Turner
broadcasting w C. You sort of a single handedly were Rick Flair and Steamboat
in those matches and then slot in Terry Funk so here on disc fifteen.
Let's let's go over to forty nine to fifty three and watch it just one
more time and tribute to the Funker forty nine. So we're not watching,
of course, the Steamboat Flair match, but we are watching the post match,
right, And so Rick Flair is in the ring, you know,
tauseled hair, having fought a hard battle, big old belt over his shoulder.
Jim Ross in the ring to conduct an interview, and if you're ready,
I'm ready, three two one play. Well, that's sixth time.
I want to present ladies and gentlemen number six, the heavyweight Champion of the
World. Night sure, boy, Rick Flair. I think also we have
to give credit where credit is to the Dragon Steamboat in Rick Blair. Boat
competed in one of those the greatest matches that any of us, I think
have ever witnessed. CHAMPI congratulations, thank you very much. Not in character
for Rick Flair, but Rick Steamboat. He's the greatest champion I've ever faced.
And I'm proud to be here for a six time. All right,
Hey, Harry is in the taxedo. I'd be the first to you,
Rick. I want to be the first New World champion. Terry, thank
you very much. We do appreciate the judges being here. Hey, Rick,
I also want to say that if it would have gone sixty minutes,
that I would have liked to have bomb. I would have voted for Rick
Flair because I think that you're the greatest wrestler in the world today. Very
nice, Thank you very much, Jerry, thank you very much, Thank
you very much. So awkward. But he's not leaving the rings. Nope,
he's still standing there looking at champan. You know, you know it
really is. Go ahead and be the first one to challenge Rick Flair to
that new championship. Why, Terry, I'm honored that you'd like to get
in the picture. But as a wrestling fans, no, you've been an
active You've been in Hollywood Selvester Stallone while, and we got a top ten.
We got a top ten at the world champion is obligated to wrestle,
and that's why we are number one. Quite a minute, are you are
you really saying that I'm not a contender. Let's range here for the funker.
You are a gray wrestler, but right now you're rubbing shoulders with Sylvester
Stallone and not the world champion. No, no, no, no,
I would just no no no no, You're I'm not good enough. You're
saying that I'm not good enough, aren't you? Rick? Not saying that
at all? Terry. Here we go. It's a serious face and I
got a problem a guy to spit out in the Hollywood for five years.
It's a bottom line. But I'm looking at the top ten and you're not
in the top ten. No, Rick and Rick, Rick, Rick,
No, hold it, I was just choking Rick, Please please let me
just say one more thing I was. I was just kidding you about going
yeah, oh, it's so awkward challenge you. I didn't want to really
challenge you. I was just kidding your soul led gumman. Let's go ahead.
He speaking down, had a handshaking. No, it is the second
they shake hands. Funk drops into the left and now it's time for Terry
Fugg to go from straight lace judge, respective former champion to a fucking maniac.
It's time to print money, nutcase, Harry, that's fucking go on
the lapsed fun. This is totally on, boy, He's taking it out.
It's totally called for j R. Terry fuck is a man and Rage
Jr. Is great here too, Ye where's shaking the rail like a psychopath
in here? Can believe we are witnessing Here's fuck snip were the guy in
the front row of the blue shirt. He's horrified hitting the table. He
first goes nag Bob con Oh, Jim, jim My Campal, what we're
watching? Jim Jem up to the table. Funk has got flairing position for
a pile driver in the Damon outs table. Listen out Flair's vertical. Here
we go, stuffs Flare's headed to the table and fuck the best part fun
fucking falling over the table just tilts and Flair slides a fun slides on still
with this cumber bund on trying to stab Rick with a table. Look,
I mean, Jesus chrazy, look at him. I love how he fucking
he can never stand up straight. He's always he's like it's like he's got
like tripping over a million of those you know, like balls in a in
a ball pit, you know, like he has no sense of balance.
That such a good call. It's like he's always in that state of like
that saloon scene on Tuesday Night Titans when there's all over the floor. Yeah,
and then he absolutely slammed a chair across Flair has had a heavy one
too. Oh, he's gonna go after ringsiders, and they're in Terren's face.
They're pissed off at him. You don't understand. How's a world champion?
Oh they grabs JR. Get them up, fat fuck? Look at
yes, look at the heart too, but no, jerky, Wow,
you got it, Terry. I'll look at a pause. There they show
Flare and a complete heap there on the floor under at the table. I
mean, we've said it a hundred times, you might as well say it
again here on the lapsed Funk proper. What do we just see? I
mean, what we just saw is just one of the great, the great
kind of angles I think of the of the at least the eighties, if
not maybe of all time. It's just something money instantly right in terms of
in terms of taking a guy who was retired and wasn't even wrestling, and
you know, it's funny. It's funny how he says you're not even in
the top ten. Funk makes himself number one. Yep, right there by
knocking the shit out out of Rick Flair and it's perfectly timed in that he's
exhausted. You know, he'd be exhausted. He you know, he just
wrestled what like thirty five minutes with with steamboat. Yep. It's just great
stuff and just the acting range. He was on another level here. He
starts from this place. You know, that's exactly how a psychopath would behave.
Yeah, totally like a sociopath, almost like a guy who gets in
the ring and even though under the surface he's bubbling like a cauldron with psychotic
urges to take the belt and the glory from the sky, he knows enough
about how one is supposed to act in a situation like this with his tuxedo
on, you know, show class showed dignity and expected to be reciprocated.
You know, it's like he's like the guy who is only nice to you
because he wants to see if you're gonna be nice back. Yes, he's
a guy who doesn't offer praise unless it's designed for you to offer praise back.
And when Rick Flair sort of you know, meets his praise with a
rejoinder and kind of a flippant comment and takes his you know what, Funk
probably thought in the character's mind was like, you know, like a totally
respectful approach and request challenge him for the championship, and Flare snaps back at
him in the way he did with you know, a totally justifiable comment about
how he's not in the contention for the belt and there's a lot of worthy
contenders right now. Even though I respect you that that's what a guy does
when he's you know, offering that sort of thin, vapid flattery. He
acts out because he can't he can't deal with you being ungrateful for how classy
he was to you. Yes, because Terry knows what he could have done
is just go in there and fucking murdered you the second you turned your back.
But he didn't do that because he's too nice of a guy, and
that's of course a psychopath in action. He goes, he progresses. I've
never seen anyone do it better in a wrestling screen, ever, to go
from one code of paint to another, from one sort of you know,
sort of like animating facial features to another. He's just the way he like
takes takes umbrage with Flair, kind of big leaguing him, and still stands
there, but doesn't immediately attack Flair. You know, there's like three four
steps to what today would be like one step, you know, just remarkable.
Yep. And the way he's able to forget it. I mean,
once you once you tell Terry Funk, this is the this is the part
where you act psycho, that no one, no one's better at the world
at that Well, I want to add an act psycho. Yep. Yeah,
but so I think, uh who I think the followers checking the boxes
they hired him to check boss. Yes, absolutely, laire Wright in his
book, the show went off the air with the image of me seemingly unconscious
under the wreck of a table. Terry Funk was still raving, acting paranoid,
despondent, and gleeful all at the same time. He said that I
wasn't good enough. I'm not a contender. Look at him, look at
the horse tooth banana nos jerk. I had personified evil for most of my
career, Rick Flair wrote, Terry Funk may have been the only SOB crazy
enough to turn me good. In the coming weeks. The fans were told
that I had a severe neck injury, and I convinced them by wearing a
brace around Charlotte while running errands, even while on airplanes. So they're going
full in on this angle. It's crazy. It's good stuff, even though
the rigid probably there were of the last of its type that I can think
of where guys took the angle into the public like that, unless I'm not
thinking of something, well, I guess bretton Owen refusing to deal with each
other in public after they turned on each other. Yeah, that's kind of
an example of it. Even though the rigidity over protecting the business was diminished
Flare Rights, the claim was more than plausible. Kernanngle went in to WrestleMania
nineteen with a broken neck even after surgery. Stone Could's neck damage forced him
into a non wrestling role in WWE. Before anpisode of Round twenty oh three,
I watched Christian spend the day in the arena wearing a neck collar.
He only took it off to wrestle Rob Van Dam in a ladder match.
For more than a month, I teased a possible retirement, then announced that
I wanted to come back for revenge. Terry remained bold as hell, freaking
out TBS executives in September, We'll get to that later. Terry was forty
five years old at the time and had been getting his brains kicked in for
a quarter century. People who saw him hobbling backstage were astonished that he could
actually wrestle. But Terry could deal with pain. Once in Japan when he
was champion, he was scalded with hot water. He gutted it up and
wrestled with third degree burns. He was fearless. I cut some fucking nuts
and right, yeah, you take your pick. A level of devotion to
wrestling that just has to border on insanity. Oh yeah. I cut some
really intense promos on Flair. This is funk now talking, including one where
I brought out a skinny Brick Flair impost with a yellow stripe painted down his
back. Flair was really bothered by this stuff. Here we go, this
is where it gets good, okay, And I was told to tone it
down a little bit. I didn't see the problem because I was the heel.
The ending was going to be that Flair was gonna kick my ass.
I sure wasn't gonna say all those outrageous things only to beat up brick Flair
and then go home and hank of my tights. Yeah, what is this
triple Ah and Booker t in two thousand and three. I don't know if
Flair was upset because he was insecure or because he wasn't there. You see,
he was home selling the injury angle, and all he knew about was
what I was doing was what he saw on TV. All he saw was
me blasting him every week. With all the divisions in WCW at that time,
I wouldn't be surprised if he thought I was working on behalf of someone
else there to make him look bad. He wouldn't do that, would you,
Terry Mmm. He had been having his problems with Jim Hurt even then,
fighting over his contract, which Heart thought was too much money for him
to make. All that stuff was done to create a heated atmosphere for a
match. If it hurt him, that certainly wasn't my intent. I'm certainly
not sitting here apologizing because I didn't see any real damage that was done to
him. I did it as a kick in the ass for business. I'd
certainly done heavy heel promos like that and had never heard a baby face before.
I never did hear about Dusty Rhodes being upset about the things I'd say
about him, because he understood it was business to build up revenue at the
box office. And while the Funk Flair for You did very strong business,
I think it's box office was hurt by me having to tone down the heat.
I toned down promos a few times before when the heat got to be
too much, particularly in Puerto Rico, but I had never before I had
to take it down a notch because someone's feelings were hurt. Ric Flair,
Yes, hurt feelings. Mmmm. Mc flair has always been missed. He's
a bitch. He's always I know, he's always gonna yeah, and he'll
absolutely pretend and we'll play sound to prove it that it wasn't true. And
he never had any problem with anything anybody said about him, but from he
did never mental never had a problem with that. Nope, nope, nope,
never had a problem. JR. You know, did Rick have a
problem or is Terry just talking out of his ass? Oh? Yeah?
For him being upset with Terry, Yeah, I do. And I remember
getting phone calls, what are you guys trying to do? Kill me?
No? Rick, we're not trying to kill you. We're selling a fucking
angle anybody, Yes, an angle, and how you sell it? You
so? Uh, No, we're not trying to kill you. Uh.
But you know a lot of the guys he knew he'd get Rick would always
get a straight answer from me. He always also knew I would take his
call. If some of the booking committee guys saw that Flair was calling him,
they might just avoid that phone call as long as they could until they
got they had to accept it. And I was I didn't have I didn't
have any guilt in that regard. I knew what we're trying to do.
We're trying to get heat on Funk and make him a heel that god damn
he was. He was middle aged and crazy then, and we knew our
our hero is going to ride back in on his big white horse sooner than
later. But yeah, he didn't like it. I remember we did an
angle one time with Uh. He's passed on now. We worked in the
office, Uh Ron Uh, and I just had to tip my tongue to
uh. But he came out. He looked a little bit like Barney five,
had a flare like robe On. Yep, remember that Ron Ames.
I think I think Ron died of HIV or something. Oh ship. Yeah,
a nice guy. He really was a nice guy, hard working at
PR and things like that. But Terry season in the office and says,
there's not guy for play. The part of Rick Flair and Ron was about,
like I said, he looked like Barney five. He looked like Don
Knots And that was one of his impressions he'd do at at Happy Hour.
Uh it was. It was funny. Yeah, you're exactly right. Ron
passed away in uh nineteen ninety three, so, uh, but a good
dude. And all he did was he did a very limp woo and that
offended or that defended night and uh again, it was like, you're really
getting paid, so this must be working if you are pissed off. You're
smart to the business and you're pissed off, it's working, and it may
be working to these other folks out there and has heard would say the ter
Lands and it did work. What now the show that that was a great
marriage and you know, thank god Flair and Funk Are you kidding? So
come on, Rick, So he got over it, as we all know,
but he did get his feelings hurt. But he was out of the
he was out of the picture. He didn't want to be out of the
picture, but that was the angle and how the angle is set up to
sell. Somebody's got to be out of the picture for a while this injury.
And people aren't dropped on their head on tables outside the ring very often,
So that's that's kind of where that was. Rick was pissed off for
a lot about that. I'm totally obsessed with flair at home, wondering,
like hul Cogan, if they're trying to get one over on them. Oh
absolutely, And I'm sitting here, Oh god, damn, you know,
I blame Luger. You're talking to lugamage and they're all talking to Luger,
you know everyone. So let's turn this. I heard what what brother fuck
Terry? Is that you Terry? Oh my god, brother dud, who's
sneaking up behind you? Brother? Hold in the l f X. So,
of course, flare you you look at me now? Brother? You
know do you're freaking You're freaking me out. I'm freaking you out. You're
freaking me out. You don't have what it thinks. I'm what, brother
Flaire, dude, I'm I'm I'm as scared as you are. Brother,
look into my eyes. What do you see in these eyes? Oh ah,
it's a trick question. It's concerned about his answer. He's very concerned
about his answer. So do you think Flair pretended later when he'd like,
you know, see Terry Funk, that he was never really bothered by these
kinds? Of course, of course he wasn't bothered. Never were you ever
bothered by any of the Tory's promos that he did on TVs about you?
I know he did want with the fakeerite Flair, and I don't know if
that ever bothered you or anything like that. I don't know were you It
doesn't like I try to tell people this, can I take this business serious?
Wonderful all this? You can go ahead and you can ask that question.
Yeah, you know what that means that it was It was the right
It was the right thing. You're still questioning energy and you it entertained you,
but it grabbed your imagination. You thought, maybe that ship's real?
Is that real? To this day you're asking that question, is it real?
Where are we going to tell you that it was not real? Now?
I know not. I don't want to know either. No. Sitting
with Rob Einstein from our video. So, uh yeah, but Terry,
all of what you said is well and good, But were you trying to
really piss off Rick Flair? I mean, don't act like, oh,
you know, you know, I never you know, I went ahead and
did what I had to do, and and if I pissed somebody off,
I didn't. You know, That's just kind of the way things happened.
You know. Sometimes I'd just sit there and go ahead and and then and
and cut a promo and I'd pissed myself alf off. I wonder did I
do that on that I really pissed myself off? Was I really pissed off
with myself or did not do it as an angle or did I just you
know, piss myself or did I piss myself and say I'm a cartoon talk
about three D chess huh funk man funk. Yeah, we've heard it.
He doesn't rest until he's saying something that legitimately bothers, of course, and
the guy, the guy knows its business, but Terry Funk uses that to
get four more shots in than are necessary. That's what you have to understand
about this guy. Like, yeah, he doesn't he doesn't point to the
fact that they're working together justify it. He points to the fact that they're
working together to take advantage of the situation, because you can never you could
always hide behind that veil if somebody takes umbrage. And we've heard the bass
and the voice of everybody from Dusty Rhodes to Jerry Lawler here to Rick Flair.
We heard Hulkogan talking about how pissed Terry Funk was, you know,
talking to the media about beating him in South Africa and being legitimately terrified of
Terry Funk. I mean, this guy, Yeah, he's working with you,
but he's gonna make sure to fire live rounds in the process. He's
not gonna absolutely soft pedal it. And you can hear almost the anguish,
anguish in his voice in his book there at being told from on high that
he has to tone things down, and how just antithetical that is to who
he is. Like if he let people tell him that in his career,
he would not be Terry Funk. It would not be where he was.
If if he let Sam Muchnik and Larry Mattison and Pad O'Connor tell him to
not do the hit angle, the heat angle with Johnny Valentine on Saint Louis
Television. All the way back from the very inception of his career, he
was like this, and here he is sort of bumping up against the tensions
that are created in a business where people, you know, a Flair is
sitting there not just taking what Terry Funk says at face value, but is
Terry Funk tells us very helpful? They're thinking who's behind the words Terry Funk
saying mmm, because I have enemies and Terry Funk might not be them,
but Terry Funk, you know, might be willing to be a puppet for
them if it positions him favorably. Because that's how it's three paid in this
new corporate run turn around WCW. Fascinating stuff, that's right. Are you
still at the marker right after the Edi Guerrero match there on your tape?
It's about one four fifty on disc fifteen, one O four fifty. Oh
no, because I was at the Flair thing. But here, oh wait,
we saw that though, we saw that promo played that one. Okay,
so we'll have to go past the one O four to fifty one.
Okay. I got a weird guy on Ric Flair's physician. Yes, here
we go. What's your time code on Ric Flair's physician. Yeah, I've
got I have one, seven thirty seven. All right. We're gonna line
these up here, all right. And so we've heard so much about these
promos that Terry Funk is cutting on TBS that are causing Ric Flair to call
the office and belly ach to Jim Ross and others. What was he doing?
What was he saying? What of this fake Ric Flair promo that's been
referenced to a hundred times so far with this guy who worked in the office,
Ron Ames, Let's take it in as part of the lapsed Funk.
First, we're going to start with the physician of Rick Flair who went on
TBS and talked about the injuries to Ric Flair's neck suffered in the pile driver
at Wrestle War by Terry Funk and the whole idea, the whole component of
this where Ric Flair has mentioned what was forced to stay home to sell the
severity of this injury and the unique circumstance that created for Terry Funk to go
hole on the promo. Is that any comebacks? Yeah? So here we
go. We're going to take a tour through the legendary Rick Flair Terry Funk
feud in nineteen eighty nine leading up to their clash at the Great American Bash.
Here we go on three to two one play has hand some problems with
wear and tear of his neck. To this point already Doctor Eastwick, and
with the recent injury east Wenn has actually now gone ahead and ruptured a disc
in his neck in the lower aspect of the neck, actually between the fifth
and the sixth vertebrae. Because of that, he's pinched a nerve going down
the left arm, and our examination shows that that's left him weak. Rick
tells me that he's actually much weaker in his bench press, for instance,
than ever before, and he used to be a competitive powerless This is a
doctor behind the desk, on the lap coat, with tie and the weakness,
the signature stitched into his lap coat, the whole deal. Oh yeah,
some of the fingers and of course lot of pain traveling down there.
An injury like this takes quite a while to heal it. It's very difficult
to call it early on in the in this situation, and what we need
to do is give him some time to heal. Uh and by that we
really have to tie into it. Sounds like you're giving Terry fun. We've
got to get working on his strengthening of the neck, got to work on
the range of motion. And then we use the tools of traction at times
and a neck collar to help stiffen the neck and hold it protected. Then
we can't beat or ever best father time I'm obsessed with like a real doctor
agreed to just completely fabricates. Oh yes, absolutely for the cameras, fucking
George Horion style. They're very crazy. Is how to perfect his career and
yet that's a really tough decision. We don't need to make that decision right
now, but we really worry about the safety of of him returning to the
ring. He doesn't have a desk job like I do, so that heroically
he did of protecting his neck at work every day. And what I would
like to see is that we go through all these recovery mechanisms hoping that it
doesn't take surgery to do it. We're certainly going to try our best to
try and work through this in therapy, and if he can rest the neck
and has any luck and healing, then a lot of this can resolve,
but a certain percentage of life could not. Really really, he has no
idea how to take that, and we'll get to had no idea that Terry
Funk was going to do that until they were live, and is it safe
A new Funk was going to do some hyper violences on the floor back and
white, and there's nothing that's one hundred specificity of preparing the discovery. I
think that's unfair. Doesn't make it that way, but we do hope that
he can get well enough that we consider it a reasonable risk and safe enough
to try. He won't do it halfway, and so that if he goes
back, we want to be sure that it's recovered enough that he's not in
any immediate danger of further injuring the muscles on it. Are all right,
fans? As we mentioned earlier in the hour, kry Buck said he had
a big announcement to make a surprise announcement. I hope that you and I
can keep this to civil level. What is it talking about next Thuray nine
here on the superstation. Well, absolutely, I wanted to come out here
and tell you that I called Rick Flair's attorney and Rick Flair wouldn't talk to
me because he just didn't feel right about it. And I can understand that.
And I said that the attorney. I said, Sir, I said,
I would like to pay Ric Flair's round trip ticket to this show next
week if he would come here and appear and tell us about the extent of
his injury. You know, Rick Clair's neck is hurt, I believe the
doctor, but his legs aren't broken. And that's exactly what I told his
attorney, and the attorney said, Rick Flair will be here. So I
am so happy to say that you people are going to have Rick Clair explaining
the extent of his injury next Saturday night. Right here, we are governed.
Jerry Funk is going to produce Rick Flair in the TV Claire back in
person, and I am so proud to say that he is back. You're
telling it may not be wrestling again, but he might even possibly accept the
challenge for the World Championship. If I do challiot, he's going to be
we oh, yes, but I'll let him have the chance and opportunity to
get well. Yes, I will. All right, Fancy and the psychon
here we have left in the program, don't forget next week as we first
Superstation next Saturday night plus the Midnight Express will be back with Jim Cornett.
Welcome back, ladies, and there's the teas for next week. And Ric
Flair, poss said earlier in the program, Terry, I don't know.
We made the comment that he would have Nature Boy Rick Flair here with us
tonight, and we if that is true, we started to look forward to
seeing the Nature Boy back here in the center stage here Superstation TBS. Here
comes Terry fun Now all right, Harry, A little dubious of this situation.
Where is he? Well, he's here. Rick Flair is here tonight,
and I want to tell you people, black leather, cowboy hat,
big ass belt, buckle, right, because he had enough intestinal fortitude to
come out here. I'm very proud of him. Let's go ahead and bring
let's go ahead down. Yeah, here it comes boss. All right,
Wow, there's a music coming down Wreck. The crowd is panding here,
fanding ovation. Oh gosh, who's that clown? He worked in the office.
Jr. Just said it in the clip. It was like a marketing
guy. Ron names was oh funny. Terry Funker was in the office one
day and saw the guy and said, that's my Rick Flair. All right,
So the real Rick Flair is home not loving this. Oh, grow
up Flair. The woo that sounded like a woman. Let's hear a Rick
Claire scream like a man. WHOA, that's awesome. Have anymore Rick Clare
spell it r I C K F l A. Yes, they do as
you say it is, which, of course was a mistake they made unintentionally
a raging kilt. Another way, how are you well? You have a
bad stomach, don't you yet? What it is is you have lost your
guts and Ric Flair also has a bad back. Take off the robe and
show him your bat comes b Wait a minute, my, what two weeks
of hiding in a closet does to a person? My doesn't Rick Flair look
and get that robe all get it off now and show him what's wrong with
your bat? Yellow Street down his back, God Street down his bet.
This is ridiculous, This is embarrassing, Carrie. You're talking about the world
shipping of the NWA. Hey, I'm I want to tell you a kid
something. Don't believe in Santa Claus. And remember, oh I don't believe
in Santa Claus. No dumb there, doll yeller, Wow, oh my
got in a world. Sting isn't gonna stand on that back there, line
up, listen to your stop. Let me tell you something. I got
a cold kill going right at my fine and it makes me sick. Funk
just whipped off the cowboy hat. You one another pen in my whole life.
Pal Let me tell you something else. I thank you well. The
shirt comes off the functor. Hey, guess what else you're ambassing me?
You'ressing people? Are your am passing the nature by? And you ain't got
no you know what? I'm Terry Funk. It's in the ring, challenging
the Stinger to bring it. Wow, you come staying, and we're back
on the Memphis TV station. I'm throwing, not allowing stinging into the way
in the ring. Christ I love it back and we're reversed by the stinger.
Funk hits the ropes Larry and down goes Terry and they go nuts at
center stage starting oh sting clothesline. Oh just creates little ropey sours like a
gazelle does this Stinger with a flying clothes line. Funk hits the floor.
Stay out after him, and there are woos on those rights. Funker spills
over the rail. Here the Funk work the railing. How did you Bronis
come out? They're going nuts and they were building a Sting Terry Funk House
show program at the same time. Here, all right, there's one of
those oh man, Funk puts two Jabroni's down there are in between him and
Sting and then lunges at Stinging headlocks on the Now that's a pigpile trying to
break this thing up. Funk hanging off the ring, Apron throwing at the
back of Sting's head. That's just fucking money I got here. Let's go
to the Wrestling out of Here station. Earlier this week I had the occasion
to be one of the great n w A cities to conduct an interview with
Terry Funk. The subject of that interview was this Wednesday night primetime live broadcast
here on the superstation, the Class of Champions seven. Of course, we
all know Funk now the number ten contender for the world's heavyweight title will number
ten tonight the number one contender, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. That was the
subject of the interview, and it was most interesting let's play it now.
Well, ladies and Jellain, where here to talk to Terry Funk about the
big class of champions coming up this Wednesday night. That's how the top ten
in the n W A number one contender Ricky the Dragon Steamboat this Wednesday night,
Jim Ross, I want to tell you and the simple minded people out
there, the cold hard facts one time and one time only. I am
from a professional wrestling family, and many years ago my father was a wrestler
too, and my father died in my arms after a professional wrestling max.
They had his funeral and thousands of people came to his funeral, and they
brought every kind and color of flower imaginable. That's like I said, was
many years ago. Then the years went by and I went back to the
grave Heights and all it was there was me in the West Texas winds,
and I looked down at that headstone of his and had said, Funk,
if you n k and the iWar to the heavens to Bob that I would
make that name synonymous with wrestling forever, forever. If I have to step
on Staying, I will. If I have to step on Luger, I
will. If I have to step on steamboat his family. I will that
includes that little pig notes half breed child of his. Because what I want
to do is I want to have Rick Claire. And I've set my last
west, I've set my heartbeat. Oh well, good mind right composite there,
Okay? As a Ricky Steamboat interrupts Terry Funk to build the Clash of
the Champions match that would qualify Terry Funk to challenge Flair for the belt at
the Great American Bash, well we saw most of the substance of promos that
fuck cut between attacking Flare at Wressell War eighty nine and wrestling him at the
Bash eighty nine. Thoughts on Funk's work here, boss, I mean,
he's spectacular. He's just he's able to mold himself and and just transform into
so many different I don't know, like he's got like you know, you
said it, he's got layers. Yeah, he just struck a totally different
tone there and that go home, going back to his father's grave, And
as soon as he opened his lips, it's like, whoa, this is
a different tone of voice than I expected from him. Yes, this isn't
the guy that brought out the fake Rick Flair with the streak down his back,
playing you know, foolish and or screaming psychotically into the camera. Either.
Right, He's just he's a different guy every time he steps in that
WCW microphone. It's it's it's remarkable. It's a remarkable performance from Terry Funk,
who, of course was given the blank canvas because Ric Flair was home
selling. It was all Terry that had to paint the picture, and goddamnit,
he did it. And then they did like a press conference on television
where Rick Flair took the dais and announced that he had recovered sufficiently that he's
been cleared to return and he's looking forward to coming back to face Terry Funk.
At of the Great American Bash. They had Jim Heard up there introducing
Flair like they were like they were on the same page and you know,
talking in positive, glowing terms about our Flair's dedication and so uh, that's
the the on screen harmony. Behind the scenes fair degree of turmoil. Here's
a Terry Funk talking about it in a shoot interview. I say broke my
back, I broke my sacrum. Yeah, and I was in just an
extreme extreme crew. You know. Pay if anybody's had a broken cycrum,
I don't know what I'm talking about. And Uh I did that wrestling and
WCW at the time, and I'd have to get on an airplane and I
couldn't sit down, and I'd have to turn around in the seat and lean
over the seat for the entire flights. You know, I'd just sit down
where we landed and took off, you know. Yeah, and uh kept
on joining the towns. Uh things happened to the other disappointing things is like
uh telling them that that was wrong with me and continue not to continuing on
right, but having them not believe me in sending me to several other doctors
didn't make me and them the top. Yeah. That Uh, creating uh
tremendous interest in something and having somebody getting so upset with it they couldn't stand
it, Which was the flair situation that we had that they're doing and have
repeated in WCWN versions of it in WWF to this day. Yeah. Uh
from the the from the from the famous uh uh flair of Ron Ron Aims
dressing up like Rick Flair. Yeah, to all of that, you know.
I mean, but uh that was uh got treatman his heat from Flair
and yeah he he he went to the office and told him about it,
and yeah, that was shut down. You know, really putting a paper
sack over somebody's head suddenly turned into something that they couldn't play on the air.
And a lot of uh of uh of underlying turmoil at that time,
uh point where where I would be doing uh commentary and they wouldn't even let
me know what the card was till pre minutes before time, and I was
supposed to speak to the producer of the show at that time, and we
just absurdities that took place. You know, Yeah, who do you blame
for that? You blame the company as a whole, just for complete this
organization or individuals, and I mean, I don't want to go into yeah
it was. Yeah. Is there a lot of tension between you and Flair
at that time? M somewhat? Yes, Yeah, thank you, Terry.
Yes, your your matchup Batch eighty nine with the injuries and everything going
in incredible match and you know, was there a lot of pressure on you
going into that to have to have the match that you guys? Did I
think that you know. I mean again, as I said, all this
time and this pressure of that pressure. Yeah, I think I did feel
pressure from that match. Yeah, at that time, had had to be
the best, had to be the best. Mmmm. As he talked about
there, he did. He broke his sacrum, which is based like your
tailboat up your ass, like he broke on a house show match with Sting.
I mentioned there the Sting Terry Funk Mike Showdown is setting up a house
show program, And that was several weeks out from the big you know return,
a flare of the Great American Bash. The pay per view hinged on
him getting his revenge on Terry Funk, and god damn it, Terry Funk
wasn't not going to be there. And as he said, he's rankled because
he's still making towns with this huge injury and they're doubting if he's really hurt.
They're having him go to other doctors to confirm it. It's all that
stupid politics of who's on whose side behind the scenes and everything being read through
that lens like, of course he's hurt. Yeah, of course, there's
a last minute hiccup where all of a sudden, you know, we can't
deliver this right, and he's you know, he's just he's just playing ball,
not being told what matches are going to be coming up next, even
though his contracts says he's a producer. That's fucking hilarious. It was all
in there and of course, you know, being told to tone it down
by the office. So that's the version Terry Funk tells about this time before
the situation's changed, and he was around Rick Flair socially and worked right again
at ws W and softened at Big Time, and he would never repeat that.
You know, you know that that's that's that's such the game right there,
that's the that's it. Like something else, Terry Funk was the master
I hate you until I like you exactly. You know. It's such situational,
very transactional, very case dependent. As for working in the ring with
Terry Funk. Upon his return, even in that you know, state of
injury, Rick Flair had some comments reflecting on, well, this is actually
Terry Funk having comments on how tough the match was, not just getting in
there with the broken sake room, but as the match played out in real
time with live rounds. You know what it was, the work you know,
but Rick can never realized that when it came to those shops, So
go ahead and beat me to death. I had a fine chest anyhow,
he never had been doing to me. Damn bench prescious. But anyhow,
Rick Love, he's zero men on that right away. Then I'd come home
with my wife would look at me and she'd say, oh my god,
she didn't working with blood blood Prance. I just know why. I didn't
mean, I've been with blood blusters. You know. You can hear Flair
like trying to like pipe up and stop Terry from Nope, nope, nope,
Flair, No, no, you hurt the guy. I went out
there and that was a shoot. Accept it. And he's very sensitive about
that because remember Brett Hart criticized him for that, a Brett who didn't love
taking those hard knife fetch chops. You know, to Brett, the art
is not actually hurting the other guy. I know, right, that's exactly
so Fla was very much in his feelings about being told that he went out
there and just brutalized people with chops to get himself over, which is great.
I mean, Funk was more than game, but he but Flair can't
even stand to sit there and hear Funk pointed out right, like, just
accept the fact that you fucking did it. He starts olling, what about
wah waho with big hands? He chopped harder. It's like, okay,
brick, he chopped talking about wow chopping, yo chopping like a bitch?
So uh, why are you? Why are on my ass? And so
that's like, yeah, they're both doing a smile and backslap sitting right next
to each other in that are a video feature they did, like ah what
they call face off where they sit two guys down at the same time to
talk about their love it. I love it and it's wonderful to see how
differently shaded the comments are about working together in that setting versus when they did
shoots in isolation, in particular Terry Funks. And so it's all building towards
the Great American Bash. And while we've done the match in the archives,
I do think it's appropriate to do it again because this is Flair coming back
off the neck injury. This is Terry Funk putting his absolute best foot forward.
This is why he got after the contract to do this match, to
do this pay per view, and it did great business. It was the
first bright spot that WCW had seen in years in terms of a really respectable
house, a pay per view by rate that showed that if they did,
in fact put the right guys out there with the right storyline and it all
clicked, that they could draw it. Wasn't this sort of like black hole
where no matter what they did, the fans weren't willing to support it.
Yeah, nineteen eighty nine and Terry Funk in particular showed that there was there
was something that they could reach for, even in a WWBF dominated marketplace.
So let's go to Disc sixteen, Boss Disc sixteen, and it's going to
start at zero zero, zero zero, right at the very top. July
twenty third, nineteen eighty nine, widely considered the greatest pay per view in
the history of professional wrestling, the nineteen eighty nine Great American Dash. After
matches Sting versus Mudo and Luca versus Steamboat and the Wargames, we get Flair
returning to make Terry Funk pay for what he did to him at Wrestle War
and all he said in the promos that we've sampled here on the lapsed Funk
Are you ready? I'm ready three two one play Ladies and gentlemen. Flair,
Yeah he is six time. Whoa baby please a gentleman high praisen the
world Chippy nature Well, then on every arm Boss and and Morph that's that's
yep, kind of nature boy and wearing kind of a baby face smile,
baby face fire jem gem. I don't even understand where I am right now.
Pop Coddle on the call with good Old Jr. There's the two rings
of the war Games. They set off pop Gun Pyro above the rings for
the return nature Boy. Rick Flair is first time in nineteen one has he
defeated Dusty Roads and try to raise him Elboss, I'm ready ready for the
Funker to do it on pay per view of course, and even though he
went through New York Man, he never had the chance to go all out
Terry Funk on pay per view until this moment. This is the moment on
pay per view and Terry Funk and Flair talks him in the isle away and
the chops are flying in Baltimore. Baltimore was a great market for WW relatively
speaking for years, and this Funk Flair match, if the gate was any
indication and the buyer rate was any indication he played no small part. Funk
is just rattling the ringside railing. He's amongst the people. Everyone look at
the just beside himself. That Flair got to him that quickly, in that
aggressive way to those fans. They're talking ship to him, but they're backing
up the second he looks at him. I'd be horrified of him. Kidding
me, God, I would have loved to go with the show. The
brother Oh bunk one leg over the rail, trying to go after fans again.
Rick Flair attacks off the handle and now he's pummeling Harry Funk across the
time keeper's table. I love those buntings, those red, white and blue
buntings, not only the care Oh jesus, Oh, he's just fucking there.
He goes, grabs a chair, and Laundry goes Garry and Michael Capetta
getting out of the way. Flair scooping up. He's right back to it.
He's climbing the he's why is he going over the rail, Because you're
fucking crazy gold here. I love like maybe the subtletee that like, yeah,
he's crazy, but he's actually doing it because he's kind of afraid to
get in the ring. Yep. And he's so mad at himself that he's
intimidated by his opponent that he's taking it out on ringsiders. But he enters
the fray Collem, okay believe in that Fair, I'm okay believing that.
What's that? Boss, I said, I'm okay believing that. Oh now,
Funk, I want to work with Chop. Yes, yes, here
comes Flair. I want to chop and turns Funk almost all the way around
were good, middle aged and crazy, big chop over the top. There
he coaches, right. Hogan was the beneficiary, Jared Lawler was the beneficiary,
Dusty Rhodes was the beneficiary. And the fans, the fans and fans.
Oh Funk catches up to Flair and posts him on the outside his baby
face. Flair, Man, it's a you know, I mean, it's
when was it so before this? When was the last time he was a
baby face before this? It's hard to say. I mean, probably the
Carolina's in the seventies, honestly, well, eighty three he was a babyface
against Starcade. Yeah he was, that's Charlie race. But by eighty four
he's a heel again and certainly eighty five through. Yeah, I guess it's
been the first time and it was eighty three. Yeah, because remember we
did the star Kad Memorial tour. We were noting how starkly different Rick Flair's
tone was on promos. He's much more sportsman like. Yeah, Calm collected
that was who he was in like his formative decade, first decade, and
Crockett, even when he was a heel and he was flamboyant, he still
kind of had a little more of a serious tone. Yoms to his promos
outside and Funk brings in Flair the hard way with the verticals who play he's
nice. Bunk floats over lateral, pressed Tommy Young down for the two,
and Flair pops the shoulder up eight years ago. Another supplex on older here
from the Funker. Oh but Flair puts the block on Ric FLAIRLA was the
only one is first title eight years prior. That's the nuts. Oh,
we just saw it. We saw him Russell Terry Funk during that ragn.
I know, it's still crazy to think though that it was only eight years
at this point. I know, I know, it just seems like the
equivalent of twenty years today. Yep, yep, to see something that would
look that much of a different era, to see like the transformation in Terry
Funk alone in eight years. Right, So flare up to the apron Funk,
rabbing him by the hair and driving chops behind the head Funk using the
blade of his taped hand. And look at that Rick Flair with a head
butt, Thank you very much. Flaire looking at Suplex Funk out of the
rain. No, no, nope, they fall and I'm okay with that.
Yeah, it was a hlacious collapse that made sense. Yep. Yeah,
nine times out of ten, if you try to sup like some motherfucker
out of the ring against his will, you're probably gonna both come crashing down
because he's gonna fight like hell to not take that blow. Yeah. Ok,
the chops on the floor, that's an exchange. That's all flat chest
on Funk. Man. There's no meat there. I know that he's got,
Like, yeah, there's there's there, really isn't. It's just such
a fucking I don't even know what to call it. Just just bone,
bone and skin. Okay, this guy swing go out of the eyes as
well. Claire rolls back into the ring, in agony, Terry Funk in
pursuit. I really like you gotta wonder about the conditioning of Flair. I
don't know if I have to bow. I know I'm clanding up a pile
driver now in the ring. Now it's that dreaded flare. Can't take all
of those Oh back drop and Funk spells violently to the floor. Terry Funk
thrown out of the ring. Man, I think it's another's it's really conclusionable.
Yeah, that was a big part of this too. Is Funk revealed
Gary Hart as his manager. Oh, that's right. It's like a surprise
element for a Flair. I like a Flair trying to break Terry Funk's neck
wrenching into the floor. Funk cell, it's like the Zeus neck break.
He's doing Gary Hart motionless. Yep, his head's moving, but his body
is not. Yep. He's thinking of all the ways. Yes, he
can kill if he needs so. I mean, that's it, right,
I mean, let's big. Let's be Frank here. Want ah Flair at
the back of the head. You drop a US in the back of the
head of Terry Funk is now in an extremely vulnerable position. JJ Dillon back
there behind h Gary Harder song, not really sure he was working for Vince
by this point and another he dropped by the nature boy pulling the knee pad
down, turns over a Funk lateral price hook at the outside leg, gets
two? Or does the champione the player thinking pile driver? Here there we
go turnabout's fair play for the nature boy. Oh yes, don't see many
brick Flair pile drivers. Man, Oh, look at him, do the
fucking Homer Simpson. There Funks spinning around like a top on the mat.
Look at him, flingers. What is he doing? He's such a nut
that it's perfect. That's the that's the moment for Rick gets his hands on
Funk and pile drives his ass. You can do it again to triple pumps
him too, whether it's Jerry Lawler or Rick Flair. If you're gonna pile
drive Terry Funk, we're in business. And Terry Funk's on his fucking feet.
And then he stumbles through the ropes again. I love the h I
love those those like half circle American flag things. They look like it's a
fucking you know, like we're at the town hall in like eighteen eighty seven
or something. The bunting Yeah, out to the Aisleway we go, as
Flair continues wrenching the neck of Terry Funk and attacking him from every which way
back into the fray. Now there's the wounded funk er Rick Flair gon to
capitalize slapping the shit out of Terry Funk. Here we go, Here we
go. Yes, ah, that was a bad punch, but you can't
win them all. Fun comes alive with the series of jabs. Flair hits
the ropes and drops Funks with a forearm cover two little kicks out. But
he taught me, you'm making the count from the outside of the ring.
Do whatever he's got to do based on ring positioning. Look at that fucking
camera crane, right Jesus Christ, huge backsupplex by. Flair puts down Funk
flosition for the figure four. We go, Doug Dillinger board out of his
fucking mind. He really knows how to convey electricity. Step over, Flair
hooks it up. He's got the figure four locked out. Oh fun trying
to maneuver, and we see the branding iron is in the ring. Yep,
I believe Gary hardis like the branding iron Face figure four will relinquished.
Just Gary hearts up on the ring, apron distracting Tommy Young, Terry Funk.
What's his butt there? Oh my god, I can't think of his
fucking name anymore. Bishoff's partner Jason Hervey, Jason, thank you. Jason
Hervey is sitting on the hard camera side. If you saw him, Yeah,
he's lucky he was at this show. So Flair is run the razor,
selling the branding iron shot and Funk of course peppering closed fists right in
that cut. What a battle looks like. We are the women in dresses.
I know, I know, what do you fucking wearing a dress for
it wrestling show? There's Hervey right there? Oh yeah, yeah, oh,
look at that fucking He claps for his godfather. Hey came out of
his seat for Terry Funk. Spile driver. Flaire is dead cover by Funk
one two and Flair gets the fun under that funds out. Tommy Young,
calm down, brother, calm down, Gary, Michael Flair got in and
got the opportunity the uh oh uh oh ring side. He's removing the uh
the blue ring mats, exposing the concrete dable you never know what he's going
to do. Terry Serry's on his feet. He's like excited now, Terry
brand Gary Hard got a couple of the old Hogan Neatch tricks. Here.
He's choking in the tape using the branding iron of the head bloody mat.
Tell me young, all right, pat rabs Funk by the hair to try
to stop him from choking Flair with the wrist tape. You can just deeply
Genknisky, Jesus Christ stopping Gene Kinisky, looking Doug Dull and Jesus like yeah,
all right, to the floor. Then exposed concrete. Terry Funk.
This is lining drivers to do this. Jason Hervey can not miss it.
He is so excited. He stood up, fucking walked over and it's so
funny. Claire with a huge backdrop to Counterfunks pile driver and they both landed
on top of each other on the stacked up part of the the ring mat
that Funk could peeled back. Claire still forced to crawl around on all fours.
Terry funks to his feet first up to the apron now as the funker.
Oh, and he goes directly down head first. He's such a nut
he just dropped his body on Rick Flair's head, basically off the ring apron.
I don't know how this guy comes at every match. He comes at
you from an angle vent you couldn't possibly anticipate, right accenter rang the Funker
with a swinging neck breaker. I'll tell you that could. Jason Hervety wrapped
his enraptured yep, very very intently looking watching on another swinging neck breaker by
the Funker. The end, Funk screaming, say it, say it at
Rick Flair, but a foreshadowing. Perhaps you never know what he was going
to do. It gets you in trouble. Oh yeah, by the way,
doing this broken sacrum. Third neckbreaker, Flair bloodied, convulsing on the
can. You can see it just pouring out of his fucking pouring hot,
very heart, screaming, Come on, Terry, take the pin. But
the Funker wants to lay in more pun wishment. This is Rick Flair,
vulnerable babyface, right, yep, yep. Nothing more dramatic than Flair's blood
leaking into his into his blonde hair. Time was visual. I'm's trying to
grab the branding iron, but Flair kicked him enough. Flair has the branding
iron a boom. Wow. There he is colaps Funk in the head with
it. Funk collapses through the ropes to the floor. Tommy Young didn't see
it. He was admonishing Gary Hart. There he's cut himself. You can
see it. You can see it. You can see his fucking left hand
just gigging, gigging. Terry Funk come to Baltimore to slice his forehead open
so that people deem him worthy of the ticket, right, I mean,
look, he's he's here. He is here to show the fans that he
means business, that he's a serious Series Is contender. There's the color and
like you said, you call that it's Flair sends Funk headfirst into the ring
Post Jr. Going off And I've never seen a more physically contested battle for
the corner. Now, Flair mounting Funk and here come the close fists to
the cut of the Funker. Turnabouts, fair play. Tommy Young is like
horrified about blood spread and blood and all that shite. He's like convulsing in
the corner. He's like a corpse right now, stumbling out of the corner
like a zombie. Funny enough, he's a corpse now. Shit. Funk
lands on his seat, can barely stand the punishment of Rick Flair piling up
here in Baltimore. They've battled in both rings. They've battled a little up
the aisleway and the floor. In the crowd, Jr. Screaming like all
this the lines about how we're real wrestling and all that. Yeah, God,
look at the fucking blood coming out of Dairy Funk. He's a mess.
Slaps in the corners the Funk or Flair takes off, flies but misses
and crash his knee first into the buckling. And that's a perfect setup for
the spinning toe hold, and Terry Funk, even his discombobulated state, to
be thinking just that. He steps over spinning toe hold Jr. Calling out
that that's how he won the title, which is not true. Step over
inside Terry Wow. Claire reverses on top two, Rick Flair Wow reverses the
inside cradle and pins Terry Funk. Great great finish, and they rejoice.
In Baltimore. Gary Hart is not happy, but he takes a show,
trying to dig into the heel managers. I don't think Terry's done. Huh
oh, Murda, there comes Muda oh, because because the fucking green mist
would make you bump. Oh yeah, funk. Flaire hits the deck on
that. And now this is kind of like the announcement the unveiling of j
Tex Corporation, the Gary Hart led stable that would include Dick Slater, Dragon
Slayer, the Great Muda and Terry Funk and then Flair forming you know,
a baby face alliance with Sting and the rest. So this all plays out
in a prolonged way. Sting comes out, they fight all the way up
yep. Jim heard With criticized Flaiir later for fighting outside of the camera lights
because because he's looking at you know, nitpicking and understand and what do you
have, Flair? I don't understand. I mean we're sitting here trying to
you know, I'm trying to see your face, and you're finding fucking Dylan
Flair. Fucking moron. What a moron from getting fucking loser. He is,
like, you're supposed to be head of security, idiot, Like you've
got no there we go. I forgot that Sting had kind of dirty blonde
hair at this point. It's not the bleach blonde. No, it wasn't
peroxided. He was he was letting it darken like it's nineteen ninety six,
so we can pause on that, right. It's total legendary stuff there by
the way. You know what I love, You know what I love more
about this more than anything. I love seeing all this classic WCW NWA footage
with the WW logo. Oh god, yeah, I'm a lower left hand
the height that's that's money right there. That was the thing man. Once
they released their DVDs, like, this is the highest quality versions of these
matches by a mile. Yeah, But I just love seeing the WW logo,
and so every time you see it, it's probably going to be the
WW version of it because yep, you know, it's just such high quality
compared to people's toes. So I just sent you a little blurb here.
This is Terry Funk reflecting on working with Rick Flair here in Crash Here we
go in Regardless of how he felt personally about my promos, Flair was a
pleasure to work with. I truly enjoyed every one of our matches. We
had some very solid encounters. How could I not love a match when I
was in there with one of the best performers in the world. But I
paid a price for those matches. One night, I went over the top
rope and a match with Sting and hit the rail outside, cracking my sacrum.
It wasn't anybody's fault, just a bad landing. I ended up riding
around on a plane every day, going from town to town, and I
couldn't sit on the plane except for takeoff and landing. The only way I
could stand it was to kneel on my seat facing the person behind me.
Imagine I also had a nasty staff. In fiction, I had torn my
bursa and my elbow swelled to the size of a baseball. I got myself
some I got myself some needles from needles from from a veterinarian an amarilla,
as you do, and drained the damn thing myself every night. I can't
think of a better place to get was he fucking Patrick Swayze? Jesus Christ?
I was thinking I was some kind of a doctor, but I was
almost Doctor Kavorkian because I almost eliminated myself while draining the fluid out. I
was letting germs in and the result was a staff infection. I just didn't
feel like I had the time to go to a real doctor about it.
But Doctor Funk ended up ended up putting me out of action for a couple
of weeks. He wasn't one of my better characters. When I went into
shock from it, PAULI was the one who took me to the hospital.
They operated on me, and it was quite a deal. But Paul was
there for me when everybody else was gone, and he stayed with me.
No one else did. What heat was left after I toned down my interviews
wait for the last couple of weeks, built up to a main event and
match at the July pay per view, the Great American Bash eighty nine,
And what I'd said must be have done the trick because the show was a
sellout in Baltimore and it drew the best gate for a live show the company
ever had until nineteen ninety six. Yeah, a little bit more here.
Yeah, I had a lot of heat with those NWA fans almost everywhere I
went. One night in Marietta, I was on my way to the ring
to Russell Flair and a woman went after me with a butcher knife. Now,
why would you defend a banana nose instead of a good looking funker.
Now you'll notice I did say almost anywhere. Flair and I had a match
during our nineteen eighty nine campaign in Amarilla where no funk had ever been a
heel. Oh God, I would have given anything to see that shit.
Even if I'd wanted to be one that night, those people weren't gonna let
me. They booed the hell out of Rick Flair. He didn't He didn't
get flustered because he understood it, having been through the same kind of thing
in the Carolinas. To this day, no matter how big a heel is
everywhere else, they still love him in the Carolinas. And that's how it
was for me when he and I wrestled in Amarilla. The truth was,
when I went out to the other territories and played my heel role, that
only made me a bigger baby face back home, because a big part of
my routine was to talk about how great Amarilla and Texas were and how crappy
every other place was. There was no way I could ever have turned heel
and Amarilla the people just wouldn't have accepted it. Indeed, in one last
flurry, if you can handle it, leaving up to the Havoc match,
having quickly, do you remember this one Yeah, that's so tag matching the
thunder cage or whatever. Right, Yeah, the misfired Pyro and the paper
catching the paper mache catches fire on the top of the cave, right,
and it's just complete garbage, late shit show. But that's you know,
that brawl we saw with Flair and Sting versus Muda and Funk. That's setting
that first Halloween Havoc show up. Leaving up to the Havoc match. We
had a deal where I attacked Flair by putting a plastic bag over his head
and suffocate you know about this, and then we did the angle after that,
But that was just that that brunch. Do you know about this angle?
No, this is always always like the second, if not the first,
thing that comes up when people talk about Terry Funk and Rick Flair.
At eeteen eighty nine an angle on TB where Flair comes with flares out there.
It's a big, you know, group brawl, gang warfare and what
have you, and Terry Funk sneaks up behind Ric Flair and puts a fucking
plastic bag over his head. Oh my god, go ahead, I was
going to kill the son of a bitch. I wanted to eat him like
a pancake. Uh, that deal could have been extremely hot if TB.
That's yeah, if TBS had gone along with it. They ended up getting
so many complaints about it. They never replayed it. People were calling in
and complaining about it so strongly you'd have thought I was really trying to murder
Flair. Maybe the complaints from Vince McMahon because that angle did get over it.
That was so tame compared to the stuff they do today. If you
did that same angle today, they'd just laugh at you. While all this
was going on, in nineteen eighty nine and McMahon's were testifying in New Jersey
and to get out of paying taxes to the Athletic Commission, they admitted in
public that wrestling was pre determined. Right after I heard about it, I
thought it was lousy. Well, in a few weeks though, I thought
it was one of the wisest things they could have done. Ultimately, what
it did was make the business stronger because it opened us up to the media.
The big issue of whether it was a real sport was gone, and
so the media didn't have to harp on have that to harp on bullshit,
Yeah, which meant they could focus on the kinds of stories that could improve
public awareness of his business. It was the smartest thing he could do,
not the smartest thing that we could do, but it was the smartest thing
for him because of the ridiculous commission situation and because of the change in dealing
with the media. So there it is the state of play post Great American
Bash. We're now building up to the Terry Funk Ric flair Ie Quick Match,
the famous Clash of the Champions battle in New York. And we got
to put a plastic bag on Ric Flair's head. Boss, Oh my god,
I have to do it. So let's go to disc sixteen where we
are, and let's go to fifty seven fifty three. This is from the
Clash of the Champions September twelfth, nineteen eighty nine, bench clearing brawl,
if you will, and the moment of truth. Are you ready almost?
Okay? Three two? Wait? Fifty seven? I got flairty seven fifty
three. Okay it says it says Class to the Champions. Is that correct?
On the bottom of the screen, that's correct? Okayre we go three
two one play. So here we see Dick Slater, who was in the
j Tex Corporation working over flair fre there is look at that he's playing there
to pray. Who's tying it off? Funk is deranged? Funk Funk is
deranged. What's happened? Trying a ride? He's been big by Slader and
Mood enough fuck me up? Past it fine and he's crying. He's tied
it away. Look for his leg. He's turning to chump. Literally,
don't lie found a champion. I'm plastic bad over his face. Claire cannot
praise this. Steve, Steve, he has his eyes cut up. Somebody's
trying to cut in his bite. The branding fucking fasting to the ring.
Come on, put your fingers through some Steve they've got standing down. Slader
has that branding iron, Muda holding stings leg If big out of the ring,
Steve's gonna be hipped across it. Wow, run across the foot with
that branding iron. They got him right there. They painted like they they
banned them, branding yarn on his leg. Fancy, that's hiss chaotic.
This is out the lab the phone. We gotta ships may tat just stratified.
We got we'll get I'm trying to care to take this break. We
can't take this pup. We have to we Well, you better don't go
away. Look at your cameras taking don't go away. We'll be that yep,
pause it up. Wow, what did you just see? That was
wild? I mean he puts it. He comes up from behind, He
puts the plastic bag on his on his h on his head, and Jesus
Christ just almost like a clan mask. It's a big white, yeah,
plastic bag that comes to a point and he just just wraps it around Flair's
head and Flair keeps it on his head. He goes through the ropes to
the floor, and you know that the panic in Jim Ross's voice, it
is it is an intense angle and uh it really is. It earned our
friend Jim heard a meeting with Ted Turner to hear him tell it. Well,
one of those ideas out of the committee was to have Terry Funk make
use of a plastic bag on Rick Flair. And supposedly that got you a
face to face meeting with Ted Turner. That wasn't all that pleasant. That's
right, Yeah, that's right. He called me in said, I don't
know if you remember our first meeting and I said, yes, we had
lunch in the Omni and you asked me to find a Bury told girl that
could beat all the gods. He said, that's the first meeting we had.
He I mean he did it as a joke really, but you know
it reminds you of a meeting. Sure, And he told you then,
he said, I told you then what I wanted. And he said,
this is the first time you've digressed from that. And it didn't take him
long to call me on the carbon and say, hey, we're not doing
that. A reference there to you know, Ted Turner saying we don't want
hyper violence, we don't want blood, which got Dusty Rhodes fired, of
course in his right the fit he threw and yeah, this is so you're
bringing Terry Funk to be Terry Funk, to pick business up and to get
things to be more intense. That is definitely going to clash with that edict
from Ted Turner. Eventually, Yeah, for sure. And there it was
there in the plastic bag angle that was infamous. Really the second had happened,
and even more so as the years went on and people realized that behind
the scenes component of it. Here's Rick Flair on what It was like being
on the receiving end of Terry Funk deciding that this is what's going to go
ahead and happen tonight. It was ad lib Terry Funk. I didn't even
know what was coming really really, because there was a lot of heat.
There was a lot of heat behind the scenes for that wasn't there. Oh
my good, we almost lost TV. Well what was said? Who said?
What? Where did the heat come from? Jim Barnett? Oh my
god, what have you done? I mean, it's kind of like the
time Brody, not meaning to by any means, we're a TV in Atlanta,
Brody was storming around and he kicked the kid's wheelchair and and the kid.
The kid didn't follow the wheelchair and anybody. He just rolled into the
crowd. I mean, like then, you know, and not an attempt
by any means hurt the kid. But that's just how crazy we got back
in those days. We didn't we didn't we didn't think out of the box
a big picture. We just were focusing on trying to draw money and entertainment.
And you know, we probably could have been a little more conservative in
our thought process, but we weren't. No, no, no, I
say, bring back the plastic bag. That was entertainment. Yeah, it
was, yeah, considered, I couldn't almost get it off my you know,
you understand what Terry. Terry doesn't work. It's a shoot. When
he put that bag on me, I had it was a fight to get
it off. You have no idea, not that he was trying to I
don't know for sure. He may have been trying to give me the pass,
trying to kill you. Please well pass out for sure. Now,
uh, that would have looked good. You know, listen, it's a
fucking it's a fucking plastic bag. Flare, stick a fucking finger in the
bag and open it up, you idiot. What a fucking moron. Here's
the thing. If you know that this is an angle that's supposed to get
it, you know, get over with people. You don't do that.
You you trust it, Terry Funk's gonna do. You know what it takes
to protect you. But if you want to get heat off doing it,
you don't just pop it with your finger. No, I understand, Well,
it's but it looks it. That was the first thing. No,
because you know what, actually it diminished the experience for me, the fact
that he didn't try to take it out. That the moment that fucking that
that that he left, that Funk left, the fact that he didn't get
in there and just fucking poke a hole and and you know, so he
could breathe through his mouth or something. I just I was out of it.
Interesting. Yeah, I think it's a great angle up until that moment
when Terry Funk leaves him, it gets ruined. He was moving too much
flair. He should have sold it like he had passed out. Yeah,
right, right, And that's kind of what he was saying in that clip.
He's not entirely sure that Terry Funk didn't go out there to make it
look as good as possible and actually try to see if he could suffocate him
for a second. Now, of course that's hyperbole, but again it happens
again with Terry. You know, like they're gonna say that about anybody else.
You're not gonna make that little comment about anybody else where. I don't
know, shit, Maybe you know, maybe it was real, he was
trying to kill me, Maybe he saw red for a second. And you
know, people are willing to believe that about Terry Funk. That's how good
he was. They were willing to believe. Be it the front row fan
that he hops the rail to get in their face of or be it even
good Flair himself that in the heat of the moment, he could very well
just become somebody that could give a fuck about you and just cared about getting
the angle over. How about back to Wrestle War eighty nine, we talked
about that pile driver on the table and how impack phlip was. Here's Rick
Flair talking about how how little he says he really about what he was in
for, and how much trust he had to put in the hands of the
funker who was committed to making this, let's say impactful. Now, I
was gonna ask you didn't even tell me. He said, follow me,
follow me, Rick, follow me. I said, follow you where?
I mean? You know, you know Terry right. I don't even think
he knew he was gonna do until we were out there. Well, it
was a pile driver onto a table. Yeah, and I'm assuming the table
wasn't it all gimmicked? It didn't break. In fact, you can see
your head and neck bounce off. It actually added to the injury angle.
But so you had no idea you were going to be pile driven on the
table. Absolutely none, and would have never gone for it had I known
Funk is crazy. You don't understand this. I've wrestled a lot of crazy
guys. Brody Hansoon to no where is crazier than Terry Funk. And Terry
Funk was really tough too, so he didn't mind taking it. I hit
Terry Funk harder than I've ever hit anybody in my life when I was chopping,
as you've seen. I mean, Larry and I have had some really
good exchanges. It's a different time in life, and I can't you know.
I talked to Terry now probably once a week. He's finally back home.
He's been in bad help, but he's he came, he came back
on it, but he got out of the facility was in that was helping
him get back on his feet. He's home, and God, he's tougher
than you know. He's like, he's like hard. I rased one of
those guys that's too tough to die, and so I'm just thankful that I
ever ever had the opportunity to wrestle with him. So there you have it.
Why does he have to fucking yell all the time Flair No Mark Madden.
Yeah, that's a great question. He's fucking so yelling, yelling,
yelling, yelling, shot up. I know you caly take it in small
doses. Actually you can't even take it in small doses. I can't.
I can take it into zero dose and last long the Flair Mat and Madden
podcast. Yeah, so who came up with the plastic bag idea? Now
that it's sort of like, you know, anathema, Now that it's like
the third rail at Turner Broadcasting, no one you know ever laid claim.
In fact, it basically came down to, like Funk just decided to do
it on the spot. That was probably the only tenable explanation, rather than
you know, this person approved it. This person approved it. Like Walter
Hobb's signature on the blank page, that's that's Jim Hurd by the way,
Yeah, Walter Hobbs and Jim hed w C the guy who comes in and
tells him to meet on Christmas Eve. That's Dead Turner. Yeah, yeah,
that that's Christmas Eve. And and uh be good having the loop but
uh thanks to and I can't wait for you to hear this pitch, Hobbs
finished, tremendous, but thanks to the tone of the one of a kind,
tone of the one person I like, who's a wallflower during all this
chaos, Who's who's watching, who's monitoring, who's listening but who's not necessarily
engaging, who's absorbing but not necessarily contributing, who is making careful mental notes
of the chess pieces moving around on the board with his back to the wall
at all times. We turned to the book of You You're You're in danger.
Yes, motherfucker knows what's up, and miss Motherfucker proposed the angle from
his book. Terry Funk was preparing for a long program with NWA World champion
Brick Flair and was figuring that it might be his last big run. His
brother Dorry suggested that he asked me to handle his affairs during what was sure
to be a grueling program for him. Even though I just turned down managing
Vader and passed on Sid Vicious and Danny Spivey, managing Terry Funk was different.
First of all, I wouldn't be developing him, just watching out for
him and taking care of his business. Second of all, I had managed
him on other occasions, like in Florida, Thirdly, after all Terry and
I had been through together, how could I possibly say no. Anytime I
could ever do anything for the Funk Boys, I did it. I've managed
them both and wrestled them both. We've always had a good relationship. But
I became Terry's manager. I made things that as easy as possible for him.
That way, the only thing he had to concern himself with was the
match itself. Everything else I would handle his positioning on television, his interview
content, angles, finishes, and things like that. Terry left all that
up to me because he knew who I was and what I had accomplished,
it was comfortable with my choices. A great part of my success was the
trust that I gained with the guys that I managed. Terry knew that if
something needed to be done, I was ready to stand up and do it,
and if there was something that needed to be changed, I was willing
to fight with the office in order to fix it. And I never worried
about getting fired. I just didn't care. Terry Funk's matches with Ric Flair
were drawing big money, but during their run, Terry got an infection in
his arm. Overpair to three weeks his arm kept getting worse and worse.
It was discolored, oozing pus and sickening looking. It also had an aroma
to it, and it didn't smell healthy. Anyone who knows Terry knows he
doesn't complain about being hurt every night. As I wrapped his arm up,
I would nack, Terry, you've got to take time off. I'm wrestling
the nature Boy on top and full buildings making money, and you are too.
He would argue, that's true. I would concede, However, your
armor is really bad. It's beginning to smell. Even with this Terry Funk,
Even with this Terry Funk attitude, he got to the point where he
was physically unable to go out and perform every night. No amount of money's
worth asking risking rather your arm over. And it was obvious to me that
he needed to go to the hospital. So I told the booking committee,
the people responsible for taking care of the talent, that Terry had to take
time off to recuperate his arm. They just looked at me and said that
he felt fine. You know how Terry is, I argued. Finally,
I told Terry, I don't care what you are. The booking committee thinks
I'm taking to the hospital right now, or I'm calling your wife and telling
her about your condition. Don't do that. He panicked. My girls would
go crazy. I don't care your son, your son of a bit.
Yes, I don't care. You could end up losing your arm. Terry
is an old war horse and will never accept defeat. It wasn't until under
thread of me calling his wife that he finally agreed to go to the hospital.
After getting him to the hospital, I called his wife and told her
that he was okay but in the hospital. She immediately jumped on a plane
and came to see him. By that time, Terry and I were friends
for twenty three years, and nobody knew him better than me. If I
hadn't made him go to the hospital, he would have kept wrestling and gotten
a staff infection that would have put him out of the business for good,
or he would have gotten a blood clot and ended up dead. Terry Funk
and I were trying to come up with a big idea for his return from
the hospital when we came up with the now infamous bag angle. There was
a clash of the champions from Columbia, South Carolina and Terry and I decided
to attack Rick Flair, put a bag over his head and suffocate him on
national television. We were really worried that because we were doing it after his
match, Rick wouldn't be able to get enough air. After having a long
ruling match, which is Rick's forte, It's not uncommon for wrestlers to get
winded and becomes very hard to breathe. Therefore, if you ever see a
tape of the angle, you'll notice that before I leave, I walk around
the pole and look right at Book to make sure he hadn't really suffocated before
I left. Wow, what a business that angle? Way to make sure
that just got to make sure. That angle was way over the top for
TBS, and their phone lines lit up moments after we did it. People
were incensed that Terry and I tried to suffocate someone on TV, and it
was so controversial that when the clash reaired two hours later, they did not
run the bag angle. I didn't know that. After the fallout, Jim
Hurd wanted to know exactly whose idea it was, and I ended up taking
the heat for it. Interestingly, that particular angle is still a hot button
issue because when the WWE put it on their Best of Rick Flair DVD.
Recently England made them take the bag angle out before it could be sold over
there. Wow, that's something. So we're building to the eye quick match,
the Final Collision, the final clash between Rick Flair and Terry Funk here
in nineteen eighty nine, and we've got some promos to set the table and
then we're going to watch this puppy to close out the national era for the
Fucker. So let's go to I Believe it's the same Disc one, fourteen
fifty six, get ourselves a bevy of promos here from the Funker having returned
from the aforementioned arm injury. This is after the Halloween Have It Cage match,
as disastrous as that, and we're going to go all the way through
to the November fifteenth, nineteen eighty nine New York Knockout event, Rick Flair
versus Terry Funk one last time in the I Quit Match. Are you ready?
Yes? Three? Two? One? Play, Oh No? The
Big Class of Champions nine event live as it happens on November the fifteenth,
right here on TBS the superstation New York Knockout Live from Troy, New York
the main event, a non title event with I Quit Rules nature Boy Rick
Flair, the final confrontation, perhaps with Terry Funk. But I understand you've
got something to say to Rick Flair and you want some special stipulation to smirk
off of your face. Rods. I know that you realize what happened in
the Thunderdome and you think that I led j Tex Corporation down, and so
do all of you people out there. Let me tell you something. The
NWA is not big enough for myself and Rick Flair. That's why I suggested
an I Quit match. I hate his guts, Rick Flair hates my guts.
But I'll say one thing to Rick Flair. Rick Flair, you're a
tough individual and you are about as tough of an opponent as I've ever gone
up against. And it's not big enough. This area is not big enough.
This country is not big enough in wrestling. And that's why I want
you in an I Quit match. But after it's over with, let's make
this the final match, and if you beat me, I will walk across
here and I will say to you, Rick Flair, you are the better
man when you shake his hand and say he's the better man if he beats
you. If he beats me, I will walk across the ring and say
that to him. But if I beat him, he has to do the
same to me. Special guest today on the talk show Funk Grill Flair.
I can't believe this is where we get that from one but before that,
simple mind people, a story. Once upon a time there existed a head,
no arms, no body, no legs, just ahead, and that
had prayed for a miracle. Well that miracle took place. That had turned
into a tomato, a rotten tomato. To you, simple minded people,
know what the moral of this story is. The moral of this story is
quit while you're ahead, and that goes for you too, Rick Flair,
Quit while you're ahead and while you still exist. Do you understand me,
Flair? You know, Terry Funk, I understand you all too well.
I sit here and you wonder why why am I here tonight? How could
I turned down the opportunity to be on the most prestigious talk show in thee
of American television, Funk's Grill Me turn that down? Not a chance.
I'm here and I'll make me a star, pal hell, I will make
you a star because I will make you look so foolish today and also on
November the fifteenth. You see, I don't want your belt, that gold
belt. I don't want your family. I don't want your money. I
want something that's more valuable than that ever will be. I want your pride.
I want to take fat from you and Troy New York. I want
to see those tears coming out of your eyes. I want to see you
running from this old dog with those rabbit pellets or raisins falling all over the
ring. That's what I want. I want you to crawl underneath that ring,
and I want to throw you the microphone flare and I want you to
screen al so loud. I quit, I quit, trifup. You are
the better man, and I want to see your arm reach up from underneath
there in shame and shake my hand out of fear. Can you understand that
Rick are not? Do you know how much I hate you? Yeah?
As the matter of fact, if you're asking me and give me a chance
to answer, now, I know exactly how much you hate me. And
you have to remember something, Terry Funk. I'm not worried about you taking
that gold belt, and I'm actually very very impressed with the fact that right
here you're addressing this on as serious a note as it needs to be addressed,
because I'm not talking about championship belts or not talking about women or cars.
We're talking about something that both you and I have held higher than anything
else and held first and foremost in our two careers. And that's that's integrity
and that's guts. You know, I'm criticized a lot these days because a
lot of people say, well, professional wrestling, there's way too violent.
Maybe Rick Flair's outlived this sport. Take that for what it means. But
the bottom line is professional wrestling, like football, is a violent contact sport.
And in Troy, New York, a national television funk, two of
the greatest combatants in the history of professional sports are going to meet head up,
not for a title belt, but for one another's pride, for one
another's guts, for one another's integrity. One of us is gonna say I
quit, and I'm telling you it's not gonna be me bringing on baby,
come on, yeah, come on, yeah, yeah, come on,
I'm ready for you. Yeah. We don't need any holler in her screaming.
Let's just go out there and see who's the best. Let's in there.
Hey, I got a better one than that. Why don't you bring
everything that you've ever had in your wife, which is everything you have right
now, and that's your reputation, pal, because don't forget the fire line.
Not only are you gonna say I quit, but you're gonna crawl across
that ring and in front of fifty million people, you're gonna say Rick Flair
long shaking his head back and forth, Yep, yeah, never, never,
never will I do that? Tentlem at ringside here in Troy, New
York with Gary Hart and Terry funkt. Here's a show later tonight. You
or Rick Flair will say I quit to this whole crowd in the world.
You shut up for one minute. Hey, Rick Flair and I see eye
to eye on very few things. He likes to ride first class in an
airplane. I ride coach. He likes to drive a Mercedes. I drive
an old pickup truck. He likes a fast lane. I like the double
cross rams. One thing we have in common, no, as we both
love the sport of professional wrestling. He says he's not a quitter. Well,
I'm not quitting here in New York at the knockout, only one person
is going to quit? Is that right or not? Because you remember you
are Texan. Your daddy was great, your brother was Me and Junior were
the only two brothers that ever held the world title. Don't at faris Texas
here tonight? All of Texas is watching. All of Texas is watching brother.
Don't let him down most pointing, go let me out. Oh,
Jerry, I am not going to let you down. But I don't want
your help. I don't need anyone's help. I don't need your help either,
Jim Ross, not because I am the best. Flare's a quitting and
here we go. It's fifteenth Anthony nin Troy New York. Funk has the
mic for them. One chance to quit right now? Wow, Flare,
he might as well save his breath. The coss Flair is not gonna walk
away from this or any other fight. Oh yeah, Flair didn't accept.
Yeah. Is this first time you're seeing this one? Boss? Yeah,
I've never seen this one before. Sit back and enjoy Flair. Funk.
I quit TBS in the end of the eighties for the Funker or no,
the duck underneath Flair fires a chopping terry immediately head over heels to the floor
and he's shaking the rails. Hah oh, sick at this guy. He's
such a fucking he's so great. He's leaning gut first over the edge of
the rail like he's trying to lunge at the fans and throwing punches that he
knows full well won't connect with anybody, but still too damn close for comfort.
Back in the ring now, Funk circling Flare with the Duke's up call
her an elbow and I don't want that. Flare with the chop, add
another, add another light up TBS corner to corner. Funk hits the buckling
and again the other opposite corner and a big chop in Funk Wow brought to
his knees to the outside, Lucy attacking Flick the photographer. Funk at the
floor and immediately punched a photographer in the head. So awesome because he's just
a loose you know, he's nobody's safe. I love when he I love.
I'm realizing the more I watch this stuff that he acts out on innocence
when his opponent's getting the better of him. Yes, yes, you know
that's when he's like, he's angry and it's their fault, right exactly.
He's looking around for somebody to blame. Gordon solely on the call as well
with Jr. Really got it. So you know it's something that they're in
New York too, Yeah, for sure. So Funk's in throwing the right
jabs at a Flair Colornado side headlocked by the Funk or Flair pushes him off,
breaks f a tackle down, goes Flair, but he picks the ankle
immediately takes Flair to the can Funk to the canvas, now choking him on
the mat. This is November's right, So they've been going at it for
god six months pretty much. Yeah. I mean Funk had the hiatus while
he wheeled the arm and so the plastic bag thing was him showing up for
the first time in months now. Flair hanging halfway off the apron over the
nounce table and Terry Funk booting him in the head as the announcers head for
higher ground because the action is spilling right near them left hand Funk, what's
down? Flair? Like I said, Boss, as soon as we announced
lapsed Funk, people will like Funk, Flare I quit yep, yep,
oh yeah, Funk with big chop on Flair dropping him with the head butt
on the apron and uh Flair still on that ring apron outside, Funk grinded
rygame back through. Oh that fucking club to the was landing man clubbing,
blow to the black to the back by Terry Funk, chopped by Flair,
left hand, down goes nahe flat backing off a single Funk right hand and
a big elbow, empty arena match right nineteen Yeah, Rock imitating lawlor Funk
here and here the e quit match. Weeks later it would be folly in
Rock in the e quit. Yeah, that's right out to the apron now,
But part of thee I was before that, It was before that.
Yeah. Yeah, maybe I had the the order mixed up. Yeah,
but w W F and mc foley definitely going to the Terry Funk playbook.
There at the height of the attitude. Yeah, a woman right there,
Oh my gosh, oh Flare fires back. She stands right up to fence.
She's so happy all this violence. Loves men fighting each other. She
makes castle rolls. Oh yes, absolutely every Sunday. Look at that.
Look at that someone made a sign that said New York has a Flair for
Funk and they take LJ had action figure to it. Claire, Yeah,
she has like castrole every Sunday. When they watched the match, and when
she saw they were coming to Troy, She's like, I am going wrestling,
that's right. So Funk had the microphone in Flare's face in the aisleway
while he was punching a ship out of him. Flair coming nowhere close to
quitting. Now we're back in the ring and Terry Funk has Flair in the
corner, mount raining down left and he's got the mic. You're talking about
taking a ring sing, we're doing it here. I hate I hate I
quit matches for this. I love them for their violence. He doesn't quit,
but it comes alive with an atomic drop. I cannot stand the fucking
microphone aspect of an I quit mat drives me nuts well, never ready to
hear it. I don't like it at all. Who has a nice neck
breaking from funk Man. That was a very good one. Sad Heart,
what's heart doing? Heart's talking to Gordon solely sharing some news. Maybe I
think he actually you know what, I think he passed I think he passed
solely a knife. I think he said Jr Jr. Is not trustworthy.
Oh, Flair comes up and grabs Funk by the throat. You don't see
that from Rick often. And here come the chops. You're Tommy Young reacting
to the chops, and he can feel it from there. Funk spills beautifully
to the floor, brilliantly, tripping over chairs, tripping over humanity, the
chop. Oh my god, he nails. He's gonna go over god.
J oh Funk swinging at Doug Dilader. He saw it at the corner of
his eye. He knew he was fair game. Ye that he always is.
Fucking clean him out. Funk tries to roll back in the ring.
Flaire grabs him by the ankle, and he yanks him back out. This
is I quit. They red clash at the champions, face first into the
guardrail. Funk punch repeatedly. Oh always, Oh, Gary's got the switch
blade. You're in danger. He's ready to fucking cut ai. Motherfucker.
He doesn't care if it's if it's fake a real tonight, Gary Hart pulled
a handgun on it. Flare on National TV. Flair's got the mic now
is the hitting them with the microphone? Flaire out after Gary Hart. I'm
doing his job. Uh uh uh oh, so much for Gary Hart not
helping. Uh Terry, he just saved his ass. Terry Funk absolutely blind
siding Wick Flair from behind. Well he was distracted by Gary Hart. Question
about accenter and swimming neck break, Garden just said, no, question about
that? Did talking about how proud Dory function you must be with Terry right
now? You remember your name, don't you want to? Que I heard
you, Tommy, I'm holding the mind. What cameras taking you inside the
ring where you can actually hear these guys? Got a novelty around being able
to hear these guys in the MinC Boss, Well, I like these having
the camera in the ring too, Like that's a fucking novelty. You won't
say it, no, Claire says, no, it's got Flaire's head pinched
between his legs like a pile driver and slapping in the side box and protective
Claire refusing to uh, actly, yes, Boss, I mean yeah,
oh yacking flare Apps going for the pile driver? What is with what is
with this weird piled driver position of flips to hold the hand on the the
boat. I don't it looks so wetard, very uncomfortable. Another no from
Flair despite Terry absolutely planning him on that fat neck and then a leg drop.
Brother, h nah, head of the gutless pig, gutless pig is
let's go Rick chance Bert that the Humilia says it Flair tossed to the floor
violently. Terry Funk having to mix it up now, trying to find something
that's gonna get Rick Flair to quit. Easier said than done. He's got
a pile drive Flare on the floor now that micro oh here my handstand?
Has he always done that enough? I know he's been. He's done every
single time we've seen it with Funk, But like I don't remember him doing
that regularly. Yeah, he doesn't really take pile drivers in general anyway,
I guess not. Yeah. You gotta remember this is that ultra rare setup
where Flair is getting beaten up, you know, by a heel. He's
not getting tossed down by a baby face. The pile driver doesn't really fit
well. Luker did a pile driver back then, So Funk has pile driven
Rick Flair in the isleway and he's popping him in the head of the microphone.
Yes he can, he doesn't. He can hit him in that with
the microphone. Is fine, perhaps your active back and now Rick Flair certainly
worse for wear Referee Tommy Young with the microphone as the Funker hovers over Flair
and rains down shots bag albow floor is Flair decleats him. As a matter
of fact. Mt. Jim Rock just said, fucking Christ, this is
where Mike Tyson got his last two parking tickets, or it is j Jr's
first Tyson. It's very true. Out to the floor again, Funk lifts
Flair and what we got lay on a table. There we go. It's
so funny to hear Rick talk about the wrestle War pile driver. Is we
started hardcore that night because Bubba kissing his ass in two thousand and thirty backstage,
said that watching that pile drivers what made him want of these tables in
E C W or to the big time? Okay, Rick, As Funk
points out in his own book, Randy Savage did the first pile driver through
a table to Ricky Mortan in nineteen eighty four Memphis, and there was a
well known, really, and I'm sure it happened before that somewhere. I
mean he didn't even put him through a table either, just put him he
pile drove him onto the table. Oh God, sick leaned a table speaking
of a table that doesn't break against the apron and Flair just sent tor.
I mean you see the fucking wood. I mean it's like a it was
made in a fucking wood shop underneath the arena. Absolutely, this fucking thing.
It's like, it's not a table. It's not a table that you
go buy. Oh Jesus, come flying out of the on of frame,
jumping onto Terry's back, driving him into the rail. Wow, he's fucking
slipping slide amazing. Oh, Gary Hart, you see him swipe at the
fans. Yep, yep, Claire pulling Gary. He gets right up though
He's like, no, not stabbing. He will never he no, look
how fast he gets up, you know, damn well, why, there
is no way he will spend extended periods of time laying down with his fucking
belly exposed. All right, No fucking way. That was so awesome.
So they had the table kind of leaned down on the side, on its
side, and Rick ran Terry into the table and sent him flying. And
like you said, Terry does the slipping slide down the table and there's a
chair at the end of the table and he hits his head on that and
then Flair crotches Funk on the guardrail and chops the shit out of him till
he hits the floor. Tommy Young and Terry Funk's face with the mic,
Yep, what intensity. You didn't see guys do what Rick Flair just did
to Terry Funk in eighty nine Nationals. Not at all? Oh than the
Homer Simpson. It's over on the back center ring now, Funk ailing on
the canvas, flare out of the corner, big knee drop scores. Oh,
Terry scories immediately under the and wrote, knowing he's in trouble, he
wants to avoid the million dollar question. Funk back in the fray. Ric
Flair lording over Terry Funk taking the intensity to another level. Flair discovering a
new part of this game. I thought, Wow, I'll say, I
mean, there's just he's pulling. He's pulling, moved out of the hat
that I've never really seen him do before. Inverted atomic drop flare now draping
Terry Funk's leg over the bottom rope. We had set that leg up for
the figure four, no doubt, and I quit move if there ever was
one. Yep. Claire sits down on the knee and Funk is limping.
Look at that, Look at the way he look at himself, but any
weight on it collapses immediately upon attempting to crawling around as Terry Funk Flair Wow,
kick to the knee, chop to the chest, shop do this all
night. Yep, right hand turns Funk around or sixty degrees, chop right
right hand. Ah, Jesus, knock out indeed, back to the knee.
Claire's kicking ass. No they don't say, hold the microphone at the
Statue of Liberty. Well, you never know any time or in New York
after all, that's true. So Funk hits the floor, limping aggressively to
get out of there and tear in Rick Flair absolutely tackles into the aisle and
Flair lands right in his face on the floor. Clare's gonna be the shin
breaker here in the isleway. Guy's gonna lift Terry and carry him all the
way. Ah, it's a ring side there's j R. Yep Criaks of
Wrestling, fucking cage bosos. Thanks Jim fucking like Wall Street coked up motherfucker
I Wolf of Wall Street associates outside in Flair high to lay beautiful Flare.
You know that, sho. It was an honor for the Funker to go
up for that. That's right. Uh, I went ahead and did the
honor for Rick Flair. I was happy to do it. Flair when ahead,
and when ahead again, we'll see he hasn't gone ahead quite yet.
Flair trying like I know, we gotta see some color first before we get
to the end. I'm not sure to turn one of them. Oh,
actually, that's a good point, right, good point. The apron flex
Flair. Flair puts the block on him since Funk up and over. Oh,
on the hardest part of the ring. He lifted Funk in the soup
lex and then dropped him on his ass on the apron and now Flair going
up back to work on the the damaged leg of Terry Funk back in Funks
swinging on a bad wheel fuck Flair Fair chopping, chopping picks the legs single
leg Flare steps over your four locks. It out, they're on their feet.
Tommy Young and I level with a microphone in Terry Funk's face. Terry
flailing him out, tapping like a drunk man. Over up. But he
fucking wrenches that leg. Look at that, Look at Flair. Yeah,
we're here rotting right, Tommy Young pulling him. He's got deep in there,
he's got to deepen there, Gordon, have you ever seen it can
be revers it can be reversed. It's breaking, Yes, is that it?
Wow? I'm not explored. Wow, Gary Hart is living. Gary
Hawks just can't believe what happened. He didn't. Very Fox said, he
is the gentleman, the widow of the man, joy very Fop. I
told you, I told you I'd never say I quit, Harry, I
promise the people I want to i'most like his here, Like I said,
you know the hell of a man, Rick fir better than me? There?
It is. Wow. Oh that's a knockdown, drag out fight.
Holy shit, I mean what a a I really I really would have loved
it, he said, Rick Flaara, I told you I'd never said I
quit, and I never said It's funny. As the years passed, he
had this whole convoluted joke he'd do about The only reason I said I quit
is because we're playing like a mind game where he said do you quit?
Yes, no, yes, no, and then he said no, and
I said, yes, that's the only reason you won that night. Of
course, of course, un could write the Flare feud wound up with an
I quit match, with the loser would submit and shake the winner's hand.
It was time for me to get my come up, and time for Flair
to finally go over in a big way, and time for the feud to
be over. The idea of doing an I quit match was my idea.
Actually, I'm the guy who created the I Quit match in the nineteen seventies
with Dusty Rhodes. We'd sold out the Bay Front Center in Saint Petersburg,
Florida with the match, and I thought it would be an exciting end to
the Funk Flair feud for the fans. This is one of the times I
was right, because it was broadcast in WTBS and became the most watched wrestling
match in the history of cable television up to that point. So of that
again, the most watched wrestling match in the history of cable television up to
that point. M okay and then I quit match. Two men fight until
one says those two words. I thought when I said I, I'd be
quitting the match. I didn't realize Hurd's idea was that I was saying I
quit wrestling. My age was one of the reasons they wanted to push me
out, but the other was that I just did not fit. I didn't
belong to one side or the other in those power struggles I described earlier.
I wasn't for any group of wrestlers or for Jim Hurd. I was for
the promotion. I was really on the NWA side. I was never worried
about being ruined by losing a big match, in part because I always believed
I could get myself over with the people through my working ability in my interviews.
Maybe that was foolish of me. Maybe if I'd been a more selfish
guy, I'd have gotten a lot richer. But to me, my way
was a successful way. Maybe it came from the way I grew into the
business as the son of a promoter, with the mindset that we had to
do business to be able to keep writing checks to all the guys and making
a living for ourselves. That sense of putting the company first and helping the
company never left me. After that match, they asked me to do commentary.
I finished out my time there by calling matches with Chris Cruise, and
then I went home. They wanted me to take a pay cut to an
announcer's pay after my year's deal ran out, and I wasn't about to take
a cut and salary for all the back and forth travel, I felt I
could make more money doing other things picking my shots. And what it came
down to, Boss is Terry Funk felt like they shoot retired him on the
air without him agreeing to this, being like you said, not I quit
wrestling, but I just quit here against h Rec Flair through two tables,
through two tables, that's right, through a what do you call it?
A horrible slight? How did you you know? How did you wind up
there? And when you went into the NBA at that time, did you
think that that every thing you know involving yourself is gonna be as successful as
it was? Because it was it put you know, I mean, Basch
eighty nine to this day goes down in my books. It's the best wrestling
card from top to bottom that I've ever seen. You know which one was
the actually you and fare on top I to this day the best wrestling card
I've seen. Top about a lot of unusual things happened to me that year.
Uh broke my back pain, dinner kept on going, you know.
Yeah, Uh disappointment, really disappointment. What disappointed? It disappointed me because
they uh retired me without me knowing it. Really. Oh yeah, the
equip match. Yeah, because they said on television that this is you know,
whoever's gonna be heard. There's nothing said to me ahead of time and
everything else about that, And they brought it up that night because they were
going to retire my ass, right, Yeah, because I was too old
a restaurant. How well did they know? Indeed, Terry Heart recalling.
Terry was then booked for an eight quit match against Ric Flair at the Clash
of the Champions in Troy, New York. The finish was that Terry would
quit, I would get mad at Terry, Terry would attack me, the
Great Muda would come to my rescue, and then Terry in the Great Muda
would start a feud. Remember the match was supposed to be an e quit
match. But the booking committee switched it at the last minute to an eye
quit wrestling match and retired Terry Funk that night. After his match, the
Great Muda came down to jump on Terry with me, just as we had
planned, but their feud never happened. Terry and the Great Muda would have
done great business in the ring, but instead the booking committee put Terry in
a situation where he had an interview segment called Funk's Grill. Then they never
followed up on him and just ignored that he was there. If the booking
committee were men of their word, and if Terry and the Great Mooda actually
did get to have a program, Terry and I would have come up with
a way for us to double cross the Great Muda and make him the baby
face. Like I'm mentioned earlier, I would have had no problem doing that
when the time was right. Terry Fun had actually retired once again in nineteen
eighty seven after a tag team tournament in All Japan, so his return and
his debut rather in the NWA in nineteen eighty nine was also sort of his
return back to active wrestling, and again perhaps Bosson acknowledgment that the Hollywood career
didn't have the legs he perhaps hoped for. I agreed, and so this
feud took place, and from July twenty third till the end of October,
Dave Meltzer noted in nineteen eighty nine, Terry Funk and Rick Flair wrestled almost
every night. Funk was working with a broken back, and it was just
a very memorable slate. As we've documented, Funk planned another retirement of Meltzer
writes for his November fifteenth, nineteen eighty nine I Quit match with Flair and
Troy New York. Flare into the feud and used to figure four leg lock
and Funk screamedad I quit. The match was generally considered the best I quit
match in history for whatever reason. Meltzer writes, the day after that match,
the call that he told me he was most proud of was from Wally
Carbo, vern Gania's long time partner in the AWA, who called Terry Funk
to tell him that it was the best wrestling match he had ever seen.
Flair versus Funk, bringing the feud to a conclusion on TBS and the E
quit match for a four point nine rating on TBS Meltzer noted that was the
second highest rated television show the WCW promotion did until Nitro Caught Fire years later,
and that the Flair Funk sell out in Baltimore from the Great American Bash
and nineteen eighty nine was also the biggest crowd in gait that WCW did until
the mid nineties. The promotion pretty much told him. Meltzer wrote that the
e quit match would be his last match. He continued to work for the
company until his contract expired as a babyfaced television announcer and also on the booking
team. When the contract expired, the retirement was over, and of course
the tensions between Terry Funk and Rick Flair would melt away as the years did.
And here Rick Flair reflects on working with the Funker. Yeah, and
in our world. In our world, it's yeah, he's Mickey Mantle.
That makes time. Yeah. I mean he was that tacular Terry Funk hardcore
before there was hardcore. Yeah. And the thing that people have forgot is
when that character in eighty nine was completely different, was completely different than Terry
Funk. There was the world champion. Does that make sense? Yeah,
of course Terry Funk the world champion is more regular tights than more of the
long boots. It's like it's like he had two different careers. And uh,
that's where I learned how to shop. If I was watching Terry Funk
go work one night and somebody had his arm right and he started shopping the
guy his right hand with his left hand, and I said, Dad,
that looks that looks pretty cool. And that's basically where I learned that from
Terry. I mean, there was so much learn He could make you laugh.
I know, if you're watching me today, that one day rush it's
not pretty hard. He turns her out and certain he walks right back and
do another one. I look at him. He cracked me up. In
the ring, you just walk over the vault room. I just loved riding
with him. I bet I asked at five times a day, they can't
be a world champion, they'll be a world chapin I drove him there.
He said, yeah, it'll be a tag kid. There'll be a tag
kid stock. It was his time. Indeed, my nineteen eighty nine,
one might say, to be exact. And there he was, young Rick
Flair, haunting Terry Funk, hoping he'd be champion one day. But in
nineteen eighty nine, for all that was accomplished and all that's remembered, it
was time for this cowboy to pack his things, branding iron, black leather
hat and a body battle worn by firing back and forth with the nature boy
Rick Flair. It was time for the eighties to come to an end,
Boss, and for Terry funk Well to move on down the road. Everything
was rushed because it was it was a very critical time in w W.
Was it? Yeah? And I can sit here and I can say everything
that I wanted to about Flair, and I can sit here and I can
say, oh, Flair to this or Flair to Jah. But one thing
I will say for Rick Flair, he was reason I was in w W.
Was he really? Wow? He's the one that suggests to bring me
down? Really the few for the feud? Yeah? Wow? So you
know, wow, I see how did you? How did what came about
you leaving w C W Oh gosh, Well it seems like you're unhappy no
out there in the first place. Yeah, yeah, just again, it's
time, ye. Gotta know when it's time to go. Gotta know when
it's time to go, Boss, Right, yeah, you do, and
well go where you may ask, where can Terry Funk go? After his
run in the National Spotlight was over, checks had been cashed and collected in
a nest egg built in the boom period of WWF and the heady post turner
acquisition days at WCW, some of his finest work done. Where can Terry
Funk go? It's time to go extreme, because in nineteen eighty nine there
was someone else that nary earned a mention in all the conversation we've had here
on this episode of The Lapsed Funk about Terry Funk's nineteen eighty nine that he
ran into in the NBA locker room and made a distinct impression upon an indelible
impression during this run, and there would be one that would lead to Terry
Funk defining not only a promotion, but in many ways what pro wrestling was
in nineteen nineties. And this is the story of the CW. Harry broke
his tail zone and making Georgia and I was fortunate enough to ride with him
to Savannah that night, and I had heard stories about his toughness, and
I had heard stories about how wrong owned he was. And he's in the
car and I'm looking over and I saw tears going down his face and he
wouldn't acknowledge it. I said, jeez, he's contain and he would he
acknowledge it. And right before he holding the Savanni turned me, he goes,
I'm goddamn hurt. Fuck, I'm hurt. And this is three weeks
before the Great American Basket Baltimore with him and fire it. And it scared
me because I I I never heard Terry Funk anomos. He was hurt,
and he was hurt. He broke his ass, literally broke his ass.
He broke his tailbone. So I took him to the hospital the next morning
and he didn't wanna go, and I said, Terry, you gotta know,
I don't know. I say, I got go. I took him
to the hospital and I said I and the answering him. The doctor came
in the room and he said, mister Funk, you have a broken single,
you have broken your tailbone. You'll be okay. He'll be back in
the ring in about nine months to a year. And he says, I
have a match of pay per view in three weeks. Kind of doctor says,
you if I have to admit you in this hospital. You don't have
a match in three weeks, forget it. And a year made me.
And when the doctor s tor room, I looked at him and he was
devastated, and I said, it's the pain. He goes no. I
said, it's the fact that you can't wrestle. He said no. I
said, is it because you think they're gonna screw you over? He said
nope. I said, what is it? And he said, there are
people who went three weeks from now are paying to see me work with Ric
Flair when they're expecting the hell of a match. And I'll be goddamned if
a doctor or a broken ass, or anybody on the face of this planet
short of God himself is gonna stop me from getting into that ring of Baltimore
and giving the people to show that they pays to see. Man had an
elbow that was puffed out to hear they drained it. His knees were swelling,
he was wearing knee braces. They were working him on the road thirty
four straight days that month, double shots against sing against Gilbert, against the
Steiner Brothers, every baby face and that promotion of programs against him, and
they were drawing money for them. He was carrying the promotion on his back.
He broke his ass, and the only thing that was going through his
mind was the fact that the people paid to see him do his thing,
and he would be damned if anything would stop him. That night, I
called my father on the phone, my father, who is one of the
hardest working men I've ever known, I said, Dad, I met somebody
who has that same work ethic. I met somebody who loves what he does.
I met somebody who takes such pride in what he does, and the
fact that people have believed in him, that he cares that much that he'll
make this type of sacrifice for the people, people who pay to see him.
On that night in nineteen eighty nine, I pray that I would find
one, let alone, a dressing room full of wrestlos who would have that
same work ethic, who would take that tradition to the next level. And
I looked around that dressing room at WCW. And there's no need to mention
those names, because it's not their night, is his. But the fact
is that there were very few guys who had dressing room that had that work
ethic. There are a lot of guys that you know, I got a
call, I'm off for a week. Hey, I got Anmberland too,
I need a month off. He didn't take it. They forced him not
to work on TV that night. They forced him not to work for the
next week. And then he put himself back in the ring eight days later
and he had a match with Flair on pay per view, and to me
to this day was Flair's best match with the exception of your equip match with
him. Moral of the story is is that when you look around an ECW,
what you see as a tribute to Terry Funk. Because the criterion to
work here is the working is to work through an injury like that. The
criterion to work here is to have that work ethic. The criterion to work
here is not charisma, is not size, is not marketability. The criterion
to work here is the first thing I'll look for in somewhere is work ethic.
And I learned that work ethic. I idolized that work ethic, and
we built a dressing room built with that work ethic. Because of the example
that has been set and was set since nineteen eighty nine by t Fuk.
He said that example, this dressing room and a trip to get work.
We did it our way because we love it that way. We love it
that way, and I have this wonderful gut feeling and I've had it all
my life when it's time to go, I think it's now, it's time
to go.