Ep. 370: The Lapsed Funk, NWA World Champion (Part 2/2)

You know, good for not the eggs sucking dumb. We did it our
way because we love it that way. We love it that way. 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 much time to welcome back to the
Lapsed Funk Here on the Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast. It's the second and final
part of our look at Terry Funk's run in time as the NWA World Heavyweight
Champion in the seventies. A different side of the Funker than we've become acquainted
with up to this point in the journey. And Boss, we got a
flavor last time on the Lapsed Funk of that inside Cradle against Brisco seventy five
in Miami. Oh yeah, the post match interviews with Gordon Solei at being
down in Florida and what Terry Funk are we about to really understand here?
You were able to observe some things about the way he carried himself in that
post match promo. This is a guy who is going to bring a little
bit of a mischief to a very straight and narrow championship. I think we
can say, yeah, I'll say, I mean, he definitely, he's
he's He certainly had a knack and an incredible ability to go against the grain.
And I think that was that was definitely showcased. And we'll see much
more of that because we're going to chart what it was like when Funk had
the championship for a little bit over a year. All told, not the
longest rain in NWA World title history, but a rain that, because of
its truncated nature, tells us a lot about how Terry Funk was navigating the
wrestling business that his father, of course, ushered him into him was an
owner in. And I think we're going to learn a lot about how Terry
Funk locates himself in the wide range of different lifestyles pro wrestlers could have had
for themselves through the seventies and eighties. And I think, really, this
is where Terry Funk puts his stakes down and says, no, this is
the life I'm going to happen wrestling. Well, let's be honest, he
never put his stakes down. Yeah, well this isn't the Dusty Roads tribute,
so he did. Yeah, he put his stakes down with a double
Cross brand on its fucking hide. I just want folks to know that.
You know, in the course of my research, this always happens during our
TLF journeys. You got to have a quintessential piece of sound, right,
that's completely disembodied from what's happening in the narrative. Oh of course, but
that still tells the story about the central character. Of course, there's probably
forty of them. As it regards and TNH brother, that story continues to
unfold with Nick Teeney back in the news. How about that? Seriously,
it's like it's a it's it's like there's a fucking uh. I don't know.
It's so weird. It's so weird, like there's this this It's almost
like they they listened to the show and they were like, well, wait
a minute, we got to get back into the news. This is like
this juju of like you know, exactly back in the news. It's like,
we haven't heard from this this kid in years, and he's been out
of the right out of the clink for a long time. As we talk
about I don't know, and then iron Claw comes out. It's all it's
all really funky, but I want to I want to submit this, especially
here on the laps Fan very funky. This is from a sit down sort
of interview segment that Bill After did with Harley Race and Terry Funk. We're
going to excerpt from this quite a bit, because, of course, when
you talk about Terry Funk is nw A World champion, you also have to
talk about Harley Race as NWA World Champion because of the dozens and dozens of
massively successful right careers that Terry Funk played a pivotal role in seating, many
of which we'll touch on here, as realized through his title reign, Harley
Race was among them. You know, you talk about what a giant Harley
Race was in the business. If you asked Harley Race when he was here
on earth, who more than anybody you know, he would credit for setting
him on the path to the success he had, it would be Terry Funk.
And I mean, how many more fucking giants of this business can look
you in the eye and tell you, look, that's the best, that's
the guy of all the ones I've seen. And so let there be no
question why a detailed journey through a wrestler's career is justified here on TLF.
I mean, if Terry Funk's life and times don't justify it, then then
this this format shouldn't exist, and we say, Frock it exists because there's
too much to say and learn as it regards Terry Funk. But back to
the piece of sound. This is something that he uttered during the course of
that sit down with abdurn Race that I think tells the story. You know
what I mean, it's kind of that's kind of Terry Funk, this sense
of where are What the fuck is it? Even? What is that?
Where are we? Wha? He said, where are we? Where?
Where are we? There? It is I see, I hear it.
Now that's funny. It's uh, well, I think we're going to answer
the question as we go. One place we are is on the course.
I imagine that he does not know where he is on a day to day
basis. I believe he wakes up and I believe he woke up in the
morning like we saw and beyond the mat in his underwear. Yes, you
know what he looks like when he wakes up and he's like, you know,
he just kind of look around, you know, at his bedroom,
his own bedroom. Where are we? Where are we? Exactly? Just
totally and he says we too like he knows he's with somebody. Oh yeah,
might not be his wife, but there's somebody there. Yeah. He's
asking behalf of humanity, not just on behalf of so oh Jesus. And
that's definitely going to be a central question to be asking as he Chris crosses
the entire globe as the traveling representative of the National Wrestling Alliance throughout nineteen seventy
six and a bit of seventy seven, as we'll talk about. But where
we are here at TLF Land is on the doorstep of yet another holiday season.
And this is not a time of year we tend to fuck around bossom.
I right, not at all, not at all. This is this
is where the big guns come out. Yep. We're ramped up in many,
many different ways. Of course, the boss Man just wrapped up banner
performance King of the Jews off Broadway, and of course the co chairs were
both in attendance, along with members of the Moat tier back on Veterans Day
to take in the show in New York City. What a wonderful time with
our friends at the tip top of the TLF pyramid. Yes, that was
a really I mean, it was a truly humbling experience, you know,
when not many people come out to see a very it's not like it's a
fucking It's not like King of the Jews was a was was you know,
wrestling or or that, but also like a two two dimensional you know,
farce up and down, you know, the comedy ranks. This is a
very very challenging piece of theater, and you know, it's challenging for people
who go to the theater regularly. And these goofy podcast listeners, these goofy
wrestling podcast listeners were more than up to the task. I mean, we
got Cat's Deli afterwards and we talked it over, and let me tell you,
these mote to motherfuckers, they're thoughtful. They're they're goofy as they should
be, but they're thoughtful to right, they are they I know, seriously,
just a tremendous group came out and then uh a few more. You
know, we had a we had a bunch of a bunch of listeners came
out on their own, you know, and I'm very appreciative of that.
That was really I think one or two of them even got some time with
you afterwards. Right they went outside the venue. Yep, Yeah, well,
actually we just happened across as you know, I didn't know. You
know, I'm always appreciative, you know, let me know when you're coming.
I will always make time. I'm I'm you know, I really do.
You know, I appreciate the you know, taking the effort and taking
the time and you know, and the money as well to come see a
show. So yep, we did our part as a TF solar system to
make that one of success, and that having been there and observed it myself,
it was a tremendous performance from the Boss. So hats off and much
more of that to come, I'm sure as the year's turn here at TLF
and we end up tlf X. Now also in the holiday season, people
wait now with baited breath for our second unwrapping Christmas special. Yes, and
a bit of developments on that front. We did, of course get together
for the aforementioned King of the Jews journey and as part of that we made
it. We made an executive decision to looking at sort of how the calendar
was playing out as well as the cadence of Gift Arrival at the PO Box,
we thought to ourselves, you know, let's actually make this each gift
is a different podcast under the two he left Christmas Tree this year, yep,
instead of what you know, we were just so fucking wiped by the
time we could sit down and record together in terms of time, right,
it was so late after Boss finishes what he had to do, and I
right fucking came in right because we did that first thing. I fucking you
know, I just driven in from New York and there was no end of
that in sight. In terms of like a reliable date and the calendar,
we could say that, you know, he would have landed in time and
we could both get together. So the way we're going to do it is
we did get together, and we did unwrap the gifts that have arrived with
a sad exception. As we found out later, the panicked a message from
one of our our very favorite listeners out in Scotland saying, oh my god,
my package was returned from the po box. So we hate to hear
that, but well, I'm gonna work hard to make sure that doesn't happen
again. So it's all part of you know, how crazy the schedule.
God is, the boss Man got this opportunity, so yeah, it's all
good. It's all good, it's all good in the hood, it's all
for good reasons. But what we're going to do is, starting December one,
we're going to start rolling out, you know, a podcast at a
time. I don't know, every day, every other day, whatever,
justifies it, based on how many gifts we get, and we're to open
each one individually and react to each one individually. And now, of course
the ones that happen to be there when we sat down are going to get
that one of a kind double experience where we're both in the same room together
in the spirit of the first Christmas show. But as gifts continue to arrive
late, we've gotten some stragglers already and including some gifts from the heaviest hitters
in the Solar system. So we really need to We felt we really needed
to open up the window here. I mean last time we did do sort
of a second installment episode as well. Yeah, but this year, consider,
you know, each gift that your co chairman receive from the greatest listeners
and podcasting is a new ornament on your said tree they are printing to you,
is you can consider it the twenty five days of lapsed in so many
ways, So we look forward to that, and so you know, anybody
out there in the Solar System will be anxious about hearing us crack open the
gift and start to see pods rolling out, one gift at a time.
That's the that's the game plan, and it's going to be equally as joyous,
and of course the ones that come in afterwards, we'll connect remotely over
the internets and and still be able to see over video what it does unraveled.
Yeah, we did that. That was fun last time too. Yeah,
there actually is a bit of charm to that. I mean, as
as wonderful as that blowout session was we had last year, it was exhausting,
Oh my god, it was. It did make me feel a little
bit like I came nowhere close to being able to appreciate the thought that each
gift center had put into what they sent to us, because it was just
we were just minding the clock. We were trying to make an episode,
and it was like, I mean, it was like a heady you know,
childhood Christmas over, you know, for the sort of blowout like experience.
But this one, we're going to take our time with each gift.
I think, Yeah, Yeah, it's a good it's a good change of
pace. You know, maybe there's another time we'll go back to the original
format. You know, we'll see how it goes. But this is good
for this year, given especially given all the crazy that's been going on.
So that's right, this is the way to this is the way to play
it. And also, uh, with the boss Man's gig behind us,
that means the emergence of Under the cinemat And of course Boss did not let
Scary Movie Season die even though Thanksgiving is upon us, which, as I
remarked, actually works because there's a horror movie called Thanksgiving by Uli Rob hitting
the theaters this year. It's true. How how Sana is ramping up UTC
Well, we got you know, we're we're gonna we're gonna dial this thing
back in. We're gonna get this thing back on track. And uh,
you know, I guess well by the time this yeah, no you it
won't have it won't have dropped yet by the time this episode drops, so
uh, you know you'll have to wait and see what it is that's uh
that's coming. The Scary Movie Season one a one shot deal. Had to
do it for reasons that will be clear. Yes, how to do it
for reasons that will be clear, and yeah, we're gonna pick it up.
Well, we got a small detour after Thanksgiving, but then pick it
up right away with with a few with a few holiday movie. Yeah.
The point of the point isn't that it's all Christmas movies. The point is
UTC's back. Yes, that's right, we're back. We're back in business,
and lots of good stuff planned on the horizon, and you know,
maybe maybe early ish in twenty twenty four we we do another UTC journey.
Oh fucking hell man, we're journeyed out on the on the main pod side,
so let's lean in on the on the paid side. Yep. So
that's what's under your Christmas tree now in terms of what to tell others to
get you this holiday season that's in alignment with a lapsed lifestyle and in alignment
with lapse aproved brands and products. There's a couple of suggestions we have for
you this year, not the least of which as always, and we're starting
to see orders come in and it's always so thrilling to realize that, you
know, these names I'm seeing of people buying these shirts are probably you know,
wives, girlfriends, cousins, just not necessarily listeners. Buy t lef
shwag over at Pro Wrestling Tees dot com, slash the lapsed fan in Boss.
There's one category we over index in its Christmas shirts. Yeah. Absolutely,
I'm gonna have to get on the I'm gonna start happening to get those
creative juices flown and get some more out this year. But we definitely have
a plethora of Christmas shirts that I designed last year. We have a an
Elf version, we have a Christmas Christmas Story, we have a night Member
for Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas Home Alone. Obviously Scrooged and die Hard right
there. Get them. And also we got older ones too. We get
the what was it the Fritz one? We have Fritz Clas Yeah, yeah,
well the Fellow I don't remember the funck that the actual jolly old Fritz.
Jolly old that's it, jolly old Saint Fritz. Very appropriate in the
Iron Claw release, Very very true. I would imagine that it would be
a good a good get to uh to bring to the movies for for the
Iron Claw. It's phenomenal and uh and so much more. Of course,
you know, if you're looking to tell what you know members in your life
should be getting for you. Uh, that's definitely a great place to point
them too, so they can get something that's that's unique to your taste.
And of course they have no idea what the fuck the shirt means, which
is always fun. But yeah, don't be shy. Send us picks on
Twitter and stuff and at the laps fan at gmail dot com of you engaging
in holiday reverie wearing ta left Christmas schwag, we'd love to see it and
uh love to feel that that's happening out there. So pro wrestling teas is
one joint, another place to land for Christmas ideas this season. For the
lapsed fan in your life, it's got to be cameo boss. Oh yes,
indeed, they're coming in. They're coming in. It's that time,
it's that time, and what can you offer? What do you what are
you getting lately? Because as folks know by now, a lot of this
stuff is the character's boss man voices people want brought to life. So he's
got a unique viewpoint. What are people looking for? I mean, we
got we get this. This is a you know, I haven't I haven't
been able to fulfill this one just yet, but I will be Uh,
I will be doing it sooner than later. The the we got one request
that for Vince telling the wrestlers they have to go to New York to be
in the parade, missing their holiday. After Survivor series ninety four, we
might have to surface that one for the whole public. That's a fight hilarious
that might have to make its way. That is such a good one.
The it is, it's so fucking funny. I was, I'm like,
all right, that's gonna be. That's gonna be a blast to get through.
Uh. For sure, they'll say, you know, what's the secret?
How do you guys do it? It's like, well, you end
up attracting the greatest listeners in podcasting, and they do a lot of it
themselves, Like they take us places we would never think to go. And
that's a great example, right right, We've gotten so many crazy ones,
and again, you know what may happen. It's not a guarantee that it
will happen, but significant, significant moments of the show, or at least
some developments, some kind of backstory has been revealed over the course of these
Yeah, not only can we tell the characters what to say. You can
be part of writing their story by making them enact scenes that we just might
as well incorporate into the cannon or or even sometimes even having a completely uh,
sort of out of context one I think we I think I killed Randy
Savage one time in one of these. It's so, it's amazing. It's
a great thing. And if we're talking about you know, ninety four Macy's
Day Thanksgiving parade cameos, we got to be thinking about Titan sports. And
if we're thinking about Titan sports, we got to be thinking about Titan Nutrition.
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that puts when at our sales heading into our ten year anniversary Boston twenty twenty
four, that still continues to blow my mind. I know it's crazy,
doesn't feel like it, but here we are, and so let's get into
it. It's an another year, ten years down, ten years, ten
years. I'm out of words. I don't even know what to say,
because it's it's it's it's pretty fucking crazy. It sure is. And we
don't plan on stopping as long as you plan on giving us the signals you've
given us from day one that this is work worth doing, that this is
work that's going to outlive us. Yeah, Journeys like this will outlive us.
Yes, Journeys like world class, which I'm pretty sure if we went
back to when we were in the deep throes of it, you'd get belly
acres saying things like, oh what about nineteen ninety one pay per views?
And it's like, guys, yep, when it's all said and done and
when people look back and say, you know, what do these guys really
do? It's these unrelenting, deep journeys that put us front and center in
the conversation around important subject in wrestling history, to the point where people say,
you know, if you're going to talk about the subject, you've got
to consult tls's treatment of it. We will never stop making sure that we're
that podcast first and foremost, but definitely a lot more. I think it's
safe to say of your of the vicissitudes and the ups and downs and wacky
variety that you've known, because this has been a heavy year of the journey.
This has been a heavy year of the Terrries, as we've talked a
lot about, both by design as well as necessity. You know, Lapsed
Funk came along at a time when, as we've mentioned that, the schedules
got challenged and it was it turned out to be a very nice formatting in
terms of, you know, the lift required to get together and it's just
been so much fun to sit back and so, you know, because you
couldn't have pricked the Terry would have died this year Terry Funk that is yeah,
and so it's we're gonna lean in, be fucking careful when you hit
up, when you hit us with got to do a tribute the next time
time restaurant dies. Be fucking careful what you ask for, because you're just
going to do it. We're gonna do it until you're left completely spent and
loose. Right, you're gonna you're gonna be exactly, You're gonna just think
about it. Okay, it's gonna be it's gonna be hard, it's gonna
be rough, and it's gonna keep on going longer exactly than when you're satisfied,
and when it starts to hurt, you realize we've just begun right exactly.
It's good that Jass is used to being able to tap out as soon
as it hurts. Think of you will eat Vegables. No, no,
no, this is when when when we go on journeys like this, it's
it's not for the faint of heart. It's not for pleasure, that's right.
It's not for any sort of just quick romp in the hay. It's
out of a sense of duty. It's like if you get a deployment when
you're in the military, you sign up. Yeah, sure, you're prepared
to do that, but you don't. It'd be wrong to say you want
to be deployed, but you know, when the time comes you're gonna you're
gonna stick it out when the calling starts, You're gonna be there until that
contract is up. And so getting us on a journey is basically like a
deployment. That's right, absolutely, absolutely, and with that we deploy and
to Terry Funk's reign is n W a champion. Of course, when we
left last left you, we became acquainted with Jack Briscoe. We became acquainted
with a pancake related humor. Did you see the memes? Yes? I
did. Oh my god, he's such an idiot. I mean, I
don't know why it's his turn. But that's why. That's another thing about
the journeys. We have no idea whose turn it's gonna be. He fights
such a buffoon. He just looks like such a like you know, he
looks like a guy who who can look all around and still not know what's
coming. You'd say that again. So of course we documented the runof Oh
didn't see that coming, not at all. Well, the yeah, one
thing he probably didn't see coming is that he'd end up losing the championship to
Terry Funk. Or maybe he did. We'll get into the details of it.
But of course we documented last time, Terry's brother Dorry Funk Junior,
of course, speaking the first in the family to take this trap in sixty
nine from Gen Kiniski, and then all the intrigue around will he or won't
he in terms of transitioning the belt to Jack Briscoe, who clearly was excelling
in Florida and other territories and had all the makings in the constitution of what
the NWA was looking for as a touring world champion in the seventies. However,
Dorry Funk's Senior's machinations, I mean, he was a cagey politician.
That's one definite thing we've learned. Was not so keen on having his uber
babyface son Dory dropped the championship to another uber babyface in Jack brisco that didn't,
necessarily, I don't know, seem to keep on the table future Funk
title reigns and future Funk relevance at the top of the NWA championship picture.
So that's where Hardley Race comes in, because hardly is a more than capable
heel who can win the championship and transition the championship from one baby face in
Dorifunk to another baby face in Jack Briscoe, and that is what happens.
We underplayed that part of the story last time because we were pushing more towards
Funk taking Terry Funk, that is, taking it off Jack Briscoe in seventy
five. But we'll reset a bit to lead a bit more into what's going
through the minds of the supporting cast as opposed to Terry Funk himself and the
lead up to him becoming champions. So I've shared with you an excerpt from
Briscoe's book, you know, get your best, get your best maple syrup
voice. Ready. I suppose we could say, I mean, this guy
forever is going to be associated to me by not warm maple syrah. I
know, just something, you know something sap He's just going to be easy,
I would sap oozing out of a tree. And so this is as
nineteen seventy two dawns and that's the year where, according to Briscoe in his
book, which is a fantastic book and I recommend anybody check it out,
starts to realize that there is a push on to make him NWA World Champion,
and that Florida promoter Eddie Graham is leading the charge and trying to get
a Brisco into that vaunted position, so take it away. Shortly after the
new year began, Eddie began talking to me about beginning things again. He
said, began twice in like two seconds, like two words. Yeah,
you began again, actually right right that again. Shortly after the new year
began, Eddie began talking to me about taking the world title. There was
no question among them that Dory wanted out his champion. I'm sure the dismay
of the board junior at a phenomenal run with the title, and he's still
true. Well, the promoters liked him and he was everything a champion should
be. He had personified the championship for three years, and nobody wanted him
off the throne. Nobody that is, except Dorry. My name wasn't the
only one in contention for the title. The Funks, of course wanted Terry
in right away, but that would have been difficult to sell and to orchestrate,
not just it just wouldn't have been plausible to have Terry beat his brother
Bob. Geigel wanted the belt around the waist of Harley Race, who had
been had been his top star in Kansas, city. For many years,
Harley had been a big draw in the Midwest and held the Central States heavyweight
title for a long time. Less than a month after the promoter's convention,
Harley also won the newly created Missouri state heavyweight title in Saint Louis by defeating
Pack's Song in the finals of a tournament. Other than a few tours of
Japan, Harley hadn't ventured far from the Kansas territory since March nineteen seventy,
so his drawing power at that time was suspect. Surprisingly enough, it was
Nick Gulas who brought up my name that he followed suit. In the end,
the promoters decided I was the one they had chosen as their next champion.
When Any returned from the convention, he called me into his office and
gave me the news that I would be the next world heavyweight champion. The
match would be held in Houston at the beginning of March. That would give
me time to establish myself stronger in other territories and to tie up any programs
in which I was involved in Florida. It wasn't until much later that I
became aware of all that was going on behind the scene. Missus course of
reference to Dorry coming up with the injury, coming up injured and not being
able to make the date in Houston to lose to Brisco. Whenever the facts
were, the outcome was that Dorry's old man got his way. Junior had
a miraculous recovery, and a match between Dorry Junior and Harley was booked.
Kansas City was chosen as the site because Senior and Bob Geigel were good friends.
Goeigel was promoting the Kansas City territory and that was Harley's hometown. They
agreed to the terms, the deal was set and the match was on.
Dorry flew into Kansas City and the two men met in the main event on
Thursday night, May twenty four. I'm trying desperately to pull up the Motel
six jingle because this is the Tom bodettness of it all. Everything when it's
planned. Harley was the heat ill facing the hero and Champion of the world.
The Brave Champion rushed his convalescence and, according to the media, entered
the ring before his shoulder was fully healed. In his book, Hey boy,
Where'd you get that? What the fuck is this? Brother? So
called Bosch's book. Of course he had cauliflower years. It's called hey boy,
would you get that? Oh? Did? They would say that to
him because of his college flower years in his book, Hey Boy, Where'd
you get them? Here? As Bosh explained it this way, Briscoe was
never convinced that Funk had actually had an accident, nor that he had received
any injuries. Yet Funk's condition was documented by doctor's reports. We kept the
pressure on the NWA, but there was no indication that Dory was improving,
recuperating, or even alive. Yeah, and he's sitting right in front of
you. Word from Funk Senior indicated he could not and would not sign for
the match Briscoe's accusation and refused to accept the injury story. This caused Funks
Senior to ignore the edict of the NWA and signed Junior to risk his title
against Harley Race in Kansas City under the promotional banner of gust Carris on May
twenty fourth. Race was the man on the spot when history was made.
He scored a win over Dorry Junior and took the NWA belt. Having a
new champion to rule the NWA did nothing to mollify Briscoe. He was still
the number one challenge Journey expected to be the new champion. It did nothing
to ease the tempest between the Funks and Briscoe either. Dorry blamed his loss
on a man who wasn't even in the building the night he lost the belt.
That man was Briscoe. Dorry's contention was based on the fact that Briscoe
had hounded him into premature defense of his belt. My shoulder wasn't healed,
said Dorry, but I had to shut brisco up someway, and it cost
me the title. Shut him up in every way besides actually defend against him.
Of course, that was a great explanation as far as the promoter was
concerned, but implausible at best. I can't imagine any time in my career
when I could force the Funks into anything, especially making Dorry entered the ring
before he was ready to face the man who was going to take his title.
As far as the fans thought, the title change came out of nowhere,
but it was all seniors doing Their match ended just as Senior had wanted.
After splitting the first two falls, Junior came off the top rope and
had hardly covered for the win. In the process, Dorry had knocked down
the official, Richard Moody, who was too stunned to make the count.
Dorry had hardly pinned for far more than the required three seconds. Moody regained
consciousness and started his count before his hand slapped the mat for the count of
three. Race kicked out Dorry, agreed by the ineptitude of the official,
anchored oh angered. Dorry, angered by the ineptitude of the official, pushed
Moody into the corner while he was chastising, and he broke the cardinal rule
of self defense protect yourself at all times. Harley came up behind the champion,
kicked him in the stomach, picked him up in his vertical suplex,
and pinned him to take the third and final fall and with it, the
heavyweight championship of the world. Sope. There it was, Dory had what
he wanted. He no longer was the champion, and he could finally catch
his breath. Even though Senior didn't want his son to drop the title,
he was happy because Dorry's reign ended with him in control. Junior lost to
a heel in the heels home Town, and he was screwed out of the
title. So there you have at the belt, moving after Dory Funk's long
rain from sixty nine to seventy three to Harley Race and I'm gonna go sit
down in my chair and light my toes on fire better than what you leant
on fire last time, So we'll take it. But as we talked about
last time, you know, a deep seated cynicism brisco had toward Dorry Senior
because of the way Awesome brought him into a Mailla and hiped up all of
his amateur credentials as you know, four time NCUBA, All American and all
that, and then just had him lose to his sons in very short order,
which definitely disenchanted Briscoe with Funk's intentions around basically using his legit credentials to
furnish Dorry Junior and Terry's severe lack of high level amateur credentials. So that's
wrestling, that's the business. And as a result, it's got to be
Harley Race beating Dory Funk Junior and not Jack Briscoe quite yet. Now this
is big because while Harley Race was certainly establishing himself as a high level performer
across many territories in the country. Based out of Kansas City, of course,
is mentioned having a very successful tag team with Mister Perfect's father, Larry
the X heading up in Minneapolis and other territories. It definitely was kind of
a WTF at the time when suddenly Race with blonde hair still at the time
what was elevated world championship status. It was kind of a jaw dropper that
he was suddenly in that position. But there's always a first time and oh,
sure, of course, as we know in wrestling, the question isn't
can you win the belt? The question is when you come out with the
belt, do the fans accept you as someone on the level exactly right that
they can respect and buy, you know, pay a higher price to see.
And for Harley Race, he was able to prove in this truncated run
designed to get over to Jack Briscoe that he was definitely that man. And
we're going to turn now to an excerpt and tell me, boss if you
can read that just quickly from the book of Harley Race, who talks about,
Yeah, where am I starting from? It's typical? Yeah, you
can start from its typical, and I'll hit you with a couple more as
you go. But this is this is from Harley's books, so we get
his perspective now on all that just went down, and Bristl go there describing
that that interregnum period between Dorry and Jack Priscoe getting the championship. Harley's voice,
please m it's typical for the champions to have clauses built into their contracts
and give them a say as to who they passed the bill to when the
time comes. So in the NWA's nine member Championships Election Committee voted to give
the title to Jack Briscoe. The Funks objected. Norri Senior didn't want his
son lose into one of the top babyfaces in the country. The thought of
was that letting a heel champ lose to a fellow heel is more respectable than
having the having him drop the belt to a babyface who could be perceived but
to be the weaker opponent. Dorri Junior wasn't so much into the politics,
oh that he was ready to give up the title because he didn't want to
lose his family to wrestling. The cross country traveling that comes with being the
top dog was helping. Wasn't helping matters Hey Harley, Yeah, I don't
want to lose my family to wrestling, so have it so you can lose
yours to wrestling. I'll tell you what I'll take your family instead. That's
right at gunpoint and driving three hundred miles an hour down the highway, A
stay highway, by the way, not an interest family. I'm going to
eat your family alive. Two of the selection committee members, Adie Graham out
of Florida and Laurier Leroy mcgrick out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're pushing hard
for Briscoe to get the title, and agreement was struck that the belt would
be passed from Dorry Junior to Briscoe, but by way of another wrestler.
That way, Dorry wouldn't have to lose it to a babyface Briscoe, but
Briscoe would still soon be the champ. Everyone was happy, including me,
when I found out that I was picked as the goal between champion. I
first heard that I was in line to become the champion about a month before
it happened. I was excited, for sure, but I can't say I
actually jumped for joy or anything in wrestling. Everything. The next time Harley
Race jumps for joy will be the first time. The next time Harley Race
jumps, it'll be the first time. Goddamn right and wrestling, everything is
tentative until it happens. I didn't get my hopes up until I knew for
sure the title was headed my way, although that would be my mistake the
second time around. Because of the internal squabbles, the title switch was probably
delayed at least eight months. The match was held on May twenty fourth,
nineteen seventy three, in Kansas City. The match itself doesn't really stand out
in my mind. Dory Junior and I wrestle each other dozens of times.
There really was There was really no blood, any blod Okay, all right,
we'll get to it, come in your way. I just nothing frustrates
me more than wrestlers who you know, wrestled each other so many times that
they can't remember the one match anybody wants to ask them about as any any
more distinct than the rest. It's like, man, what a shame?
That title change shouldn't stand out more than the twenty other times you wrestled Glory.
This was really no different, only this time I would walk away with
ten pounds of gold around my waist. The match lasted about a half hour
and I and after I pushed Funk into the referee, who then administered the
count on Funk after I pinned him. After the match, Funk roused in
interviews that if not for the interference involving the referee, he never would have
lost the belt. Of course he knews differently, but it sounded good.
I had one other titles before, including the Tag Team Championship with Henny,
but this was different. At the time, the NWA was the wrestling organization.
If you won the NWA Heavyweight Championship belt, you were essentially the undisputed
world Heavyweight Champion. Even though I knew that I wouldn't be the champion long,
winning it the first time was the most exhilarating point in my professional career.
The plan. The plan was to have me lose the title within weeks,
but because the selection committee was happy with the crowd response, I got
the extended my run by two months by traveling. Then we jump ahead.
Now this is too Houston where the transition is going to take place, and
Harley Race, now World's champion is going to lose it to Jack Briscoe,
setting up of course, Terry Funk's victory. About eleven five hundred fans showed
up in the Houston College Sam Houston. The sand Sam Houston Coliseum is that
next to San Antonio Saint Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas to watch the showdown.
Before and after the match, I talked privately with Jack. I had
no problem dropping the belt him. I knew that was the plan all along
and that I was just fortunate enough to get it for a short time.
I congratulated Jack and told him that he was finally getting the belt he deserved.
When I walked into the ring with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt that
night, I would be the last person to wear that belt in the ring.
To some belt trivia here, the match started with a belt exchange.
The old belt was retired and replaced with a new NWA belt that included more
flags from different countries. This is the one that we all think of.
It's Jack Briscoe carrying around the one that's like license plate shaped and right has
the globe on at the first one, Rick Flair one And what was it
before? Sorry, what was it before? I didn't even know what it
looked like. You can look up like the pad O'Connor belt. I'll look
it up, Okay, it was it was. It was a belt that
because Luthez actually you know, had a belt that defined the championship, and
then when it came off of him, he actually argued and no one was
in a position to argue with him that he actually owned the title belt itself,
the physical belt. So they had a new one made down in Mexico
for Padd O'Connor, and that one became the belt that that symbolized I'm grabbing
it for you. Here the NWA up up until this very point, this
is the one I take it. Then that Harley Race one from Dorrifunk Junior.
And then here is Jack Briscoe is prepared to make his journey as NWA
champion. He's going to do it with the belt really associate with it with
the seventies, but there it is much smaller, you know, kind of
like a face plate. That's much more in a school in the middle.
There'll be more detail about the belt from Jack's book here in a moment.
But this is significant because when we think about the seventies NWA champion, we
think of this belt and this is where it first came into play. Yep.
The match itself was designed to make Briscoe look like he was on the
receiving end of an ass kicking up until the end. We hadn't wrestle each
other much previously, but our wrestling styles matched up well since we both liked
a lot of technical wrestling down on the mat. Yeah, the less Harley
has to move, the more he likes it. There's a working title for
his book, The more he likes it, the more he likes it.
The match lasted twout twenty five minutes, and by the end there weren't three
people in the thought Briscoe had a chance of winning. For one, I
had just recently won the belt and many fans didn't expect me to lose it
so soon. Plus I had the upper hand pretty much throughout the match,
just as we planned. Near the end, I jumped off the top rope
to land across his body, but Jack pulled up his knees and my chest
landed right onto them, knocking the wind out of me. As soon as
I stood up, he was coming off the ropes. He jumped into me
with a flying body press also known as a fez press. After the lu
Fez. In one sweeping motion, he slammed into my body, knocking me
backward while trapping my arms above my head and grape vining my legs until as
I fell on my back, that's when he got the count one two three.
Dispatches of a Transitional Champion circa nineteen seventy three from Harley Race, who
again was made because of the funk Brisco politics really funny and here's a glimpse
of the title here. This Jack Brisco is about to in his book excerpt
here explained that the ceremonials that took place before he defeated Harley Race. That's
Harley there with the neutral leadership and Sam much so weird. He looks such
like a I can't just I don't know who he looks like, but he
looks hilarious with that leech blonde hair. That's a tremendous picture in Harley's book.
I'm sure it's on the web as well. With n w A president
Sam Muchnick, of course, both being Saint Louis Boys or Kansas City Area
wrestling powerhouses. It's pretty symbolic. But of course, the ceremonial awarding of
the new fangal championship was just part of the draw that night. It was
sort of like, as Jack brisco is about to get into you know,
we can promote Harley Race versus Jack Briscoe for the world title here tonight.
And yeah, they always did these matches, and usually they did these matches
in neutral territory. So if you were a you know, if you were
a superstar and in one territory and the other guy was a superstar and another
territory and you're coming together for the belt, you tried to pick a territory
that you know, neither of you called your own as neutral g to lose.
That's why like when Dusty and Flare switched the belt in early in like
eighty one, it was in Kansas City instead of Charlotte or Florida, Okay,
And so here it was really just like how do we get people in
the door, because it's going to be historic, but people don't necessarily know
that this is the night Jack's going to beat Harley. It could just be
another Jack Harley match, another Harley title defense. So we'll actually perhaps signpost
that a bit by advertising not just the match, but a big ceremony to
unveil a new championship, which if nothing else, would be a reason to
come out to this match as opposed to any of the other any other matches
on the dockets. So I'm really testing your vocal range here. But it's
time to wimbo. It's trying to warm up the pipes again for Old Jack
because he's going to take us through his whole experience now of getting the championship.
And again this is all vital context, of course, because it puts
Brisko in position to lose to Terry Funk and launch Terry's and WA title rain
oh plan all along, I had been to put Harley in line to take
the title after I had a run with the belt when my twenty nine month
rein ended. However, he had to wait another fourteen months because the NWA
no doubted Funk Funk Seniors urging, but the belt and Terry Funk. Race
defeated Terry in Toronto on February sixth, nineteen seventy seven, thus giving him
the distinction of being the man to win the title from both of the Funks,
the only two brothers to hold the NWA World title. The title belt
Harley had lifted from Dory in May was about to be retired and replaced with
a new one. The current belt race war was the Fez Belt, as
we called. It had been crafted in Mexico, and Pat O'Connor was the
first to wear it after his victory over Dick Hutton on January ninth, nineteen
fifty nine. You can jump out to the new belt was totally different than
the one which had preceded it. That paragraph The new belt was totally different
from the one which had preceded it. The old belt was smaller and rounded
on a black leather strap. The new one was somewhat bigger and weighed about
ten pounds. It was leather, but it had red velvet wrapped around it.
The old one proclaimed Champion of the World and NWA in large red letters
under a crown and beneath the figures of two wrestlers, beneath which was the
world word heavyweight. The four side plates were domes on a six pointed star
like background. The new face plate was more rectangular in shape across the top
where the words World's Heavyweight Champion. Underneath was a domed globe with two black
onyx plates on either side, each displaying a diamond. Beneath the globe was
the word wrestling. Jesus Christ, this is She's such a fucking idiot,
Sam. Why does the belt say wrestling all over it? I don't understand
this. What is Why is the word wrestling on the belt? I mean,
Sam, shouldn't it say entertainment? Well, you know, that's a
lot of foresight there, Jack, I really can, I really can dig
what you're putting down and coming around the corner. You know what I got
to tell you. I don't see anything coming around any corner. I don't
look around corners. I just kind of go straight ahead. You would have
to read all these details on the belt. Funny. I think it's funny.
I think I like him reading it. Him reading it is hilarious because
it's like it's this mundane ship that nobody fucking cares about, but it's,
you know, it's important to him. Well, I think that's kind of
worth highlighting because you would think that, you know, when k feb was
raging and live and well, that these wrestlers were businessmen first and really didn't
take seriously the trinkets, the trophies, the plot. It's but man,
they had a way of making that n W a title not only be the
biggest paying position in the whole business, but also one where you actually could
believe in yourself. You thought you were a shoot because your schedule was unlike
anybody else's in the business, your obligations to the business weren't like anybody else's.
Every single promoter in the country counted on you to some degree. You
flew, you know, to territories constantly where most guys stayed in the same
area for you know, six, eight, nine, ten, twelve months
at a time, even longer in many cases. And it's just you signed
up for this huge, life changing suite of responsibilities when you said yes,
I want to be champion, and you were able to wrangle the support to
get it. So in a lot of ways, it was a shoot.
And I was actually kind of blown away by the degree to which Jack Briscoe
went into all this detail about the nature of the belt. It just seems
like something wrestling marks geek out over, and not the wrestlers, right,
especially with that era. But I mean, this guy, I think he's
a mark in his own right. He cares about every last detail and every
last contour of the trophies that come along with the position. Well, you
know, there's nothing excites me more than seeing something like this. To the
left of that was a United States flag, and to the right a cast
of two wrestlers. Side plates showed the flags of Japan, Australia, Canada,
and Mexico. Sam brought it to the ring an especially made case.
It was a beautiful belt and seemed to glow under the stark glare of the
ring lights. Another interesting side story about the belt was the fact that it
was mounted on red velvet. This I did not know until preparing for this
episode. The velvet made a beautiful backdrop for the gold face plate, but
it didn't prove to be very functional. You can see in that picture it's
like it's not cut like flat leather belt r yards, sort of like long
after working an hour match with all the sweat and grime that went with it,
the velvet didn't stand up very long. It began it quickly began to
turn black and fall apart. So they took the belt from me. Sorry,
jacket's just not made out a durable material and remove the face and side
plates, put them on a black leather strap and replace the buckle in the
back with snaps to fasten it. Ever since the birth of video tape technology,
I'm jumping ahead. I remember in the last episode I was searching for
what NBA title change of this era was not recorded, and of course it
was Brisco's. And he's got a conspiracy theory about that. Oh boy,
a man um Ever since I mean also fantas says videotape technology, I mean,
Jesus Christ, what right? Ever since the birth of video tape technology,
most world title changes have been filmed. Cops of those tapes were sent
to promoters worldwide to promote upcoming title defenses in their territory. Buddy Rogers went
over Pad O'Connor and nineteen sixty one was filmed, as was Dorri's victory over
Kiniski in nineteen sixty nine and Harley's quote upset on vote of Junior in nineteen
seventy three. Mine wasn't exact delivery I was looking for there, thank you.
It has always been my belief that Dory Senior made sure of that.
God, I love it so much. That's the fucking point about Jack Briscoe.
That's why he's got to come up so much in the Funk story,
because every single thing that happened to this guy. He sees Dory sr As
like this silent orchestrator of it. He may have realized he couldn't stop me
from getting the title, but he's sure as hell was gonna make sure I
wouldn't have a video record of it. One might think that with Paul Bosh
in charge of the book in that night, he could have arraigned for my
match to be taped. I don't know. Maybe he did want to,
But no matter what the case, Senior's power and influence with the NWA trump
whatever thoughts Bosh may have had. Hi, Paul, it's terry funk.
How are you look? I know you got a pig match coming up with
the Collis see him. Look. I talked to my dad and he was
wondering, you know, the degree to which you planned on on filming,
uh, the title change coming up? Ah there, Paul, how'd you
get the mirrors by the way ahead? And gave you a call anyway,
even though you can't hear, you know, I thought it was wonderful.
So it would mean an awful lot to us in the family here on the
ranch, the Flying Mayor Paul, if if just somehow by by circumstance.
Uh, the camera that might be on its way to Sam Houston calls seemed
to record the title change, you know, if it went missing, you
know, and if my dad adprizes that he in the best interests of everyone
that this not be filmed in for anybody who's missing, I don't understand what,
Thank you, Paul. It turned out to be not that hard.
Then they then just called that Peter Bergholtz and just manipulated the whole thing behind
Paul. I love your Paul. Watch by that Actually he's in New York
actis kind of like Helen Hartz accent a little bit. But the guys did.
He was the guy that was like explaining the Texas style. Remember that,
somebody tell me where I am right now. So needless to say,
of course, Jack Briscoes title victory wasn't filmed because it's because a fucking dory
sr Eddie Graham had flown in for the match and to take me out to
dinner afterward. He weathered the storm, the political storm with me and and
for me on my way to the title. I don't think I would have
ever gotten close to the title if it hadn't been for his lobbying and ad
advocacy on my behalf as well as some of the other promoters he convinced to
go along with him. To a large degree, my title victory was due
to Eddie. So he went out and celebrated. And he didn't always pay
for dinner here we go, but but he did that night, our steak
and all the trimming. Now can you see why I put this in here?
Yes, because he sits down and has a steak since he was by
and I wanted the best. Glorious life. No, no, no,
no, no no. I made a note, so you know, people,
I made a note to myself to set up the next little bit from
the book with the idea of a glorious life. So I wrote to myself,
glorious life. But I wanted that rate to stop it. I wanted
the best, so it was supposed to be. Since he was buying,
I wanted the best. Since he was buying, I wanted the best,
you go, Since he was buying, I wanted the best, which is
another way to look at a steak dinner. I just left Dad taking me
out for a steak after I win the title. Yeah, you know,
I don't you know. I don't consider myself to have much of a good,
glorious life. But you know, if I can have a steak dinner,
that's the best that I can get. Oh my god, it's so
fucking sad, all right. So so now Glorious Home is because now we're
going to get to the brass tacks of it. You might remember at the
conclusion of the last episode Boss, we played it. We played a bit
of sound from a Terry Funk shoot interview where he talked about what it actually
all comes down to when you actually get the championship in that era, and
well, all it means is that you're the last match out, last match
to the back. No one's there, all the boys are gone, no
one gives a fuck, and you're basically reduced to traveling like a fucking carnie
in a way that everybody who can drive from town to town to the territory
doesn't have to deal with. You've got to find a cab to the airport,
you've got to deal with red eyes, you've got to deal with hotels
and all different kinds of cities and accommodations. It is a lonely fucking deal.
Yes, it is not Glory in between the bell. It is not
the kind of glory, you know that the wild and wooly party animals of
the territory territorial era that we all hear about and know about, we're accustomed
to. So I'm going to reiterate it with that bit of sound because I
think it's says so much about the realities of the business and the realities of
what counted as glory in the business back then, well back then. I
mean, there is no comparison back then. It's wrestled three hundred and ten
times when the I was champion, are over three hundred times in one year,
you know, and you just go from one time to the next,
and there is no home life. There was nothing, you know, and
it's a it was a very tough schedule and Jack Bristol was there for I
think it was three years after three years, right, and Jack was just
worn to a frazzle at the end of it. You know, my brother
did the longest run of anybody, with like four years, and it was
it was difficult, you know, when you go into the last match.
And the funny part about it was is that all of the all of the
boys, all the you know, all it would be left in the arena
and whenever you walk back the dressing room, so many nights that you can't
imagine. I asked my brother if the Saint way with him, and he
said, yeah. You know, when you come back the treasure room and
there's an empty dressing room, and after you go ahead, you know,
you take your shower and you wash up and soap up and wash off,
and there's nobody there. And you walk out to the streets and there's nobody
out there, and you look for a taxi and flag down attack. Ye,
how about a ride? You know. That's that's the way it was
back then. You know, him was a little bit of a lonely situation.
Sounds like a great deal, humbus. Yeah, sounds wonderful. Need
that sounds like, sounds like the business we all fell in love with.
It sounds like the price that has to be paid so that we can be
entertained as wrestling fans. No other way to structure it, of course,
and that's a huge blow to Terry Funk, who, more than anything,
when you hear him talk about his career, always talks about the role that
camaraderie played and addicting him to the business, camaraderie among the boys, finding
common ground with people from all different walks, all different territories, all different
geographies, regions, languages. Camaraderie. He says it over and over again.
Sometimes he gets confused and uses the word compassion instead of camaraderie. What
do you mean camaraderie? I've heard him do that several times, but still
to take the camaraderie out of professional wrestling, and that era really called in
a question what the fuck we're all doing here? You know, you're making
all this money, but if you don't have camaraderie, then it's a really
stupid way to make a living. And I think Terry Funk in the way
he found the off ramp quickly from that lifestyle serves as kind of like the
ultimate testament and why he went on to be able to produce so such a
diverse body of work after holding the championship that we celebrate him so much now
because he didn't let this bug him down to the point where, you know,
like Dori, he was only defined as this guy on the grind and
this guy that's you know, basically that nobody likes. I mean, they
don't dislike him right, but to be Dori Funk Junior was to be isolated
as world champion, and then of course later on that sort of characterized how
he interacted with the boys for the rest of his time in the business.
He had a bit more for an office responsibilities. He booked in Florida,
he booked to some degree in Atlanta. He booked, of course were mid
Atlantic and Jim Crockett. So he was kind of the boss. Unlike Terry.
He didn't just like drop the strap and then find his way back into
being to somebody else in the locker room. But still that is a huge
thing to take away from Terry Funk, and as he telegraphed in those remarks,
Jack Briscoe was one that had come face to face with those realities as
well. So here from the book is Jack Briscoe cataloging some of the glorious
things that go into life as champion of the National Wrestling Alliance in the seventies.
M I made notes about what was and wasn't open in each town,
so I knew where I could eat during the late hours. If I knew
a particular town wouldn't have anything available at such a late hour, I made
sure to pack a few sandwiches to eat in my room. Okay, can
we stop for a secon? I invite you to consider a sort of mid
level economy hotel room. In nineteen seventy four, Jack Brisco having come in
off the road and at like a sixty five minute sweaty exhausting title defense in
a suit jacket or whatever, sitting there at like one thirty in the morning,
looking at the carpet of this motel, eating a sandwich that he had
to pack himself, because by the time he gets out of the building,
his champion, everything's closed. And I want you to consider the silence in
the room except the sound of his chewing, and that the breathy that the
you know, the breaths that come out of his nose as he chews a
boloney sandwich. And I want you to consider that, and I want you
to realize that is the pinnacle of the industry in the seventies. Well,
I guess I'm just going to be home again, just be alone in the
room, eating my homemade bologna. Yeah, And that was another thing.
Why did he pronounce colony that way? He was never made to answer for
that in his time on this earth. I do love a good bologna.
H don't know why. I think is you have no other choice. But
that's fine. Don't know when neither, I wonder he felt like such a
good boy when Eddie Graham took him out for a steake. Look at the
alternative, look at the look at the lifestyle Eddie Graham had signed him up
for. Sometimes I don't know about silence. Oh shit, I really thought
you were picking up reading the book again. It was like he said that.
Jack. All I can say is same Sometimes I don't know about silence
and another working title. When I held the belt, I ate a lot
of convenience store sandwiches. That's a sentence. That's a real sentence. They
really weren't too bad, Jack Frisco, as it gets it really is coming
to terms with the egg salad from seven of them. I was gonna say,
like, an egg salad sandwich has been there for like four days.
I wasn't the only person who had to do that either. Most of the
boys had a tradition we called bloanableloonable. God say it. I don't know
why you tripped on that bloonable right, go ahead, it's bloonable. Blogna
blowouts, bloona blowouts or not, I loved it. The traveling was the
most enjoyable part of my job. That sounds great. Before I won the
belt, I would stay in a territory for a year or more. You
know. Being singling on the road to a new town every night left me
with an egg exhilarating feeling. Let that sink in what he said. Now
read the next sentence. I missed my three children, Daddy? How does
it? How does it feel to travel the world? Is the n W
A champion? I'll tell your kids, being single and on the road every
night is an exhilarating feeling. I'm so glad I'm not married to your mom.
If I'm being honest with you, it's an exhilarating feeling not being home
pretty much? Uh, But I do like I'll tell you you know,
I do love a good Did you have for dinner tonight? Dad? Did
you have sushi and tokyo again? No? I went to the convenience store
and bought a loaf of wonderbread and just ate it. Plaine eat a local
wonderbread for dinner. And Lincoln, Nebraska, let's fucking go. Uh.
I missed my three children, but I knew they were better off in Oklahoma
with their mother than on the road with me. Then I had to put
that in little so I think, I think a picture is sufficiently painted by
the way highest recommendation that as we do this, you you pull up a
still image from Google Images of Jack Brisco's space. I mean, just do
you're in the headlights, just the most clueless, like, oh my god,
I mean, for God's sake, it's at the Eli manning of fucking
pro wrestlers. So he moves on to talk about it. No, one
time, I one time I swallowed a toothpick. Yeah, and I don't
know. It's the best dinner right out of the road that week, So
can I expected it to go down the hard way, But sometimes it's easy
going. And look he's talking to his ghostwriter. Look when you mentioned I
used to eat convenience store sandwich is can you please, I don't want to
insult anybody. Can you please put something in there about how they weren't too
bad? Okay, Jack, I'll put that in the book. Sure,
can you put down that they were actually the better cuisine that I had?
That's not actually the honest of God. Truth, you know. I mean
some weeks all I had to eat all week was ass. You know,
sometimes my kids on the folk sometimes, you know, when I was on
the road as champion, the only food I had to eat was open can
of tuna I found in the trash. Say, yeah, it'll be hard
to eat a closed can of tuna. Better find a way to open that,
sucker jack, because and that shit was free for a reason. So
he goes on to then talk about the the notion the requirement at the time
that the NWA World Champion posts like a ten to twenty five thousand dollars bond,
whatever it was, that of course being something that you would have returned
to you upon losing the title. As agreed, this is a safeguard against
someone you know, getting the championship and then going into business for themselves and
losing it to somebody outside the auspices of the NWA and shifting the bounce of
power. This is that it all happened, of course, in the early
turn of the century, you know, disparate wrestling world that Luthz kind of
centralized and Sam Munchton kind of centralized. So you put your money down and
you got it upon return. Remember that was a big thing when when Flair
jumped a WWFN ninety one with the championship, he'd posted the bond this is
my belt, et cetera. Yeah, and so here Jack Briscow talks about
how that was relevant to him and the run up to losing to Terry Funk.
The bond I post. It only came into play one time when I
held the belt the title in December nineteen seventy four, about sixteen months into
my title run, I was about to defend the belt in Japan. Before
I left, I received a phone call from Terry Funk said, johnt Oh,
it's time to manipulate. It's time to manipulate on behalf of Giant Bob.
Again that key piece of context about the powerbroking funks in the business they
are doing. Giant Bob is bidding in Japan, but mostly in America,
and this is a wonderful example of that. Well, the funks are on
the outside looking in. As regards the world title. Not really, he
said Bob. I had called and wanted him to present me with a business
proposition. Ah, Jack, Baba wants the title and is willing to make
a deal with you. Can you imagine? So what every everybody wants the
title. That's why we all got into this in the first place. But
he's willing to pay you for it. As much is he willing to pay
he said, he said it, give you go ahead and the dollars.
He said, he'd go ahead and give you ten thousand dollars if you'll let
him hold the belt for one week. I don't know, Terry. We
could do it. No, we could do it and not tell the NWA
about it. Baba will return the belt at the end of the end of
that time and you'd be back in the state before much Nick or anyone else
cares about it. So for you know, of the two brothers, Dory
and Terry, Terry was able to keep good relations with everybody, whereas Dorry
isolated a lot of people. Terry is the fucking He is the operator man
who's gonna call you when it comes time to jump from New Japan to All
Japan in the cloak of darkness. Oh yeah, you know who made the
move to get stan Hansen, who made the move to punch back when they
got abby or when they were losing traction into Tuinoki, who made he is
he is. That's such an under I think appreciated part of Terry Funk's run
in wrestlings. He always found a way to broker, and he always found
a way to be at the center of whether someone succeeded or not in the
business. He didn't abuse that power. He barely even realized he had it.
But look here, Look how he's engineering yep. Oh yeah, massive
windfall payday for something that you know they're going to We're gonna explore. Here
goes off without the NWA's real signature behind it. It's tremendous uhh. And
even if they do get wind of it, you we could claim you accidentally
hit your head and were knocked out. So Baba had no choice other than
decovery you and promised to return the belt by losing until you The following week,
I reminded Terry that I had twenty five thousand dollars deposited with the NWA,
the same amount Dory had posted when when he was champ. Baba was
offering me ten thousand dollars to lose twenty five thousand dollars. The deal could
cost me fifteen grand in the title. I told Terry he'd better negoti she
had a better money deal, or it wasn't going to happen. Terry knew
the business as well as anyone, and better than most. He knew I
was serious. A few days later he called and said, Baba was willing
to give me more money. How much he hasn't said he hasn't going ahead?
And said I went ahead. He went on, I had Jack,
he went ahead and hasn't said, I'm eve a loaf of brand. If
he hasn't gone ahead yet, and said, doesn't that mean he hasn't said,
And that's just a better way to say. As I pressed the issue,
he just kept hammering and hawing. Jack. The promised to take care
of you. Don't worry about your twenty five thousand dollars. I want to
hears, Yeah, don't worry about your twenty five dollars. I don't worry.
Don't worry about seventy three or whatever. If you lose it. It's
just money, right exactly, That's what he means. I want to hear
something specific, Terry. I want an exact number. I'll check with Boba
and get back to you. Listen, Terry, I'll do it for twenty
five thousand dollars, but only if Sam gives me the okay. I'd also
want two thousand dollars a day for every day I'm in Japan, whether I'm
working or not, and eight thousand dollars for each match with Baba, plus
all expenses in cash American dollars, admitted I get off the plane. Terry
said he would take the deal to Baba, but he was sure Sam and
the NWA Board of Directors would never go along with it. I told him,
I'll take care of the board, you just make the deal with Baba.
Terry and I both were surprised when Baba accepted my terms. I'd immediately
set out to inform the board of my intentions. It would have been easy
for me to fake Funk's original deal, make a quick oh to take.
Would have been easy for the think it too. Take Funk's original deal,
make a quick trip to Japan, and be in an out out in a
week with my belt and twenty five thousand dollars. No one would have been
the wiser. But I wouldn't even consider it. It wasn't the way I
was brought up, and it wasn't the way I did business. Champion of
the World or not. I was taught to be honest and to deal with
others honestly. As far as I was concerned, there was no other way.
The National Wrestling Alliance had put their faith in me as the champion,
and I wasn't going to let them down. Besides, being champion meant a
lot more to me than just holding the belt. It's the same title gotch
Statuer Lewis Hutton as held, I wasn't going to do anything that might tarnish
it. So here a note to self. Do you think that by the
time this whole business transacts, that Sam Muchnick and the rest of the NWA
tell themselves that they're actually entitled to a bit of that money that Briscoe agreed
to. They're just don't negotiating on having themselves with Bobby. Yeah. I
mean, they had not a thing to do with putting it together. It's
one thing for you know, the three percent booking fee to go straight to
the NBA office. Be it Muchnick and leader Jim Barnett for booking the champion
because they actually, you know, picked up the phone and dealt with the
promoters that wanted dates on the champion and made all the arrangements in this case,
come on, it's a direct deal between Terry Funk and Jack Briscoe on
behalf of Giant Boba. Of course, come on, brisco names all the
terms. Yeah. And when he gets back, as Briscoe describes in the
book from the trip, having done what it takes to lose the belt to
Baba and then get it back, which is just I just love it so
much that we're already in this like you know, transactional kind of thing.
I mean, let me actually nail that down, because I know that Harley
goes over there and exchanges the world title with Baba in a way that nobody
would be none the wiser when he came back, but Briscoe was the first
one to do it. So Briscoe wins the title has mentioned on July twentieth,
nineteen seventy three, from Harley Race. He then goes to Japan and
loses it to Giant Baba and Kagashima Japan on December second, nineteen seventy four,
and he wins it back on December ninth, nineteen seventy four in Toyohashi
and returns to the United States as champion. No one is any the wiser.
But now gan Baba can proclaim to his Japanese public boss that he was
the NWA World's Heavyweight Champion. That's insane. That's how business was done.
That's right. It was up for grabs, it was up for sale.
The yep, the clout was up for sale internationally, especially we saw it
him many times, you know. And then Dominican Republic with Jack Veneno,
when Rick Flair went over, there was champion against Harley Race. They worked
a title exchange more because they were afraid of a riot if Venano didn't go
over because of the nature of how much the crowd wanted to see him win.
But there's all kinds of these strange one off NWA World title switches that
happened, you know, in an era before video, a widely dispersed video,
i should say, and where you could count that the wrestling magazines wouldn't
be there, or at least, you know, in this case, only
the Japanese wrestling magazines would cover it, and it would be hard to export
that buzz to the United States. I think, in God, it's so
wild. It did get back into a little bit of a degree to the
United States magazines that this happened, but at the time there was much more
of an ability for the leading wrestling promoters in the States pick up the phone
and call the magazine and said, please, don't you know, publish this
or or publicize that this happened. This was just a business deal we did.
We sure would appreciate your cooperation in exchange for continued access to ringside to
shooting the photographs that actually sell the magazines. So all that said, Jack
Briscoe gets off the plane having done business with Giant Bob and Japan, which
is so again, I can't emphasize enough. The Funks are still in control
here. If they can engineer that on behalf of their Japanese partner, Giant
Baba, They're still pulling a lot of the strings. And so Jack Briscoe
again arrives back in the United States with his belt back in tow, and
he gets a phone call. Doesn't he Boss go ahead? Week after I
got home, I received a phone call at home from Dori Funk Junior.
He told me Sam was upset and he thought I should give him more of
the money I earned in Japan. Look, Junior, if you want Sam
to have more money, you give it to him out of your own pocket.
He's gotten all he's gonna get from me. Dory didn't say anything else
about it, nor neither did anyone else include in Sam, I'd had enough
of promoters taking advantage of my hard work. I found myself wondering whether or
not having the belt was really worth it. That's the key. So what
I didn't put in there is that when he gets to the airport, Sam
Muchnick is actually there in the flesh to confront him in person, looking for
his cut, and Jack Brisco turns him down flat, face to face.
And then what the fuck is Dorry doing? What does Dorry have to do
with this? I know? Why is not on him to call? He's
not on the board, He's not you know what I mean. That's just
that tell you, Alora, I need to know. I'm obsessed with the
funks making phone calls in the seventies, oh yeah, you know, and
just moving things into motion. From their respect to me, Rancher, I
mean, they kind of remind me of Sean Michael's in Triplation ninety seven in
the ear of Vince McMahon. Absolutely, you know, yeah, they're kind
of charting the course for that of course, yep. You know, after
Dorry Senior died, they became owners of Amarilla, so they were actually you
know, they weren't just talent running, they were actual owners with a stake
at a time when Amarillo was still a very powerful area in Texas, had
a lot of power on the NBA board, but still just the guy that
wouldn't lose the championship to Jack Briscoe is now calling him asking him to give
sim much Nick untold thousands of dollars. Nothing wrong with that, not at
all. So yeah, this is going to start to wear on old Jack,
as it did any NBA champion of the time, as we've talked about.
So here in his book he gets to the breaking point that would create
the opportunity one might wonder if it was set out this way to pass the
championship. He had another funk. By the spring of nineteen seventy five,
I'd endured just about all I could take. I was exhausted, both physically
and mentally. I don't believe anyone can fully understand the type of pressure of
the champions under unless they have held the belt for a period of time.
The endless travel, endless opponents, and endless headaches caused by so many of
the promoters I had to deal with, and more and more along for home
made me realize my run as the world champion was nearly over, as it
always had been by next to being next in line for the belt was strictly
political. No champion rose to the throne without some measure of politics. Dori
Funks Senior had passed away forty eight days before I had won the title before.
Yeah, but before he died, he pushed Terry and tried to persuade
promoters to back him. Senior had convinced Eddie, Bob Geigel and several other
promoters to give Terry a run with the belt before they passed it along to
Harley. They even convinced me to push for Terry to succeed me. His
father desperately wanted Terry to have the belt so we could say his two sons
were the only brothers to hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Amazing. Fritz
just wanted to say one of them did it right, and again Lucas succeeded
oh with flying colors. Even beyond the grave. When the bell rang for
the main event, there was no one in the ring except for Sonny Meyer's
the referee. To build up the excitement, I waited a few minutes before
I began a slow walked to the rings. Is him describing the night he
lost the title to Terry in December nineteen seventy five in Miami. The fans
were perplexed because since the champion never enters the ring first, the challenger enters
the ring first, and the champion comes out last. While I paced back
and forth in my corner of the ring, the fans all turned around and
looked to be back and looked and looked to be back for door. Turned
around and looked to the back, to the back, to the back for
door to come out. A few minutes ticked ticked by, until finally the
dressing room door opened and someone emerged and made his way towards the ring.
But we looked at that newspaper print advertisement Boss m that night. Yeah,
that's right. Everyone was told it was going to be Dori Funk Junior versus
Jack Briscowing this night in Miami. No one had any idea that it was
going to be Terry, not only but winning the title. It wasn't Dorry,
it was his younger brother terry brother. Terry entered the ring, took
the microphone, and went on to explain that Dorry hadn't been able to make
his plane connections in Japan. He then challenged me for the title in his
brother's stead. I grabbed the microphone and agreed, if the National Wrestling Alliance
will sanction this as a title match, I'll accept your challenge. It was
wrestling drama at its best, but the best was yet to come. The
referee called the two of us to the center of the ring and gave us
the instructions we had heard thousands of times. We glared at each other and
returned to our respective corners without shaking hands. The bell rang and the battle
was on. Terry attacked right away, like a hungry line just released from
his cage. I was more cautious and countered every move Terry made. The
match was a combination of scientific skill and Terry had always been a brawler,
but he was a good hand in the ring, but traded dropkicks, body
slams, chops and elbow drops. That night, I think we gave the
fifty two hundred fans their money's worth. I wrestled with the defending champion who
was exhausted from the years of defending the title, while Terry wrestled like the
determined challenger whose senses the title was within his grasp for the first time.
At about the twenty minute mark, I dropped Funk with an elbow and went
in for the kill. I grabbed his left leg and wrapped it around mine
to set up the figure four. Terry, reaching up, grabbed my shoulder
and rolled me over into a cradle. Referee nilt down and counted one,
two, three, and with that Terry Funk was the new World heavyweight wrestling
Champion, and I couldn't have been happier. We both had come a long
way from the time nine years earlier when I'd been putting him over in two
minutes or less. It was a far cry from the time when we were
standing together somewhere on the Desola, Texas planes waiting for his wife to pick
us up after he totaled their car. He was the champion now, and
if I'm to be totally honest, I was more than pleased to put him
over that night. After he pinned me, the referee handed in the title
belt and he held it up over his head with both hands as glad as
I was to have the weight of the title lifted from me. It was
It still was a bit strange to hear the announcer say the winner and new
world heavyweight Champion, Terry Funk, when you were the old When you were
the old one. The only injury in the match came when Terry pinned me.
Neither Terry or I sustained the injury. It was referee Sonny Myers who
did. As Sonny was counting, I accented my arm and accidentally hit him
in the face. Terry had the title, I had my life back,
and Sonny had a broken nose. It was a memorable night for all of
us. Jack, he's such a fucking jack. Jack. You know it
wasn't you that broke Sonny Myer's nose in the match. You know it was
Terry. Why would you lie about that? And near? Jack? Well?
Why would about Roddy Piper being the go between before the Black Saturday deal
was closed? Remember that one? Jack? Well, sometimes I can't tell
when my hand is in front of my face. So you watch the video,
it's clear as day that right after the one, two three is counted
in the cradle, Funk like whips his arm out and smacks Sonny Myers.
Right. Sonny Myers has his back to the camera at the time, so
you sort of just see his hair shake, but he does grab at his
nose. And this is Terry Funk and the high spots sit down with Bill
Apter and Harley Race for counting this moment. And he's had a few beers
at this point in the event. Uh so forgive him as he uses it
as springboard to do one of his trademark piling in on an opponent of his
that he wrestled the thousand times over the years. You know, you know,
the egg sucking dog routine with Dusty Rhoades. But whenever comes time to
talk about noses. Terry, even in telling the story about Sonny Myers and
winning the title in seventy five, has to go in on Jerry Briscoe's nose
as well and broke Sunny Myer's nose at the same time. Referee is a
referee anything like his notes? I said wow because I went in and Jack
gave up, and I said wow, and I threw my arms back and
I broke his nose and I said, I might man, that's it.
Broke sunny Myer's nose about two or three places. Those look like a big
potato, because those look exactly like Gerald Briscoe's big tatum nose, jeralds j
rescos big nose. He got a big, fat, ugly nose, Gerald
Briscoe. Does how do you like that? Gerald Bristol, You and you're
big fat, overbearing number, noxious fat nos telling Gerald Brischel, I'm talking
to you, Gerald Bristol. I'm not talking to Jack or anybody else.
You Gerald, you and your big fact lahoma in your nose, your big
nose, fool fam nos, Gerald Bristol, What the fuck you're big fool
thoughts go thoughts. I don't have any thoughts. I'm just like, I'm
I'm I'm telling me, I'm just yeah. What the fuck. He just
kept going and going and going. That's Terry fat, Jerry brisk Gerald Briscoe
fat fuck. He doesn't even say, he doesn't even say nose, Yeah,
just starts calling him a fat fuck fat fuck. That one's Dusty,
Terry you're getting Oh my god. Overbearing is one he uses for both though.
He'll say Dusty is overbearing fat, and he'll say Jerry Briscoe has an
overbearing nose, but uh, that was that was the method of attack.
And as we'll get to you here, in as many ways as Jack Briscoe
is a singles wrestler, against Dory and Terry was a defining storyline and pro
wrestling in the seventies, Jack and Jerry versus Dory and Terry was equally electric
and did quite a bit for Florida and Charlotte territories where they had elongated feuds
and some classic matches. And so as we discovered when we looked at the
Japan piece of Funk's career, at least the all Japan years of the seventies
and early eighties. As wonderful as Terry Funk was, it's when he teamed
with his brother that the shit really went down, and that dynamic was very
much important to the United States against Jack and Jerry Briscoe, as we'll talk
about. As for Jack, he said he didn't think he'd ever been more
relieved in his life than after that night in Miami when he lost the championship.
Said he wrestled Terry Funk twice in the coming week, on December sixteen
in Tampa, Atlanta December nineteen and with those two obligatory rematches out of the
way. He was more than ready for some vacation time. Remember, in
the postmatch interviews after Funk won the title with Gordon Soley, there was talk
about where the rematches were going to be. In the colored drains out of
Terry Funk's face when they say it wasn't going to be first in Amarilla.
In fact, it was Tampa, which was considered Brisco's backyard, which is
what gave Terry Funk the conniption, and then Atlanta, and he was more
than ready for some vacation time. Jack Briscoe says in his book after losing
the title, he says, Terry picked up bookings he had signed quote unquote
when he was champion, which consisted of primarily cac Atlanta, and Florida,
and Jack Briscow decided to take six weeks off, rest up and then go
back to work, reverting back to a territory specific kind of existence that Terry
Funk was decidedly cycling out of by becoming world champion in nineteen seventy five.
And as for Terry Funk, there would be no rest for the next little
while. Yeah, I imagine, And what's important for context. Vital for
context here is to realize that in nineteen seventy three, not only as we've
documented, Terry Funk Senior lose his father, Dorrifunk Senior, to the untimely
heart attack, he also divorced from his wife, Vicky mm And we went
through the old newspaper clippings of their wedding announcement. How it was like,
you know, news in the Amarilla community that these two were wed. This
is like a you know, a couple of local prominence. People were following
Terry Funk's exploits as the son of Dori Funk Senior, as well as of
course a player of note and a big personality in the West Texas State football
squad. So his marrying Vicky was big news. It's not unlike, not
unlike Fritz marring Doris. It really isn't. It's a very Texas love story.
And they were building the family, had a couple of children. But
when Dori Funk Senior died and Dorry Junior and Terry had to take over running
Amarilla day to day in addition to touring the country, particularly Dorry Junior at
the time, it was just too much for Vicky to handle. Apparently,
according to way Terry has told the story, it was just way too much
demands. Terry Funk, by necessity as much as anything else, had to
become completely obsessed twenty four hours a day with the wrestling business now running his
father's territory and feeling a degree to pressure to actually have the territory do even
better than it was doing under his father, to justify that the transition,
that nothing would be lost in the transition. And this isn't just some guy
running a local rinking ink operation. This is a guy from a very low
population in terms of all of Texas Metroplex area, was not only the king
of of his area, but was one of the biggest power players at the
national board level at the NWA of any promoter in the country. So these
were massive shoes that even Terry and Dorry working together, Dorry Junior struggled to
fill. And a casualty was his wedding to his marriage rather pardon me,
to his high school sweetheart Vicky Funk. So they filed for divorce, and
Terry, in his book says he got so obsessed with keeping the family business
from going down the tubes, and so obsessed with making it better than ever,
that I was neglecting my family at home and VICKI eventually filed for divorce
just a few months after my dad died. I was devastated. The reality
was the hardest thing I've ever had to swallow. I didn't want her leaving,
but she was going. By God, she's had enough of that isolation.
She'd had enough rather of that isolation, she's just sitting at home.
You know, I don't think I could have salvaged things at that point.
I've kind of gone out. He wanted to. Yeah, I know,
why didn't you go out? I'm not sure anybody ever asked her, Probably
the same reason Doris didn't except to the casino, Oh yeah, or Helen
Hart didn't, or any other poor woman who finds herself led to a wrestling
power broker, a psychopath, right right, interchangeable terms. And as soon
as it hit me, I knew what a terrible mistake I'd made by isolating
myself like I had. Terry writes. Junior and I, along with Uncle
Herman, had expanded into Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and a few other towns.
It seemed like it kept on getting larger and we would had continued to
do so if the national situation had not changed the way it did. I
also got more experience dealing with wrestlers as an owner, and I found it
wasn't exactly one of the boys anymore. This is a recurrent theme in Terry
funds. He definitely does not like suddenly not being looked at as one of
the boys. And he was master maintaining that reminds me of John Coffee.
How so you're one of them now, wow, remind me of the context.
He would say that in we we were talking about We asked him about
Jackie Liebergott, who was the president of the Carlage at the time, and
he talked about being at a at a function. He gave two brief stories,
one when she was just part of the faculty, and then he talked
about when she was a dean promoting it and became you know, administration.
Right. He turned to her and said, you're one of them now.
Some people are like, you're damn right I am. And some people are
like, shit, that sucks that people look at me differently. Terry Funk
is in the latter category. Yes, I was now on the other side.
One time I went over a finish with Bob Rup and he wasn't thrilled
with it. They said, this is what you need to do. I
told him, I said, Terry, will you do me one favor?
He said, Terry, will you do me one favor? Tell me who
they are? I said, well, that's me, Bob. He is
now there. But it wasn't long before I couldn't handle being an Amarilla with
Vicky and me apart. So I went to Florida in nineteen seventy four.
That's some When you see Terry Funk make a johnt to Florida in nineteen seventy
four, you got to remember that it's motivated in part by the divorce and
just sort of flailing about trying to find trying to relocate himself in the world.
You know, he can't just open like a fitness influence her Instagram account
to deal with this divorce. He's got actually you know what I mean.
Yeah, he's got to leave the area. Dix later did me a great
favor. Terry Funk writes, when I moved down to Florida to get away
from all of it, I couldn't sleep at night. I was a complete
mental and physical wreck and weighed one hundred and ninety five pounds. Oh my
god. I called Bill Wats, the book in Florida at the time,
and told him I wanted to come in and work, and he said,
hell, yeah, come on down. He was expecting Terry Funk to walk
through the door. Instead, here came this skinny, one hundred ninety five
pounder looking like death warmed over. Ah. This is the reality. And
this is what makes Terry Funk's story to me so important a document and inspiring
because he took the fork in the road. He didn't sacrifice for much.
But Terry Funk took the other side of the of the bargain that Rick Flair
took m in terms of, you know how much collateral damage to my family
and my livelihood and my well being from a then from a mental as well
as physical perspective, I'm willing to put on the line to be the man
in the business. He made the noble decision, did Terry Funk? In
my estimation? And this is where the fork in the road starts to present
itself. Wow, our plan was to drive, he writes. No,
I lived with Slater while I was there for several months of insanity. One
time, we decided to try to help the notion by getting some front page
publicity. So this is how he passes the time Win Singer again. Our
plan was to drive to the middle of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, leave a
note in the rental car, and then leave the car there as if I
had jumped off the bridge as you do. Right. Then we went home
and I stayed in the bathtub for about four hours. Oh what is this?
And then after that I put my head in a paper bag and I
stood on my head, I mean really where Once I was good and wrinkled.
We drove out to the beach and I want ahead. I went ahead
and got wrinkled. Yeah, exactly a wrinkle in time, if you will,
as well as a wrinkle a wrinkle in Parsley and Sage. We drove
out to the beach and I laid down at the edge of the coast as
if I'd washed up onto shore. Oh my god, Hell, nobody came
to my rescue. I laid there for three or four hours and just got
up, went back home and forgot about it. Oh my god. Bok
talks about the loss of his wife and his family and the position that put
himself in on Steve Austin's podcast, who, let's just say, is a
very interested listener on this soul. Oh boy, a guy who is basically
strained from his entire family, as far as I can tell, not not
only his wife but his children, has talked about in a recent any biography
on him, and Steve's got a lot of questions for Terry about the sacrifices
and the trade offs and why it went down the way it did. Well.
Terry, you know, certainly didn't shy away from talking about it.
He didn't get into as much detail when he was sort of dictating the terms
of conversation bea a booker an interview as us Steve Austin gets out of him
here. I was just on the road work in wrestling, the promotion aspect
of it. What was it that just drove the wedge between y'all's relationship?
You really want to know? I was obsessed with the business, obsessed with
it continuing on and being better than it was before. You know that my
father passed away. My brother and I both were somewhat obsessed with the you
know, and every day we were on the road, every day we were
at meeting. We were running, uh, we were running probably eighteen towns
and well, let's say seven over fifteen towns a week. You know,
that's a lot of towns. And we're running to home and and uh wanting
to prove to the to the country and the you know, and and for
our father, you know, is to continue on with the business and keep
it going and has to do that. What was the process you end up
biking? Divorces you? How did you? How did you get it?
End up getting back together? Being well as uh I was. This is
honest, god truth. We were only separated about eighteens, you know,
we were we were totally divorced for about eighteen months, and we got back
together whenever she went ahead and I asked her, and we went through the
process back and forth, back and forth from absolutely a war to just a
semi battle to them to understanding, and we still loved each other, you
know, And at that time I was champion, and that's whenever I as
champion for I forget how many months. It was about a year and a
half or something like that. But anyhow, as I went ahead and she
said she wanted to get back together, and I said, okay, I'm
getting rid of this belt immediately. And that's what I did, you know,
as got rid of the darn thing. And did I let the big
weight off your back when you got rid of that belt and you were able
to spend more time at home. I loved every minute whenever I got home
with my two children at that time, you know, they were young.
I was blessed to have the opportunity to get back with my wife and on
work still together after I guess we don't even count that. We just call
it time out. Took a few months time out there, you know,
and finally got back together. But then all except for those months, been
married now for I think forty seven years or something like that. That's it,
man, that's it. That's the heart of the story to me.
And pretty soon Terry's like, fock this, I don't you know. The
deal's made like this. You know, we can get back together, but
this this lifestyle isn't cutting it. Let alone you be world champion. And
he made that. He made the adjustments, and he made the adjustments work
for him, and he charted a course on how to make a good living
in this business without being beholden to a slavish schedule, and I think his
decision to do that probably is baked into his decision to never stay even in
the National Wrestling era, in the WWWWF era, in one place for very
long, even though it would be glad to have him. He's in and
he's out, and us the definition of wrestling vagabond begins even more so,
even more distinctly for Terry Funk. But you know, of course, he's
just won the championship. We're getting ahead of ourselves a bit in terms of
relinquishing it in part to get his family back. One thing I noted in
some of Dave Melter's coverage upon Terry Funk's death and in chronicling this aspect of
the story that he did say was that Vicky went on to remarry after divorcing
Terry in seventy three, and well, let's just say it didn't end up
very happy with her second husband. So Terry about that, Yeah, about
that divorce. But to Terry's credit, at least far as I can tell,
he made the adjustments and did what it took to actually have a home
life. As for the tensions that Jack Briscoe has talked about and all the
excerpts we've read and interviews we've listened to with Dorry. It's all directed at
Dory, none of it at Terry. That is the recurring theme. Anyone
whoever had a problem with Dorry Junior. Almost everybody is very quick to then
jump and say, I have no problem with Terry. However, we just
saw it Jack Briscot problem doing the honors and giving Terry Funk the world title.
In seventy five, Terry writes this, I know Jack Briscoe wrote a
book stating that when he first came to Amarilla, Dori and I both beat
him in a bunch of one sided, two minute squash matches after playing up
his amateur credentials on TV. I can't remember ever having a match with Jack
that only went two minutes. Jack, Jack, are you telling the truth?
Jack? Just like when you're telling the truth about who broke Senny Myers
knows there's video of that. Jack. Well, you know, when it
comes to the truth, sometimes sometimes you just gotta eat pudding. Is that
how they say it down in Oklahoma. Also didn't think pumping up his credentials
so heavily is something we would have done in Amarilla. You know our audience
was made up of people with names like Gomez, Martinez, Hernandez and those
folks don't give a shit about Oklahoma athletics. Yes, those folks didn't give
a shit about Oklahoma athletics. That Jim Ross, Yeah, he wouldn't have
been He wouldn't have made a very good announcer for the Mbillo territory. No.
Jack Briscoe was a great wrestler, though his brother Gerald was also a
hell of a wrestler and was a good babyface even though he had that big
potato nose there. It is just fucking said it a big potato nose,
any rates, just kidding, Jerry actually has a lovely nose. Really,
oh god, so fucking insincere. Sometimes we actually had the that's Terry like
he found a way to basically like vent his frustrations with the people he feuded
with the most and who of course along the way he considered screwing him on
a payday somehow, or you know, underappreciating the value he brought to drawing
gates. But he found a way to like I feel like Sugarcoat. It
were like you couldn't tell if he was just poking fun at you or but
he would never let it go. He would never He never lets an opportunity
to go to go in on Dusty, even though it sounds like a wrestling
promo, which it is. Of course, you would think that after all
these years he would stop, you know, calling him a big fat son
of pitch and every opportunity. Fuck, that's Terry, you know, he
finds a way to bury you, and you still love him for it because
you can never tell if Terry Funk is on or not at any given time.
You could plausibly believe that he's just switched to working mode and now we're
both in this together. In that regard as well. So when Cody took
the ring after Terry Funk's passing on SmackDown and talked about remembering as a little
kid walking through airports with his father and hearing Terry in the same airport scream
you egg sucking dog down the airport working Basically, I don't know, Cody
may they may have charmed the pants off of Cody thinking it was all you
know in camaraderie in fraternity. Who am I to say? But I don't
know. I feel like there was something else at work there. I think
Terry was a master ball buster at the end of the day. His brother.
Okay, we actually had the Briscoes in a heel tag team for a
while, and they were great heels. It was a unique feud in the
nineteen seventies. They would come to Amberilla and we would go to Florida's heels
to face them. The funny thing was we would use the tapes from one
place in the other place, so the Amarilla fans got to see us as
heels in Florida, one one place in another place. That must have been
something you're watching in really TV. And we're like, all right, brace
yourself everyone at home. We know the Funks are superheroes here and can never
be doubted, right, But what you're about to see is them wrestling in
an arena full of people that want to lynch them. Thus, the Texas
versus Florida thing that fully bled into the the dynamic between Dusty and Terry as
well, takes shape, and the Florida fans got to see the Briscos his
heels and their Mariilla. It was kind of a groundbreaking thing in a way
because it became more of an atmosphere like the Texas Miami Game and college football.
Always fucking college football. That's right, It's what matters. Everyone had
their local favorites. What do you say, boss, you want to sample
Terry and Dory versus Jack and Jerry in this era? Yeah, back the
Florida in the seventies. What do you say, I do, share some
fucking screens around here. Let's get the fucking let's got the dulcet tones of
Gordon Soley back where they belong. So this is, uh, this is
a match that is from it, just as the seventies. So I think
we can safely assume that this is a match that took place before Terry defeated
Jack Briscoe to become champion. Okay, when the two brothers were we're locked
in Mortal Kombat. So here we go. This is going to be one
of those things that starts with, you know, some pre role with Gordon
sole in the studio. Like a lot of these pieces of footage, they
survived because WW got their hands on the Championship Wrestling from Florida Film Archives,
and so a lot of the stuff you see is really Gordon Soley reporting on
matches that happened as opposed to raw Fro, much like we were able to
see Terry Funk's and Wa title win that way as well, with a fortunately
for us Gordon solely providing the soundtracks to stand by. Here we go love
it, Briscoes and the Funks to see some highlights right now of a match
wrestling against Dorry Funk Jr. And Terry, and I think you'll enjoy the
action. There's Jack on the left, right, yes, Terry, He's
got Dory in the corner hauling off the sweat is flying. That's Jack Brisco
right there. That's right, extremely strong young man. He's Sunday's Jack Brisco.
But Brisco makes the tag with and here comes Gerald. Look at Gerald,
Boss, describe what you're seeing for the pool. I mean we got
we got fist flying. I mean really like big, big, big punches,
and again you see the tremendous and almost there comes Jack jackone. Terry's
got a frosted tip afro, doesn't he he does? And he fucking just
bumped for the business. Did he leave his feet off? That Brisco dropping
Terry doing what it takes, centering body slim by Brisco to his longtime rival
Dory Funk Jr. This is a heat of dag having Dory Dorry fucking sell
him like a look at that. Look at the way he he ricochets off
every punch. Yeah, Dorry definitely knew how to fly. He just it
was hard to get the dynamic together to where there was real heel heat on
the guy, you know, because he was so bland. But after the
mis drop kick in Florida, it was it was, you know, he
was the one dodging Jack Briscoe because Jack was the local boy that everybody,
or at least the local sensation right that everybody wants to do it. So
it's spinning to hold by. Dory is dropped and converted into a figure four.
Look at that Jerry hip toss is Terry Funk down onto the figure four
in uh entanglement? Interesting red, white and blue stars and striped trunks on
the Briscoes. Yeah, very kind of odd. Christ I know, he
look at him. He's fucking going all over the place like he shot out
of a ca It. It looks like we may have a Yes, it
looks like in fact, and that's about all we get. That Dory Funk
Junior conceded in the center of the ring to the figure four leg lock of
Jack Briscoe going down to Florida to do business. Boss. Oh hey,
that's that's that's you know, I can appreciate that, so, you know,
not the most extensive look, but that's what we've got to deal with
in the seventies unfortunately, is those those sort of truncated looks. But I
don't know, there's only so much you can say about such a brief clip.
But as I prepare our next one, thoughts on what you just saw.
I thought that was great. I mean, honestly, like I thought
I had. I thought I had a lot of a lot of there's a
lot of fire there, you know, kind of again something I'm not used
to all the time in older clips like that, But I thought that was
pretty pretty remarkable. I'm sorry, what do you think about Terry? You
saw him there? He's just he's just so he's just got so much kinetic
energy in the ring. He's unbelievable, you know, he's he's a exquisite
in the way he just flies around the ring, and it's it's really amazing.
It's really tremendous to see him do that because it especially in this time
period, it just it stands out as something much much different than I think
what was normal in the UH in the wrestling in performance. Yeah, it's
interesting because the more seventy stuff we watch, the more I'm coming to the
realization that actually the style in this country slowed down a bit in the late
seventies and early eighties. You tend to think of it going into progression,
like from slower to faster, and I don't think it went in a straight
line. I think his guys got got more booked, you know, on
the WWF schedule, where they just couldn't afford to put as much on the
line every night, to where there was less of a premium on being able
to show technical expertise. Right where there was, of course, you know,
a much higher prevalence of steroid use. Thus, you know the limited
range of motion that that inflated physique implies. I think actually what we grew
up on, the style we grew up on, is actually a lot slower
than what was sort of a table stakes remain events back in the seventies.
I mean, the way Dairy Funk's moving around, and all the matches we
saw in all Japan and shit, pretty much everything we've seen from the Funks
and the Briscoes and others, and Harley in the seventies tells me that like
the wrestling fans of the generation before us, or even two generations before us,
were customed to much more action than we were, as hasbro kits,
Yeah, yeah, I would. I may, at least if anything much
more fire like this was. This was There's a lot of fire behind these
guys, so I would say that for sure. So we're going to go
ahead and fire up a couple of matches. This is from now. If
that was from before the title switch from Jack Prescot to Terry Funk, this
is decidedly from after that. This is after, in fact, both Terry
Funk and Jack Briscoe had settled into a life of post NWA champions. This
is from the winter of nineteen eighty two down in Florida and a pair of
matches between the Funks and the Briscos that we're gonna play here. We're gonna
get some promo work from Dorry and Terry in studio with Gordon Soley. This
at the time that I believed Dory was Florida heavyweight champion. He's got a
strap there and we're going to start to see this. This is some great
stuff. This is Terry Funk post NBA champion, post having to carry himself
as NWA champion, going fucking nuts whenever the camera was on and just injecting
all the personality into all of the feuds that he shared with his brother.
And we're gonna get to see the Briscoes on their native turf down in Florida
being reacted to as such, and a pair of matches with this promo as
well from down in Florida. So we're just gonna lay out and really enjoy
this one. Here we go. People to understand just a few things about
the sport Ugly Diarrhea Blazers. They're wearing sports fans from every walk of life,
from every profession that loves to come a professional wrestling and professional football.
But there's one important thing. They are all insane insanely jealous. They are
all insane insanely jealous. Yes you can hear this, Okay, oh yeah,
yeah, this turns out to be a little lower than I expected.
So here we go, bumps. And that's exactly what happened last night in
the four Armory, and that's why that we are here today, because we
want to have an opportunity to go ahead and show you, show you ahead,
and show you again accomplished. Because this is the International Championship built.
It's the most prestigious built in international field. I thought the world title was
better than that. If you'll look at this belt, you'll see that it
is the most beautiful belt in professional wrestling. Why don't you go ahead and
show them what the people did because of their insane jealous and an opportunity.
I'd be glad, dude, sir, and I'll tell you what we're talking
about, the situations that occurred with the Funk brothers at the armory and here
you see it as it's taking place, and gentlemen, let me go ahead.
T William Brain to explain to their people, but they will stand listen
to constant. They were watching footage of that Terry Funk slapping the fucking announcer
back to Florida. I had look at him, go stop away, we
got he brought it upon him himself. What I was trying to do is,
like before I told my trim Ago, I had and explain a few
things. Is just add a little bit of class to this professional wrestling.
Now the Bresco brothers came into the ring, and you see exactly what happened.
This is look at heal, Terry and Dorry just fucking taking their boots
off, and Dorry in his suit coat like mister class is just fucking mutilating
Jerry and Jack Briscoe. Here comes Jerry. Oh oh, he's fucking waffling
there. It's going down. Boss in the world. Not a couple of
jerks. God, he looks like a fucking nut. He's in like a
look like a suede blazer. And I know this the diarrhea brown suede blazers.
And you have in one of you. This is the International Heavyweight Championship
Belt. But first, before I talk about this and the importance of this
belt, I'd like to say some story. Still doing the bullshit. No,
he's still fucking like Dory. Shut up fans, the wrestling fans wouldn't
let you talk. They wouldn't let hell, they wouldn't let you talk.
Dory here called the Brisco's right up to the desk, screaming, hollering.
You guys a their trunks with their tag belts. We're not dressed to go
in the rings here. God, you can just see like old Florida Grandma
is just loving the Briscoes. Oh yeah, oh absolutely, Terry barking way
and when Gordon solely they're saying, right now, mister Funk is so good
man, it's so fucking good. Go ahead. It looks like Terry's taking
the blazer on. Come on, we're in the cw F studios here.
Look at Terry, Look at him, Look at him, Frankie the Thumper
boss. Nothing like coming up to the desk in a studio wrestling setting,
making a challenge, walking two feet to the ring and fucking doing it.
I love it. Look at Dory running the Department of Public Works. And
this is from January of nineteen eighty two. Champions Preston from Florida must be
on YouTube somewhere. Oh, Jerry poked his head through the ropes and the
Funks pulled him the outside and they're brawling. Here we go, Jasko,
Funks and Brisco's boss. Witness it. Yep, it's amazing. Jack.
They're in now with a Jack in a double whip, double clothesline, drops
him. Jerry double eggs Dory into the ropes. It's a fucking brawl.
And again This is after a decade almost of the fans in this part of
the country being told that the Funks are ducking the Briscoes. The Funks are
manipulating circumstances. So oh bit dropkick from Jack, So Jack doesn't get a
fair shake. Terry off the ropes, big backdrop. These old Texas cowboys
are pumping in those Texas jeans. That's right, Holy shit, back Alley
Street brawl. Wow, look at fucking Tory take going for the ride.
Harry. Dorry looks like one of the founding executives of Texas Instruments. Yes,
yes, this is actually turning it on Terry. Look at Terry.
He stumbles out like an idiots bresh shirt is ripped off, he's falling through
the ropes like he's half to three sheets to the wind. Dorry looks like
a substitute science teacher. Well, I think that's gonna science you're talking about.
He's certainly scientific, but he's scientific with it. It's like imagine your
teacher getting in the ring. That's what he looks like right now. Just
think about Jerry Briscoe and wwe one of the stud just doing this. Oh
yeah, no, Terry's got the Figure four on Terry Dory funk in his
full office, where Terry comes in with his ripped shirt right in the face,
cowboy boot to the face, and Jack Briscow cuts him off like a
simple blow, just takes Terry. He's got a fucking bump like crazy,
like he's fucking looking him. Look at him? What is going to be
Sean Michaels. It's like someone hung him on clouds. Pins is drying laundry.
No one fucking Dory got a pinfall? Did you get a pin?
I missed it. I think I think that got a pin A little fundo
by the way. Oh now they got Terry dead to right between him.
Jerry's got a loaded left fist and throwing on Terry. Dory comes up with
the tag straps and gets crowned with him. Look at the brisco this,
this seems very un sportsmanlike, fucking god, even when he whips a belt.
Jack Brisco looks slow, and the Funks finally take a powder, disheveled,
beaten tail tucked. I know is that where the ringing is? So
the Funks talked ship. The Briscoes came out like good baby faces should called
them out, and then beat their ass more Championship Wrestling. In a moment,
let's take you back to eighty two. Boss. Oh. It's an
entire area and entire generation being team tournament that's taking acquainted Terry Funk. Now
we're on to now the next month in Regional Florida have been held in Osaka,
Japan. We're solely setting the stage on tag team competition and that's Crazy
Georgia and more recently, of course this past week at the Bayfront Center in
Saint Petersburg, and we're going to join a match now with as we go
back to the Bayfront Center, we're going to be seeing the Funks against the
Briscoes, Dori and Terry Funk against Jack and Jerry Briscoe. And who's gonna
narrate over more footage? And there's here goes Terry Selling being here. Yeah,
the brisco brothers a mad man. They of course hoped to move along
in this tournament for the regional The regional winners of course pick up twenty five
thousand in cash, twenty five grand in the line four attacting tournament that's ongoing
to go on then to the World's at tournament, the Crockett Cup, same
time a year. Now, I might just point out that you can go
and enter as many regionals as you wish. So consequently, Terry Funk's on
the lower back, it comes back in the fray, coloringeldow to the corner
here at the Bayfront Center. This does not necessarily mean tournament boom. That
ring moved a lot of the whip to the corner. It did the regional
tournament. And so now the brisco brothers handling the Funk brothers. Keep your
eye on the referee during this situation. Watch this referee because he has.
You watched that referee. Just keep your eye on. Now you can se
Tory just slipped in as the refel down. It's a pere four brawl here
at Bayfront Center, and that is for watching each other's back. Again,
the ref keeps getting bumped. The height of this battle for the at Jack
Briscoe Championship, it's sharp Irish whip's corner to corner on dory over and over
again. Oh jesus, I mean look at look at the Wayne Shanks.
It's like it's barely holding on to the individual slips from the ring and you
just sit down in your fucking bark a lounge in nineteen eighty two and watch
this every week and oh yeah, no bullshit, no fret, no frills,
no feedback loop, no tribalism for the Funk Brothers Jerry Funk out on
one side, Dorry Funk Jr. Out on the other. No ship's given
about whether that looked real or not. Don't go away. Championship Wrestling will
return in a moment. Be right back, chriss cross Jerry brisco moving out
against Brothers champion Dorry Funk Jr. It's a big forearm shiver from the veteran
Doryfunk Junior dropping Jerry Briscoe. Briscoe puts him to the canvas and now watch
brisco has hurtled outside. The Funks knew how to throw a fucker out of
the ring, didn't they? Oh yeah they did. Jesus H Japan and
the United States is were finding Terry smashes Jerry's head into the ring table and
then just Terry's head is always down. Yeah, he's always leading like a
bowl because it's always like reigning chaos above his fucking afro. It's so true.
Big perverted circle in the corner for Gordon Soley's head me just what a
unit of a headset on Gordon Soling. Oh, I know, look at
that. Look at that fucking thing. Holy ship, there ain't nothing small
about that ringer the impressionable public. Again again, this is Eddie Graham's wrestling
right here. This is this is the territory that if you could get over
here and make money here and you had a shot at being the NBA World
Champion. And again it's all pre Hogan. You know, you got to
remember, I know that's a hard thing to fathom at times, pre Hogan
and for that matter, for the most part, Flair I mean the eighty
two not really, but I mean old Flair and Hogan where big stars,
and the Flair was a massive star in the industry in eighty two. But
the fans that are like looking at the Briscoes and the Funks is like they're
homesteaded, you know, decade long. Guys. They could care less about
the era that a Flair and Hogan rushing in. This is what they came
to see, and it is now at brisco and Bignie left drops Funk and
then shifts to the abdominal stretch Dory Funk Junior in trouble, and here comes
Terry the menace, the problem child. He is he is, he is
the problem child. And this is post Paradise Alley. Now, this is
Yeah wants to post Terry giving up the idea of being the world champion,
and as we'll find out later, even being the boss of the Amberilla territory.
This is just him having fun, making towns, making money behind it,
getting people all fucking worked up, and every city he went to.
That's rightous pressure accentering a dominal stretch locked in here by Jack Briscoe once again.
And Briscoe, you know Jack Briscoe. I mean he just moves around
the ring like a general and that's enough. I guess it was enough for
these people. That's what you're into. I suppose, yeah, years that
they are indeed doubles up. And you can see the way that right arm,
that was the way. That's what the fans wanted out of the baby
face, not a heel again, but a baby face in that time period.
And drop down the lateral guillotine cover Briscoe converting the abdominal stretch into a
pin one two on Dory. Now the inside Cradle by Briscoe one two not
enough. The same roll up Terry used to take the belt off Briscoe,
and it is brisco closing in to get that pin fall. Terry while holding
the tag rope, stretching his body as much as possibly can, but just
can't get close enough to his brother for the tag. Of course, his
hands really full in his high The nirvana must have been region. You know
in the seventies. You live in New York, close enough to the garden
to go to the garden every month, and you have grandparents who retired in
Florida, so when you went down there, you can see this ship.
Oh yeah, vertical once again, play Gordon Jerry Briscoe Nail's Dory Funk Junior
with a snap vertical Suplex gets one back upside headlock and now Dory makes it
over to the corner and here comes Terry moving. See what kind of chaos
he can create. He's a fucking I mean he really does. I mean,
look at him, go big elbows to the back of the head.
Just he moves so much more awkwardly than everybody else in this time period,
and the administering more and more. He's wearing the trunks to boots. The
standard neet pads, and we know we can go hold for hold, but
he's just so much more of a live wire. The way he carries himself,
his body, languages. Yep, it's not everything he does is epic.
I'm not trying to say that. I'm just trying to put my finger
on break why he stood out from all of his peers and every generation.
I mean, he just it really comes down to he just had a he
had a way about him that was just very very unique, like in terms
of of like in the you know, especially in this period of time,
that he was much more of a showman than what than what others were doing
totally, and he'd throw hands man and he's not out there with four arms
and all ends. He's throwing punches, yep. And he would make everyone
he wrestled throw punches, even straight lacekys like Jerry and Jack Briscoe. Yep.
Pretty soon they were throwing closed fists. Now he drags him down and
a spinning to hold serious of them being applied by Terry on Jerry in the
center throwing. Terry actually trips up and now it's Jerry Briscoe shooting the figure
four and he locks it out Terry in trouble. They come alive. Here,
Dorry tries to get in. Jack cuts him off. Here for a
brawl. Dory tied up in the ropes as Jack stamps the ship out of
him. He has cut off and finally the hold is broken. But tad
from Turt to Dory. Now the funks funking on Tampa. I love I
just love hearing the the you know cigarette yes, you know rattled voice of
right back when it was like, if you didn't have cigourette voice, what
were you even doing on television? I know, if you didn't have a
cigarette voice, you shouldn't have been alive. Ironically, you shouldn't be in
front of a camera, that's all. Or a microphone. Now Jerry and
Dorry throwing hands. Here comes Terry in the back door looking to attack.
Jack Bristo go into even the odds here sixer, thanks, you're sixer.
A tremendous battle going on between these four again, look look at them.
Go Jesus Christ like. Terry gets thrown into the corner, just out of
the frame and you look to the corner when they moved the frame and he's
gone. He's out of the ring. Oh double a trip with the with
the cheating Wow one, two, three of the Funks take the win protest.
Suddenly Dorry took out Jerry's legs, stacked him up, and from the
outside Terry used his boot to push his brother's ass forward, creating the leverage
you needed to pin Jerry Briscoe. The Funks win here in Florida. Yeah,
that's right. So that's how they won. That was their reputation in
Florida, and that's that's how the fans felt about the Funks. That's what
they's nuts. So it's just nice to see, you know, it's it's
it's definitely a few that defined the Funks and the Briscoes. And so yeah,
for sure, little man, that's that's amazing little taste of the inn
ring chemistry from the two. So now it's it's on to defend the championship
for one Terry Funk. There's not a ton of footage that I've seen of
him defending the title. I mean, I'm sure there is a lot of
it, but it's I can't say and we'll go through it that Terry Funk's
n w A title run was characterized by like one or two or three big
defenses that everybody remembers where it was like everyone remembers this is the one where
people thought he was gonna lose or a masterful performance. He was very consistent,
of course as champion. But the one thing about his run is that
you know, there wasn't like a no brainer match that we should watch that's
representative of what the defending Terry Funk looked like. Right, So we'll just
skip right along to him eventually losing the championship and color it in with text.
But here if you can warm up your uh, your Terry Pipes now
is an excerpt from his book, just about what he was seeking to do
as world champion and the contributions he thought he could make in the many territories
he visited with the strap scroll up, are right, that's job starts with
I also knew it was now my job to make stars. Yeah, I
also knew it was now my job to make stars in each territory I visited.
For anyone, including myself, who would seriously say to another boy in
the business, I am the world champion, I would think, are you
out of your goddamn mind? They made you the world champion. The guys
the other wrestlers make someone the world champion, and the world champion exists to
make the guys seem like world beaters, world egg beaters. Yeah, right.
When I was champion, I usually got to come up with my own
scenarios, and it was always important for me to me to leave a place
at least as strong as it was when I got there. My question to
the promoters was always Okay, what do we do? What do we need
to do to draw a buck? And this is as funny as he his
word choices. This is a gradual shift that's starting to happen away from Sam
Muchnick's style of conceiving of and booking the champion into a more loose, you
know, under Jim Barnett, a more loose interpretation of what the championship was
supposed to be and represent. You didn't have to like embody all of the
classical qualities of a great wrestler. Sure, what you had to do was
create a stir everywhere you went to keep every territory healthy and happy and more
unhappy to keep paying NWA dues and paying the percentage of gate to the to
the NWA for the championship appearances. And we start to see that more with
Terry Funk, more with Harley Race and of course Flair. It's really Brisco
to Race to Funk. To me when you look back, is really that
point where the idea of what the NBA champion was out there to do changed,
and probably no small part because Terry Funk was so goddamn good at lighting
an area on fire in a way that Dory couldn't even if you wont let
alone a kiniskin. What do I mean by on fire is bring a level
of heat and emotion from the fans. They're not just transfixed by the the
glory of having the world's champion wrestle in front of them. They're actually emotionally
invested in seeing that motherfucker get his as kick. And that just wasn't an
emotion reserved for the NWA World's Champion much as far as I can tell,
until Harley and Terry start getting in there and exchanging the belt and getting involved
in reconstituting what it means. And it makes a lot of sense because the
Sam Muchnick steps away in seventy five, it's a free for all. There's
nobody there to crack whip. Like we talked about way long ago. Now
in the lapsed Funk where Terry very early in his career went down to Saint
Louis and did that wild chair swinging angle with Johnny Valentine and it got incredible
heat. It did exactly what Terry Funk always sought to do and what every
wrestler, at least in his part of the country was told that their job
was to do. Sam much nicic Ha did it because it made the referee
look like a complete and incompoop and a complete fucking incompetent that he had to
pretend he didn't see this cheating so that the finish could come off as intended.
And that's just not the way that Sam much Nick thought that wrestling was
going to stay. To respect it to the degree it was irrelevant, because
the way wrestling was interpreted in Saint Louis and the way the wrestling fans of
Saint Louis looked to wrestling was just so different than what made money in a
lot of the other parts of the country that was much more predicated on,
you know, bringing the people the violence they wanted, bringing people the scores
being settled that they wanted. And now without a Sam Muchnick to be there
to say no, Terry, what you're doing is wrong. Suddenly, not
only is it okay to be Terry Funk, and it makes sense to be
Terry Funk, but that's now all of a sudden the job of the touring
end un world champion. Yeah, yep wow. My first big chance to
making a challenger actually began about a month before I won the title. Jim
Crockett's mid Atlantic Wrestling had a tournament for the United States Championship on November eleventh,
nineteen seventy five. The title had been vacated by after former champion Johnny
Valentine was crippled in a plane crash that also broke Rick Flair's back. Flair
up Time was an up and coming wrestler with a lot of promise. I
won the tournament, beaten Paul Jones, one of the area's most popular wrestlers,
in the finals. It was an incredible night. We sold out Greensboro,
and the newspaper there even covered it, saying it was the first sellout
in the building's history of wrestling. It was also the biggest crowd crocket it
ever ever had up to that point. The whole thing was set up for
a rematch a couple of weeks later, and I lost that title to Paul
Jones. The idea was that he beat that, he beat me, so
when I came back through with the world title, he was a natural contender.
In the rematch, I also got busted open doing a hard way for
Paul. I ended up getting eighteen stitches, but I thought it would help
make the return even stronger. That's an interesting little wrinkle. So yeah,
right before they consummated the switch from Briscoe to Terry, Terry happened to be
working in Atlantic and dude, the disruptive nature of that plane crash, ending
the career of Johnny Valentine and all the booking plans that George Scott had around
Johnny Valentine. Yep. But Terry Funk steps into the void and loses to
Paul Jones. And that's absolutely perfect because Terry turns around and becomes world champion
when he comes back to shann You better believe everybody in that area remembered Terry
losing to Paul Jones and kind of his last territorial stop before winning the world's
title, And god damn did they turn out to see if perhaps our local
boy can win the world's belt. So that's that's who Terry Funk is now.
He's not just coming into a territory to beat the guy to lay lay
the groundwork for his brother. He's coming in here to extinguish it with his
own hands. The threat right right. During my whole time as world Champion,
there was never any question that I would make every guy I was in
there with look more like a champion than he did before he got in there
with me. I was there not to promote the world title, but to
promote that top guy, and he Jerry Us. I knew those people wouldn't
be happy leaving the building since their hero hadn't won the world title. So
I had to make him believe he was a better athlete and had a better
wrestler than the world's champion, and it was only a fluke that he didn't
win. If it was done right, the world champion, the world Champion's
business would go on, and the territory's business would flourish. As champion,
I worked a totally different style from the way my brother worked as champion.
It's cool since I was more interested in making as much money as possible with
the title. My title programs tended to be shorter than juniors. I was
in town to produce the most revenue in the shortest period of time. I
read that last line again. I feel like it's important for hashtag to lapsed
Funk. I was in town to produce the most revenue in the shortest period
of time. Got that. That's what Terry Funk mastered uniquely. I wasn't
there to debase the championship, ard to tear apart the nWay, but I
was there to make as much money as I could, as fast as I
could, And if that meant going out and blowing the lid off the house
by doing something insane or absord, that's what I did. Goddamn right,
that's what he did. And it wasn't, you know, to everyone's liking,
as we'll get to it wasn't everyone's taste as to what was the NBBA
champion was supposed to be doing. But it's a new world and Terry Funk
is ushering it in and he's you know, leaving territories with guys that didn't
ultimately come off as losers because they failed to win the championship. This is
very much the blueprint that Brick flair follows where he leaves you with. Yet
the guy didn't win the belt. Our local hero didn't win the belt,
but goddamn that he comes so close, And if that sound of a bitch
hadn't played games, whereas Dorry left you feeling like, okay, he gave
it a spirited effort, but Dorry was still the more skilled guy. Jack
Bristol couldn't help but sort of leave the same impression. Harley Race and his
first reign had had such a short reign they didn't really even have time to
manifest that idea of what the champion could be. But yeah, so Terry
Funk is walking right into the opportunity created by Sam much Nick, stepping back
to redefine what the champion should be doing out there at a time when he
was very much looking to hold as much money as he can, because it
was pretty soon after he got the strap that he got the signal that Vicky
might be interested in getting back together, and he knew what that meant.
That meant, let's make as much off this run as we can, keep
it as short as possible, and thus you get the uh the effect in
the approach he had, and he was also you know, Terry Funk was
uniquely interested in making wrestlers everywhere he went. That's why everybody loved the guy.
It's just amazing the litany and the roster of huge wrestlers that can remember
a formative part of their careers being Terry Funk offering encouragement at a time before
they had proven themselves to anybody else in the business. Terry's just saying,
Mark, we'll get to We've already gotten to several of them, We'll get
too many more. So. Yeah, as Meltzer put it, Funk was
the first champion we're promote could do what they wanted, meaning he would win
less often and put over their local talent. More. Funk was always about
putting over others and also had a wilder mind, so there were no issues,
although when he won the title, most promoters had him winning at first
to establish him as champion. Yeah, but I think it's very telling that
at the end of the day, Terry Funk dedicated his book not to his
family, his famous family, or the family he raised, but to jobbers.
He wrote, I dedicate this book to the wrestlers who have never worked
a main event in Madison Square Garden or anywhere for that matter. I dedicate
this book to the wrestlers who perform in small town Ussay, the ones who
know their night's pay won't ever even cover their transportation costs. I dedicate this
book to the guys who have spent themselves totally for what they consider noble causes,
their fans and their families. I dedicate this book to the guys whose
special brand of valor shows in their blood and their sweat. I dedicate this
book to the wrestlers who have had tried violently even though they came up short
again and again. In other words, I dedicate this book to the jobbers,
the wrestlers who have put their shoulders to the matt purposely and selflessly to
enhance other wrestlers in the fan's eyes. They do what they do in the
unselfish hope of improving attendance in the weeks to come. They were and are
the unsung heroes of my profession. This book is also written for my world,
the small world, and I like it that way. So that's Terry
Funk among the folks. Will take a moment to talk about Terry Funk's contributions
to getting going. We've already called him out earlier on the show is merced
Soleise, Do you remember who that is? Boss? Or did you forget
again? Uh? Oh wait, I forgot again? Who is that?
Tito Ortiz? No Tito Satan? All right, less christ close enough,
It's it's not okay. This is massive to think about when it comes to
you, A very fruitful career in the business, and how it all it
all ties back to Terry Funk. You don't realize because Amarilla was a territory
that while it was popular and it's in its area, it really wasn't a
huge spot on the map. It happened to have a lot of sway in
terms of the NWA because Dory Funk Senior had a lot of political power.
Yeah, but it's like so many wrestlers came through a Morello and nobody knew
about it because it just wasn't heavily covered territory. It wasn't where a lot
of wrestlers had really impactful matches in terms of, you know, things that
would make the headlines or things that would make the magazines. But there were
so many wrestlers, Harley Races among them. I mean, if Terry Funk
played a role in getting Harley Race fortified in the business. I mean,
God, how can you how can you not help but just make a million
guys? After that? Yeah, so we turned to Tito Ortiz's book.
Don't call me Tito Ortiz. God damn it, because it's Mercett. So
Lee sounds like Ortiz and it gets me how fucked up? Of course,
don't call me Chico. I spent about two months in Texas officiating matches against
all kinds of people I didn't know. Then, by chance, I had
an opportunity to referee match for another huge wrestling legend, Terry Funk. Now
Terry Funk was the NAA World Heavyweight Champion in nineteen seventy seven. When I
was first breaking into wrestling, we already knew each other because coincidentally, Terry
also attended West Texas State. That's right, Tito or Tito. I'm just
gonna see Tito fuck this off. Wow, you keep doing that, Jesus.
He also attended West Texas State. So that's also a big part of
the reason that Terry Funk ended up being such a power broker to so many
wrestlers, just because, yeah, he was like the guy that would pluck
you from West Texas State and get you into the business, and that was
you know, don't I don't need to list the names we already have and
we will. Terry took an interest with me because of our commonalities. He
also remembered me because I had also spoken to him during some of our football
practices, well before I'd become interested in wrestling. One night after the matches,
Terry called me into the Heel locker room. He knew that I was
green, but I think he saw something in me and also took a liking
to me. Like Andre I walked into the dressing room and Terry gave me
a big hug, With our shared background serving to break the ice. I
was ready to talk to Terry about my first few weeks as a referee.
How are you doing, my boy? I have a seat and talk to
me, he said, doing his best impersonation of promoter Jim Barnett owned Georgie
a championship wrestling humm. He grabbed his back as if he was in pain
and added, I've got to sit down. I grabbed him a chair.
I know some of the other boys are already talking highly of you too,
So how do you like the wrestling business. So far. I love it,
I said, but honestly, I don't know how long I can stay
in it. Why is that, kid? I mean, I made some
money from football, but I'm burning right now through savings, chasing around the
shows to ref I know I am learning, but I just don't know if
I can keep up this pace much longer. I see, he said,
scratching his chin. He knew exactly where I was coming from. He had
been there himself. Honestly, I really wasn't sure if I could afford to
stay involved much longer financially. At this point, I was a long way
from the eighty thousand dollars figure that Joe Blanchard had randomly quoted that I would
be making. Terry's cheerful expression faded and he said, do you want to
stick with it? Well? I am still learning a lot from here,
Matsuda, I said, But I haven't made any money yet. I was
told after two weeks I would start getting matches and maybe making some money.
Well it's been two months and I haven't earned a single penny. I haven't
even had a match yet. I guess they don't think I'm ready. So
what are you thinking? You might do if the wrestling doesn't work out,
I may go back home soon and just prepare for another football season. They
said, the door's open for me to return to Canada to play for the
British Columbia Lions. Do you not like wrestling, Terry? I love the
business. It's like, okay, you're not making any money, You're you're
starving, your destitute. You have a chance to actually so you're shame?
Do you like? Do you like yourself? Right? What's not to like?
I don't get it, merced Terry. I love the business and I
want to give it a shot again next year after Oh what I said,
I love the business, I didn't. Are you talking bullshit? I want
to give it a shot again next year after the season is over in Canada.
I honestly just can't afford to pay rent with no income. Wait a
minute, he told me, are you a piece of shit? I'm supposed
to talk to Eddie tonight. Okay, okay, well, Terry said,
don't do anything yet, let me see if I can help. I'll talk
to ed A Graham for you. Ad A. Graham was the owner Florida
Champion of Wrestling, right near where I was training. I told Terry that
sounded fair and thanked him. The next morning, I had a call from
the secretary in the wrestling office. I had my first match schedule that Saturday
in Tampa Wow Tull. He planted the seed in me to become a wrestler
till he blantered. But Terry is the one who really encouraged it to grow.
That day he became my mentor, assuring me I would become a success.
He was the real one who encouraged me to stick with it. A
few days later, I was off to the Florida Territory, but not to
referee, to actually wrestle. And it is just amazing how many wrestlers have
those little stories along the way where and it's all independent of each other where
they're on the fence. It's almost like Terry Funk had a way of sensing
when somebody with talent was getting frustrated and was on the brink of giving up
wrestling, and he just uniquely apparently he knew how to relate to these guys
at that exact moment where he could say the thing, or he could make
the call yeah that could make them think they were actually on a track to
grow in the business instead of spin their wheels. It was very easy to
become a wallflower back then. It was very easy, for whatever reason you
got a shot in the first place, to become lost in the muck of
the show, to show chaos. And if you weren't inclined to stand up
for yourself and highlight your value to the promoter or even know your way around
you even know who to try to impress, it seemed like a very hard
way. It seem like a very hard business too, to make sure you
stayed noticed in breaking in. Oh of course. Yeah, and Terry Funk
apparently knew exactly who was worth standing up for, who was worth vouching for,
because all these years later, as these guys come around and sit down
after thirty year careers and write books and do shoot interviews looking back on it,
they all have to say that in these critical moments, it was Terry
Funk. And it's such a wide variety of generations and geographies that can say
that. There's so many Japanese wrestlers that would say that about Terry Funk,
let alone American wrestlers. You go from Tito sanm Tanna to Harley Race.
How about two, Boss, Bob Backland, get out of here. You
sent me. Yes, the diversity of wrestlers that say, Terry Funk was
the one that showed me how to do this business or pointed me in a
direction that I can look back on and say that was the point at which
I started hitting my stride in wrestling. It's just amazing. And Bob Backland,
mister fucking you know white milk from Minnesota, mister Madison Square Garden headliner
who you don't even think of as ever really facing off with Terry Funk in
his career not at all went down to a Mailla was one of his really
his second territory after Central States. And again it was Terry Funk that saw
in Bob Backland all of the raw material that Vince Mcmahonsenior would later grab Jesus
and you know, transition out of Bruno to it's it's really remarkable. And
this is from Bob Backland's book. If you could, you don't have to
do a Backland accent or anything. I don't even know how to do voice,
but I just think this is just so fascinating that he played a role
even in Bob back Len's career to this degree. Yeah, As time went
on and I paid my dues, I began to be looked and I again
to be booked into fifteen minute draws at some of the house shows. I
was given the chance to call some spots, show a few moves and try
to win over the crowds. Eventually I even got a couple of wins.
Then one day, Terry Funk came in to work a main event in one
of the towns at the Tri States Territory. For some reason, he paid
attention to me and we got into a conversation in the dressing room. He
knew I was a rookie and asked how I was doing. I told him
that I was learning a lot, but I quietly admitted to him that I
was getting pretty run down from living in my car. I didn't know it
at the time, but Terry and his brother Dorry, who was known as
Junior, were running the Amarillo Territory. Before our conversation was finished, Terry
gave me his phone number and told me to call him when I was ready
to make a move. It was the first meaningful contact I made in the
wrestling business, and as will become clear as you read, on. It
turned out to be a really important one. A couple of weeks later,
Grizzly came into the dressing room and told us that Terry Funk wanted a couple
of us to do jobs for him on TV and Amarillo. I was one
of the guys elected. Anxious to explore something different, I made the long
hot drive from Shreveport to Amarillo that set in motion a long chain of events
that, one to the next would ultimately take me all the way to the
world Championship. It was the end of the beginning. Uh, something's missing?
Is it end of the beginning business? Yeah, you can just jump
to that next part. There's a word missing. Oh I see. Terry
explained that he was going to take me in the ring, play a little
cat and mouse and toy around with me like he was going to squash me,
and then swerve the fans by giving me a big comeback, letting me
rally against him, show a flurry of moves, catch a couple of near
falls, and then go toe to toe with him and take him all the
way to a ten minute television time limit draw. A new role of the
NWA Champion. Ten minute television time limit draw how many fucking teas you need
in there? That one Jesus. When Terry couldn't put me away before the
ten minute time time limit expired and the bell rang, signaling the end of
the match, they were on their feet and jumping up and down, screaming
and cheering. Terry Funk made me that day. Why Because Terry Funk was
the master of crowd psychology. He had an idea that he thought would work,
laid it out meticulously by teasing the fans and building it slowly and carefully
until it bursts into flame. I had played my part well, providing the
credible look and the properly executed moves, selling what I should, and then
rallying in order to make the story believable in the eyes of the fans.
That's a pretty crazy, like, you know, to me, that's another
one of those things like you don't you don't really think about because if it's
done right, you shouldn't think about it. That being just to be clear,
that being the crowd psychology stuff. Yeah, you know, like the
fact that you know him the way back Whens describing what Terry Funk did is
the kind of stuff that you don't as fans you shouldn't notice, right,
because otherwise you lose it, you know, you lose the uh, the
the suspension of disbelief and the appeal of it. And so it's all that
stuff that I find to be so fascinating about how you work like small things
to manipulate the crowd. That's like, that's great learning is you can sit
a guy down and say, here's the psychology of the business and here's what
you should be trying to get across to the fans when you move around that
ring. But it's like giving somebody who's not an actor lines to read.
And we've seen this in wrestling. Tragically, you get in front of the
camera and you were reading exactly what you were told to read. You were
conveying exactly the rote instruction of what you were told to do in the back.
But it's only after that when you sit down and say, okay,
now here's why the way you did it made it look fake to the audience
because in this little moment, like you were saying, you telegraph to the
audience that this is what you were doing. You weren't appreciative of the fact
that to walk out there as the wrestler, as opposed to portraying the wrestler
to walk out there as the person means that these things you're learning about psychology
have to flow naturally. They have to be second nature. They can't be
things that you think about having to do. They are things you do that
is you in performance mode, that is you in method mode. And that's
where you know, when wrestlers talk about, you know, advice in the
back and getting counsel from veterans and the little suggestions, usually by the time
they get to WWE, they've worked it out such that it kind of seems,
you know, kind of like bullshit, Like, you know, really,
what's the difference between the way Randy Orton worked when he first got there
in the way he works now. But it's those little adjustments that don't make
it look fake. Basically that Terry Funks was the fucking man at telling new
guys yep, agreed, one hundred and ten percent. Ah, but this
little example shows the incredible power and potential of good and creative booking that ten
minutes in the ring with Terry taught me one of the most important and enduring
lessons that I ever learned in the wrestling business. That the business survives by
the constant ebb and flow of the tide. Whether in a single match,
in a feud or series of matches, in the booking strategy for entire territory,
or in a career, you had to be willing to give in order
to get, and when that was done properly, both wrestlers and in reality
an entire territory would become more successful because of it. Of course, Terry's
actions, while incredibly generous toward me, weren't purely magnanimous. By giving me
this comeback against him on television, he was also birthing his territory a credible
new babyface. By showing the fans that I could go toe to toe with
him, he was effectively telling the fans, hey, get behind this kid.
He's the real deal, and you should buy a ticket to see him
if he wrestles in your town, because he has the skills to beat anyone
on any given day and that unpredictability. Of course, the hope that the
underdog might pull the upset and win is what puts butts in seats and drives
the success of our business. After seeing how the fans in the studio reacted
to our time limit, draw on television. Terry Funk invited me to stay
in Amarillo and work the territory. So I went back to Tri States,
gave my notice, finished my dates for Leroy, and then drove to Amarillo
to begin a new phase of my career. Try States, I said,
Central States. Tri States was Oklahoma, Louisiana. Yep, that's where he
started Backland Tri State? That's isn't that what we think? It's not very
confusing. One afternoon, after I'd been wrestling in the territory for about three
weeks, we pulled into Abilene, Texas, which was our weekly Friday night
stop. Abilene was run by a promoter who was very close to the Funks.
I had been scheduled to wrestle Terry there for the Western States Champion Heavyweight
Championship, and in the dressing room a few hours before the matches, Terry
pulled me asidn you know, Bobby, these fans are really talking to you.
I just talked it over with Junior, and we think that in order
to keep that going and to get this to the next level, we're gonna
put you over tonight and get the championship on you. For a while,
I was shocked. Less than a month before, I'd been laying down for
every guy on the roster in tri States and sleeping in the trunk of my
car with a baseball bat. Now it's true, Colin his wife quirky from
a payphone, sleeping in the trunk. Like, what kind of car does
he have? I think he needs to get out of the trunk. Oh,
like a like in a station wagon or something. I think that's what
he means, because I mean, like, the fuck you're gonna get out
of the trunk if you shut the door. Well, Dick Murdoch, you
know, there's a story about how Terry would uh one time he told Dick
Murdock to ride in the trunk because for some reason he couldn't be seen riding
in the passenger seat with him because they were heels and faces. But it
was just like a total it was a total work, and he ended up
making it. Dick Murdock ride in the closed trunk for like four hours.
That's excellent. He give me six packs back there and eventually shut up.
We can't be seen riding together. Let us just get out of town and
then and then you can come out of the truck. Dickie and ride with
me. You can't be seen, Dick'll beck Dory style. It'll just be
like twenty minutes, okay, and then you can come and sit with me.
I'll pull over and then he fucking tries for five hours with him in
the trunk. So wrestlers and trunks, baby, that's right, full full
handed trunk, handful of trunks. Uh. Now, Now I was about
to pin Terry Funk and become the lead guy in the Amarillo territory. The
tide was coming in. The Funks had some really good performers in Amarillo at
the time, and it made me feel pretty good about myself that they had
chosen me for a run with the strap, especially so soon. I also
think they were doing their friend in Abilene a favor by having the title change
in his town, because whenever a title change in a town, it would
bump the gates there for a good while afterward. As hard as it may
be to believe, at the time, Terry Funk was a very popular babyface
champion in the Amarillo territory. The fans had not seen him pin very often,
and he wasn't about to let just anybody walk into his territory and pin
him. But that night in Abilene, Terry finally came clean. He explained
to me that both he and Junior saw something special in me, and they
thought that I would really connect with the area of fans by scoring an underdog
upset pinfall victory over him and taking the championship. And so it was decided.
Darry and I had a very clean wrestling match that night. There wasn't
any punching or kicking or eye gouge, And what was the fun in that?
Well, it's not what the moment called for, I mean, but
punching and kicking that's fucking bread and butter off a wrestling match. Yeah,
sometimes Terry would get down, man, he'd get down. Like the generation
before him, he could do it. But how I mean even them though
even then, the fucking guys had punches. Punches are basic stuff in the
pro style, I don't know, versus European uppercuts and sort of like forearm
shivers and not just closed fists. I associate just punches like he's talking about
with a brawling style match, because you know, refs would call closed fists
and stuff. You could do it, but it was sort of like you
slipped him in. It wasn't like I guess I just don't think of all
the I think of stomps and all that is kicking. To me, that's
what you're thinking of his New York style as opposed to like Saint Louis and
part But yeah, Florida, parts of the country that were predicated much more
in the exchange of holes and to throw a clothes fast all the time would
be to be a bitch. No, not not all the time. But
I mean, every wrestling match has a punch, even ones in areas you're
talking about. And we've seen old matches yea, with even older guys that
are that are very technical technically based. But but but but and you know,
with exchanging holes and stuff. But there's still a couple of punches thrown.
Yeah, it's like a spot more than it is like a general part
of the match that you look past. It's something you do for impact.
It's you know, it's not something that you expect on your match to have
slug fests in you know, well, I'm not even saying a slug fest,
but even a fucking like really, there wasn't even any punch or kick,
not really in the Jack Briscoe style. No, unless someone brought it
out of him. You know, that was just that was a kind of
match you could have. It's not like it never happened. But you know,
with Backland and you consider him being a Minnesota boy and and I think
he actually punches. Oh yeah, burned through punches if if, if that's
what it took, but he would much rather just sleep and dropkick is way
to victory. Yeah, what do you think? But a drop kick is
a kick. That's the same thing. It's a kick. Like were there
punches again between him and Billy Robinson and the wrestler, Yeah, yeah,
pretty sure. I mean again, it's not like again they're they're trading blows
and like it's like a pounding. But it's like maybe, you know,
just like what we saw with with the Briscoes and the Funks, like you
know, a couple a couple shots the face, maybe a body blow or
something like that. And I'm not saying like it's a full a full blown
brawl, but I don't know, to not have a punch and a wrestling
match or a kick, it just seems it just seems weird. Yeah,
after all, that is the pro style Verne did say that it's a lot
rougher. And you know, the reason you learn to fall in the pro
style is so that you can continue to earn money, not because it's fake,
right, right. You want, well, you want to learn how
to fall, also so you can know how to how to brace yourself so
it doesn't actually, you know, hurt you any more than a hassley,
right, so you can continue earning money, not because right, exact basically,
stuntman, Not because it's all fake exactly right, and you're a bitch
for doing this exactly right, and a loser because you can't do any health
with your your earnings. Actually earn a real fucking you know, salary from
a real job, Earn for Vern, Earn for Vern, exactly because neither
of us wanted to turn the other heel, which can easily happen in a
babyface match if either one of the wrestlers is perceived to be adopting heel tactics
to get the advantage. So we just did some olds, some good old
fashioned back and forth chain wrestling. I see, letting the cheers of the
crowd be our guy. Sound like that's why there weren't punches in this one.
Yeah, I still don't buy it. Eventually, we had the people
at a high point and Terry gave the signal that it was time to go
home with the finish he had dreamed up for this, which was in essence
a prolonged false finish follows followed by a surprise ending. I had Terry up
for the atomic knee drop, which I had recently adopted as my finishing hold.
Yes, what a lame finishing hold, even even for then, Like,
so, you drop a need some guy's ass, and that's how that's
the finish right up. As Cox expone, it produces a paralyzing effect if
landed correctly from what I understand. Yeah, keep dreaming, and which others
in the territory had been selling to the moon for me on our previous runs
around the territory. Terry, though, was holding onto the ropes in an
attempt to block the execution of the move. The fans were on the edges
of their seats, cheering and yelling and dying to see what was going to
happen next. We held the move there long enough to get that crowd to
a frenzied peak, and then just at the right moment, I abandoned the
effort and just dropped Terry into a hard sided souplex and quickly covered him for
the pin next to the ropes. The referee counted one, two, three
and it was over. The crowd was stunned. They were screaming and cheering
and jumping up and down in the stands. The fans in Abilene could not
believe what they had just seen. If I was sitting in the stands,
I would have been. I'd only been in the territory for three weeks and
I had just beaten Terry Funk to become the Western States Heavyweight Champion, my
first championship as a professional. The crowd was roaring, the upset was selling.
Terry had given me a lot of offense in the match and basically made
me look like a million bucks. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. I mean when someone
comes into your life as a wrestler and does that for you and sees that
in you without you having to lobby for it or you know what I mean,
insist on it or break down the door to get it. You never
forget that, because yep, true. So there you go, Vince,
Thanks, Yeah, you're welcome. Rather for you know whatever, six seven
years of solid garden business post Bruno, post Pedro thanks to Bobby Backland,
and you can kind of see, as we're learning, if the Dajour wrestler
of the seventies was Dorifunk Junior Jack Briscoe, that style, it starts to
make sense, then, doesn't it that Vince Senior goes for a champion like
Backland in the seventies. Yeap, yep, yeah, yeah, I guess,
I guess. I guess so, because it always seems so counter six
years I mean, come on, that's a little long even first, Oh
yeah, that's a long ass time. I think what you had is a
business that was so foundationally conceived around what Bruno was that you were going to
just plug somebody into the Bruno spot and do a long title reign, even
if you know the returns didn't command it, because that's how you structured your
territory. You kept your relations strong and pay high to the babyface champion that
could turn away heel challengers that you bring in every month and a half.
Pay big, but that's it. That's the end of your obligation to them.
Of course, you have your your troop of New York guys to fill
out the undercard, but the top of the card was just that, and
and it just it just makes a lot more sense as we're learning and seeing
what seventies American pro wrestling at the world title level was like and what people
were looking for in the form of a Jack Brisco, that Bobby Backland would
be Vince Seniors version of that at a time when it was very clear that
a colorful champion like a superstar Billy Graham is what the New York market was
looking for. They were more than supporting his run as champion after beating Bruno
in seventy six and selling out with the likes of Dusty Roads, and instead
of importing the heel challengers, they were importing the babyface challengers and wrestlers like
Dusty who were getting exposure on New York television via the fact that the Florida
Championship Wrestling stuff would make its way up there. Championshipressing from Florida, I
should say, yeah that suddenly this was a new pipeline of bringing babyface challengers
and that's why so many guys, you know, as Vin Senior warmed back
up to the NWA like like a Teddy Biassi Kurt Head and Grick Flair,
so many others came through the garden in the seventies, well before they were
really anybody. It was much more a wide open door and so but no,
the plan was there, we have to build our territory round the babyface
champion. No matter how good Graham's doing, we can't conceive of a territory
built around a flashy heel like that. They have to be chasing. And
so Backland, despite all evidence to the contrary, was installed, as you
know, the next Bruno, the next Pedro, And that's how the territory
had to be. And it's bland and not colorful as he appeared to be.
That was actually what the what the chef was calling for in the seventies,
I guess you could say. And it's no small part thanks to Terry
Funk. Then anybody would see that in Bobby Backland. So let's get to
the run. This is this is basically the the litany of matches. We're
not watching them, We're just going to talk about them, all right.
That Terry Funk had after winning the championship from Jack Briscot December tenth, nineteen
seventy five, just gives you the full flavor of the places and faces that
Terry Funk saw and encountered as defending world champion. And it's quite a run
for such a short period of time. So he wins at December tenth,
seventy five, as mentioned Miami. Next shot is Kansas City where he defends
against Jerry Oates, then Saint Joseph, Missouri, where he defends against Edwiskowski's
The Crusher two out of three falls. Just think about the schedule. Then
to Des Moines to fight Jerry Oats, then to Orlando to fight Rocky Johnson,
oh my God of the Rock of course for the championship. Then to
Tampa for c WF the Fort Hester Lely Armory to face Jack Briscoe. These
are the shows that Hulk Cogan is going to as a young wrestling fan watching
Dusty Rhodes, who's the first the baby face phenomenon of the mid seventies of
the Fort Hester. M Yeah, became Eddie Graham's right hand man and you
know, booking assistant as well as top babyface and starts making it up to
New York to work the program with a Billy Graham as well at the Garden,
So Funk Briscoe here in seventy five, Funk seaclone Negro in Miami.
Out in Jacksonville, he wrestles seaclone Negro again. Then he goes to Georgia
Championship, which you know seventy two, late seventy one to seventy two WTBS
goes up on the superstation satellite. Yeah. Yeah, and while in nascent
technology, it was technically possible for people all around the country to be seen
this stuff, and Terry Funk is among the first in the door. He
wrestles Jack Briscoe in George Championship Wrestling at the Atlanta City Auditorium December nineteen seventy
five, so it's not exactly the television show, but it's the house show
circle of the TV supported. Then he jumps back to tam but fort Hester
lead to wrestle Dusty Rhoades for what I think is the very first time.
Wow. Could be wrong about that, but at least the first time is
champion was December twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. Terry Funk and Dusty clash
the match gens vita qualification at the fort hestally, then back to Atlanta for
Georgia Championship were wrestles the Spoiler and then he wrestles dick Slater, his longtime
buddy from Texas. And then he goes to macon to wrestle mister Wrestling Number
two, who we know, we know how big of a deal he was
in the Atlanta the Black Saturday Series yep. And over to Columbus which was
part of the part of the Columbus Georgia. It must be against Dickie Slater
again. We turned the calendar to seventy six. How about we go to
Savannah, Georgia and it's Abdullah the Butcher versus Terry Funk in the United States
of America, Holy shit for the world title. Then a Rome, Georgia,
Dickey Slater versus Terry Funk. Then about to Saint Louis for the Keel
and the now the we're gonna put our Sunday Best on version of pro wrestling.
That's right right As he faces Pat O'Connor, the former champion of the
World and the booker out there, Terry Funk versatt O'Connor goes to a referee
stoppage two out of three falls. On the second of January of nineteen seventy
six, then up to Toronto for Frank Tunney where he wrestles Edward Capontier.
I mean, these guys are from Padd O'Connor and Edward Capontier. These are
from totally different eras and generations. This black and white TV wrestling guys really
crazy. He's still facing off with Yep West Palm against Thunderbolt Patterson and then
against Billy Robinson in Tampa. About that Billy Robinson versus Terry Funky. I'd
pay to fucking see that one. He went an hour Miami Dusty Rhodes versus
Terry Funk double count out, Tallahassee Funk and Thunderbolt Sarasota Dusty versus Terry double
count out. Back up to Toronto, which of course was a NWA affiliated
territory not yet WWF affiliated. That's Terry versus Stan Staisyak, the former WWWF
champion wow when they went twenty three forty four according to Wrestling Data. Then
back down to his neck of the woods, al Paso, Texas for January
twelfth, seventy six, wrestling Pat O'Connor again, then to Odessa to face
O'Connor, then to San Antone to face Jose Lothario, I mean, can
we get more? I mean fucking christ And then to Amarilla to wrestle Pat
O'Connor, Lubbock against Bred Bastion, to fort Worth to wrestle fritzvon Eric and
Rick Martel teaming with Stan Hansen. There's a tag match for you. How
about the Sporta Tornament Dallas Terry Funk versus Peter myvia Wow Abilene Super Destroyer versus
Terry Funk Corpus Christy Funk versus Lothario, Houston Funk versus My Villa, Austin,
Texas, Jose Lofario versus Terry Funk, Tulsa against Dicky Murdoch, Shreveport,
Louisiana against Dick Murdoch two out of three falls. Now it's over to
shell Met to face Greg Valentine in nineteen seventy six and Lafayette to face Bill
Watts in nineteen seventy six, and then over to mid Atlantic time for a
quick run. This is the champion. This, this guy is all over
the fucking country to Greenville to face Wahoo McDaniel and then Paul Jones the next
night, and then rufus R Jones on February second, February fifth, rat
Then it's back to Saint Louis at the Keel to face Hardly Race for the
world title two out of three falls. February sixth, nineteen seventy six.
Those two would meet again to say the very Least Champions deprest from Florida.
Back down to Florida, he faces Jack Briscoe and then he faces Dusty Rhodes
and then he faces Dusty Roads in Tampa, and then he faces Jack Brescow
in Miami, and then he faces Thunderbolt Patterson in Tallahassee. Then it's over
to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to face Ronnie Etchison. Then it's down to Mobile,
Alabama to face Eddie Sullivan. Then it's over to Garden City to face
Mike George Kansas City to wrestle Mike George Doath in Alabama to wrestle Jack Briscoe.
Back to Sarasota, Florida, Billy Robinson versus Terry Funk to Orlando as
Funk faces Thunderbolt fort Hester Lee and Tampa Funk versus Billy Robinson, Rome,
Georgia Abbey versus Terry Back to Atlanta for Georgia Championship Wrestling Terry versus Abdulah the
Butcher. So this is the sort of like the US outpost of what's going
on in the All Japan Rings. This nineteen eighty two is when Terry and
Dory are tearing it up with Chic and an Abbey and then later Hanson and
Brody. This is sort of it's well after it, but it's indicative of
that power shift that happened, and it's sort of like, you know,
trying to bring the heat that they created in Japan to the United States.
Right, Terry Funk wrestles head Oats in Wichita, Kansas, and then he
goes to Greensboro Coliseum in Charlotte, Greensboro rather to face Paul Jones. Then
it's over to San Diego. Why not because among the wrestling families and dynasties
that Terry Funk played a critical role and keeping thriving in America were the Guerreros.
Does it stop? No? Terry goes to San Diego and wrestles Chavo
Guerrero in the spring of nineteen seventy six for an hour, two out of
three falls. Then he goes to Bakersfield and teams with Piper to face Gory
Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero. What the fuck is going on? Then? How
about the Olympic Auditorium Chavo versus Terry for the world title March nineteen six,
And this is a this is an important stop for a lot of reasons.
I haven't found any footage that exists of this beyond what we're going to watch,
which is some some silent film back and forth between the two. But
there were promos apparently that Terry Funk cut on Los Angeles television for the Olympic
Auditorium promotion run by Mike Label when coming through that were let's just say,
some of the most racist promos that you would have seen in wrestling at the
time against the guerrillas obviously, you know, slurs against Hispanics and stuff.
I don't know, I can't find any sort of transcripts of what exactly the
remarks were. It's just generally accepted that he said some pretty awful things to
get people in the seats, which a lot of you know, Piper did
the same thing against the Guerrero's that was sort of like the way you drew
crowds. Pepper go as versus Tolos in that area. That's how you drew
in California, right, And and the reason it really came around to bite
Terry Funk, and the reason that it signaled a change that was coming in
the wrestling industry, and how it was constituted was that what Funk would find
is that he went on television and said these things, and even though his
you know, delivery was incredible, the fact of the matter is, you
know, the NWA World Champion was not supposed to be going around cutting promos
like that. That was just noted to be the role. And while they
drew well, the problem was what would be shot at the Olympic would be
aired on Spanish speaking stations around the entire United States. Wow, not just
in LA That's wild. This was a key way that a lot of wrestling
fanatics in the seventies were able to see all kinds of stuff in New York
because on the Spanish language network they would play things in Spanish, of course,
from other parts of the country, and among the things that would be
broadcast on these stations was Olympic wrestling wrestling Olympic Auditorium, and among the places
that would play those wrestling programs, of course, were uh stations in West
Texas markets. Hmmm. Where you know, we've already talked about Rocky Romero
being really second only to the Funks as a draw for Amarilla and how important
the Mexican fan base was to that operation, and he'd always been a babyface
in that area. Terry Funk, of course, right, the Funks the
Amarillo and therefore constantly portrayed as a friend to the Mexican people and the Amarilla
wrestling market. But suddenly they turn on their native language station and here's Terry
Funk ripping and roaring with the racism against their people in Amarillo. And so
as Meltzer, he returned home, the area star who had been world champion,
and found Mexican fans in the cities that the Los Angeles TV played in
seething at him. Hmmm. Imagine, and it's just too much for me
to handle that. Like the whole Guerrero Lega see is inextricably linked with the
Funks in terms of their success in the United States. We turned out to
Instant Classic, the book that Chavo Guerrero came out with, I think possible
everybody's is everybody's fucking lining up with the fucking Funks pretty much. And it's
not just that they cross paths, it's that they cite them as like one
of the first accelerants of their career and terry in particular. So Chavo's book
Instant Classic, written with Kurt Buchner, came out, I think posthumously,
but this is Chavo Classic. This is remember Chavalguero Senior from wb There at
the end talking about the role the Funks played, he writes, I talked
about how Gory had to make Gory Guerrero. His father had to make his
stars out of local talent, but he had a lot of help from the
Funk family in Amarillo, who would regularly provide talent for the shows in El
Paso. I need to mention just how great the Funks were to my father
when they sent talent. They never screwed him over on talent, and the
financial transactions were always fair. I should also mention that this was for the
show's Nel Paso, but not Juarez, as they were not there. Once
you cross the Rio Grand, the wrestling market is entirely different. As a
teenager, I already knew the Funks from their frequent appearances, but now as
a professional wrestler, I was getting to know Terry and Dorry Junior on a
more personal level. Terry was already a top star and shortly after that would
become the n WA World Heavyweight Champion. He'd watched me wrestle that weekend,
and as he stayed over in town, he asked me to go to work
out with them in the ring. I'd already known Terry for a few years,
but at this point we really hadn't had any deep conversations. However,
when summit of Terry Stature asks you to spend time with him, you don't
say no. At first, I felt a little stupid as we were alone
in the empty arena, but I was about to take a trip under the
learning tree of Terry Funk, much like a hundred other wrestlers did before and
a thousand would do after. His lessons were not just about what to do
in the ring, but how to develop my persona approaching the squared circle.
One of his most valuable criticisms, although in his soft voice it never really
felt critical, was not on what I did in the ring, but just
how I walked towards it. He implored me to keep my head up while
walking to the ring, to smile and acknowledge the people as a good guy.
Fans had to care about me even while I was doing something as simple
as walking towards the ring. It gives them a fundamental reason to have an
emotional investment in my match. He spent a lot of time with me that
afternoon, giving me tip after tip, all of which made me a better
wrestler. There are not enough words to discuss what a great man Terry Funk
is. He did so much for young wrestlers, but he never had to.
I love you, Terry, and so should everyone else in the wrestling
business. Flash forward when he came through as a as champion in Los Angeles.
After winning the match against Dory, Chavo writes, I was poised to
wrestle Terry for the NWA World Heavyweight title. We had a series of matches
in Southern California, some where we went to a sixty minute time limit draw,
a couple where I won by his qualification, and one where I lost
a steel cage match. After a lesson from Funk, you, I knew
I was a much better wrestler in regards to in ring psychology thanks to the
brothers from Il Mariillo. After watching the match against Dory, I was poised
to wrestle Terry for the NWWAY World Heavyweight title after winning. Rather the match
story, we had a series of matches in southern California somewhere. We went
to a sixty minute time limit draw, a couple where I won by his
qualification, and one where I lost a steel cage match. After a lesson
from Funk You, I knew I was a much better wrestler in regards to
in wing psychology thanks to the brothers from Memorillo. Terry was great to me
as always, and he booked me to do some shows in Albuquerque, where
his company made the booking. It was not a vast territory, but it
was another place where I got to wrestle on the top, often against my
own friend se Clone Negro. And then a bit later in the book,
he would recall getting involved with New Japan. With All Japan rather in the
early eighties MMM, they were stocking up on junior heavyweight talent to counteract what
was happening with Tiger Mask in New Japan and early nine in eighty one,
I asked Terry Funk, who was still booking the guide gins in All Japan
for Giant Baba. What would be the chances of getting me over there regularly?
Funk told me that I had a good thing going with New Japan,
and then I would probably only be used in All Japan to put people over
It wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, but Funk always told it like
it was. That might be why everyone loves Terry and a business where people
lied to your face daily. Yes the Funker, yes, always shot straight.
Not if yes, Dusty Roads of course, or Bill Watts. We'll
get to that. About a month later I would get a call back from
Terry Funk. He was in a terrible mood as all Abdullah the Butcher had
jumped from All Japan's New Japan to work for Antonio and Ok. Abdullah was
a considerable draw for BABA and this was a major blow to the organization.
Funk got right to the point, do you still want to work for Baba?
I was half out of it as it was one in the morning,
but he explained the situation with Abdullah and how pist he was about it.
I could hear the anger in his voice. Over what the butcher did,
but it was also mixed with excitement. He asked me again if I still
wanted to come. Yeah, but I'm ringing the belt exactly. Terry wanted
to make sure I was willing to do that, as this was no small
decision for anyone to have to leave New Japan. So among the people he
plucked it was not just Stan Hanson, but Chavo Guerrero. I told Funk
the Yeah, this is war man, this is like such a telegraph of
the Monday Night wars. I told Funk that my main concern was to make
sure that I was well compensated. Funk said to me that he had already
spoken to Baba about me and that I would have nothing to worry about.
I trusted Terry Funk, as should anyone who ever laced up a pair of
boots. But I had never interacted with Baba before, even though in my
first tour in Japan I worked for him. With that said, Boba had
a solid reputation among the boys as an armable man, which eased my concerns
the more I thought about it. So, I mean, just pivotal even
in the career of a Chavo Guerrero, who really was the one in many
ways that imported Gory's legacy into an American context and headlined successfully at the Olympic
in Los Angeles for years against Piper and Terry Funk, who was world champion
at the time. So even the Guerreros have to tip the cap. And
way later in nineteen eighty nine, and we'll get to it, when Terry
Funk comes into WCW to work with Rick Flair. Yeah, who does he
make sure to have two prolonged, really great matches with what jobber on WCW
Saturday Night. Attie Guerrero ge't out of fucking test, just doesn't stop.
There's nobody that you love in pro wrestling who doesn't think that Terry Funk played
a vital role in making them worth anything to the wrestling audience. That's the
bottom line. That's why the lapsed Funk is happening at the end of the
day, and that's why he justifies this unique deep dive. So we're going
to take a look at some of the footage that survives from the Olympic Auditorium.
It's it's again silent footage. It's in two parts on YouTube and we're
gonna play both for the boss man here. But because it's silent, we
don't have to worry about all the logistic bullshit around sound. Yeah, So
just stand by here, boss and we'll get you oriented. We're going to
the Olympic. We drove by the Olympic in at Mania. We did.
It's like a Korean church or something. Yeah, I think so, or
it even was. It might not even be anything, man, that might
just be shuttered. It looks like a big almost looks a guy like a
Mason, you know, like one of those old Masonic halls. Yeah,
looks like a Masonic lodge or temple or whatever. So here we go.
Look at Chabo bouncing on two feet, ready to go. Wow, it's
the Olympic silent. This is the familiar territories like this in San Francisco.
It's just fans who happen to have bring film cameras to the matches. That's
the only reason we have any surviving footage. They don't even have much of
this guy's ringside though this guy's ringside. Know who those guys are, But
that's Terry Funk. Look at him pacing him around. NBA World Champion at
the time, so I kind of fib This is footage of him on the
on the road as champ. You see the number for the Olympic there on
the sign, nine five one seven one. That was famous to anybody who
watch wrestling on television back then. That was the phone number you called to
order tickets. Walk, don't run to the box office. Run, don't
walk to the box office. Look at young Chavo, the Mexican baby face.
I've ever seen one up against the ropes. Oh Terry with a wild
wide right handed Chabo too quick on the drawt again underneath a colar and elbow
tie up. And that's another thing about Terry Funck's world champion doesn't look oversized
against the relatively small Chava r. Chavo looks like a credible heavyweight challenger here
inside of Funk. Look at Funk. He's a fucking beast with the flare
inside out in the corner before hanging upside down or taking the elbows, doubling
over Chava, whipping him as only the Funks can, through the ropes to
the concrete. Look at the Olympic, Look at look at the state of
it. Look at those seats. Ah, that must have been a wild
place to go to wrestling. I love. I mean, look, how
look how fucking dirty it is. And he's just like got its flesh resting
on there. I know, he's just feeling the cold and the dirt and
the same. He's not even moving. He's not even moving. Oh my
god, it's gross. Like they worked like a deal where he acted like
he smashed his head in the concrete there and he's yeah, he's coming up
without his legs under miss Chavo Guerrero. Wow, Terry just coming through creating
it might be Gory Guzer out there. I no, no, I was
gonna who's the guy? Who's the guy with no shirt on the outside.
If you can find this on YouTube, it's chavogrovers his Sterry Funk Los Angeles
Lympic Auditorium Part one, so you can identify that ring side or that'd be
helpful to us. So, yeah, Chavoc is up in the apron like
a limp fish and now a sitting duck for the onslaught of Terry Funk.
Big elbow across the back of the head. He was throwing elbows before Dusty,
I mean Dusty was throwing up of course, it wasn't uniquely dust No.
I agree, arm ringer by Chavo turns Funk inside out. Not everything
is Dusties. No, Dusty is another person that, as we'll get to
a deeper down, the lapsed Funk has a massive debt to auditory Funk.
I mean, it's just I believe all roads connect. Terry Funk is the
tree from which the branches of the seventies, eighties, and nineties sprouted in
the business. Yeah, I believe that one hundred percent. Funk trying to
head butt his way out of the arm ringer of Chavo Guerrero doing the weak
leg cell right, the spaghetti leg cell yep on the hands bandies, looks
like Chavo took the first fall here, how did that did he? Pin
kin? It looks like he conceded in the arm bringer, which is rare.
Flash forward now Terry Funk lifting him almost in a Backland style atomic drop
poll What was he? Oh? Oh he did that? Wow? That
was an insane that's but he got him in the arm. Yeah, Chava
refuse to release the wrist Wow, original wrist clutcher Chavo Guerrero. Yes,
and by virtue of the fact he won't release that wrist. Both men just
clunked heads off an Irish whip attempt, and then Chovo just appear to collapse.
Oh, refe raises his hand, or maybe he's just checking on his
well being. Yeah, Terry's selling like left arms dead, look at him,
We're gonna sell job. They that wringing out the hand, letting him
hang loose. Jesus hammer throw it to the corner, sidestep Funk shoulder first.
Oh Jesus Funk slides head first out of the ring of the concrete back
in now knee, big knee, right to the fucking ribs. This is
world champion Terry Funk come into your town. Yep. And the people at
the Olympic Auditorium believe that Chavo Guerrero can do it. Yep. It's jumped
to part two after having the chili chi lays for breakfast. Oh no,
it's Terry pumping that jab is only he can with a good arm, of
course. Oh oh, he just fucking nailed them so much for world champs.
Not punching right. Oh that's what I'm saying, yep. But I
haven't really seen Chavo throw any I'll say that there upes to the floor,
goes Chavo again. Oh wow, the seats look like airport seats in the
front row at the Olympic. Yep, and Terry just rammed Chavo's head into
woman. Now Terry goes out of the post. You're curious. No one's
sitting in those front row seats. It's almost like those are a barrier,
right, instead of michaela bell, instead of springing for fucking railings, just
puts chairs in front of I just had a conversation with the people have front
row seats for this. Ah, tell me everything you were feeling Chavo splayed
out on the concrete. Tell me about the smell in the in the building.
That's right, stale popcorn, et cetera. The stale popcorn, a
little bit of urine, sticky floors, no frills. Oh Jesus, funk
swinging a chair. Oh he just crowned Chavo with a steel chair as Chavo
re entered the ring. That's got to be a d q ouhll it could
funk. The son of a bitch now hovering over Chavo, his lifeless body,
peppering his forehead with closed fist punches but he covers Chavo. I guess
that was legal. Two three Funk pinched Javo. Chevo sells it like he's
dead. He may even blade it. I can't really tell you say Terry
Funk even went to bite the cut. Imagine the heat oh seventy six going
fucking crazy and cauling off Chavo on weeks. Oh nice, he drops him
hard, a vertical suplex by the Funker. That was well done. He
got a lighter opponent, so he really swapped him over there, floats over
to the lateral press and gets two does the champion Funk throwing lefts from his
knees as Chavo struggles to recover, and it's some degree of protection from the
onslaught. Count me in for this Terry Funk. It's the lapsed Funk by
the way, Yes, the Terry Funk in All Japan and realized that he
was up to this a full decade before that, or at least a full
decade before the last All Japan matches we watched in eighty three. Off the
ropes, Chavo throwing desperation forearms and he's got Terry Funk, Wobbly Funk swinging
at ghosts. We flash forward in the fight is spilled to the floor and
these people are rabid back in funk with the back soup lex on Chavo.
It's great highlight reel. Oh yeah, for sure, everyone's shooting this pick
the right times to roll film, elbow drops, sidestepped, swinging neck breaker,
puts down the funker, and another looks like Chavo's pulling ahead. Now
cover by Chavo. Referee raises his hand or no, what Maybe it's a
time limit. Yeah, that looked to me like Chavo had the cover,
but they declared the time limit draw. It's wild. Maybe that's not what
it was. They're still battling. It's hard to tell. Side headlock,
push off, centering, collision, lateral press, chavel, lns on top
and pins funk one, two three. That's two falls. I don't know
what the hell's going on here. This is Yeah, maybe it's more than
one match. I don't think so, though. Wow look at that.
Holy shit. Wow, Terry got backdropped, head over, heels over the
top to the floor and the referee just counted him out. Chavo Guerrero wins
by count out and he's got the local belt. It seems to be a
local belt. That's not the NBA championship. Let's be a wwa belt being
hoisted up by Chavo Guerrero being congratulated by his cornerman. That's the kind of
hell Terry Funk was raising in a town near in the seventies as champion.
How exciting, how exciting fait backdrop there took a wild bump to justify the
the nature of the Finnish yell. Let's take a closer gander at those results
to see what match we may have been looking at there. It was probably
March fifth, nineteen seventy six Grand Olympic Chavo beat Terry Funk by DQ world
title. It doesn't reflect that it was two or three falls. This one
was in San Diego, March second night, seventy six, in one hour,
two or three falls match. Chavo beats Terry. Of course he doesn't
say to win the championship, which he did not. Maybe a non title
I don't know. It was one of those two matches. Kind of confusing.
That's why I hate about matches without sound more than anything. As you
see what you think is the finish and it's not or you don't have the
context know if something's non title or not whatever it was. Not only is
Terry going to La to make Chavo mean that much more, but even before
that, the generation before that, in working with Gory Guerrero and his promotion
and the Mexicans he would bring over to weel Passo, the concentric circles at
that part of the country warmed with the Amarillo Territory was vital in getting the
Guerreros themselves set up as promoters of professional wrestling in the United States. Oh
totally, yeah, say, isn't a joke, not at all, Terry.
This is the real That's just one stop though. I got to go
back to Florida. I gotta keep it warm. He goes to wrestle Billy
Robinson next in West Palm and then he wrestles Thunderbolt Patterson in Tampa. Then
he wrestles Andre the Giant in Miami. Fucking Christ, I'd invite you to
consider Terry Funk defending the NWA World Championship against Andre the Giant in nineteen I
don't think I can. That's insane. Atona Beach against Thunderbolt, Tallahassee against
Robinson back to El Passo to face a guy named Hank James, to a
Decer to face Red Bastion, to San Antonio to face Jose Lathario, to
a Mailla to face the super Destroyer. Then to Lubbock against Harley Race.
Another meeting between Race and Funk before the title switch. Tulsa. Bill Watts,
of course, that being his territory at the Tulsa Fairgrounds faces Terry Funk.
Then to Shreveport where Watts face is Funk again. Then to Jackson,
Mississippi. Greg Valentine versus Terry Funk. He just fucking can't. He didn't
stop. This is what you agreed to do, and this is why the
NWA was so selective and who they put the strap on, because you had
to be able to do this and do it well. Dick, Murdock and
Shell met back to Saint Louis at the Keel Auditorium, Jack Briscoe versus Terry
Funk for the title two out of three falls. Then to Greenwood, Mississippi
against Sunny King Fort Worth, Texas against Fritz von Eric Wow Terry versus Fritz
March twenty nine to seventy six. Mark that one down. So he's going
through Fritz's territory Dallas Sportatorium Funk versus Mongolian Stomper, San Angelo, Texas Terry
Funk versus the Super Destroyer. Calendar turns to April as he goes to face
Hose of Thethario and Corpus Christy, Rocky, Johnson and Houston. Then down
to Orlando to face Jack Briscoe Tampa against Dusty Rhodes at the Fort Hesterley,
Dusty against Terry in Miami in a Texas bull rope match. The Dusty Stuff
to come in a future episode of the Last Funkhassee Jack versus Terry Jack Brescoe.
That is Pueblo Jerry Briscoe versus Terry Funk. Then to go to El
Paso Terry Funk versus Jack Briscoe. So the Briscoes come down to a Mailla
to move some houses. Jerry faces Terry and Odessa. Terry Funk versus Harley
Race and Abilene. Harley versus Terry and Amarilla at the Sports Arena. Out
to Lubbeck is Terry Face Super Destroyer. Now it's back down to Florida Saint
Petersburg Terry versus Dusty Rhodes. Back out to mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Terry
Funk works with Wahoo McDaniel in a one hour time limit draw for the championship
at Park Center in Charlotte. Then to Raleigh against Paul Jones, Norfolk,
Virginia against Wahoo McDaniel, out to Saint Louis. Now at Kill Auditorium in
April twenty third against Dick the Bruiser, where Terry works him. I can't
handle this fucking schedule. We're only in April, by the way. He
won the title in mid December. Mid Atlantic, Roanoke, he wrestles Paul
Jones, Ashville he wrestles Wahoo Wichita, Kansas he wrestles Harley. Then out
to Fort Scott Memorial Hall in Fort Scott, Kansas, where he faces past
O'Connor for the world title two to three falls, Selina, Kansas against Ray
Candy, Kansas City against Mike George, and Charleston, South Carolina against Paul
Jones. In April. Now over to May remains in Greensboro to face Paul
Jones, then goes back down to Georgia George Championship to work Thunderbolt Patterson and
Mister Wrestling two and Bob Armstrong and Dick Slater and Dusty Rose in Atlanta at
the City Auditorium. Now over to Tulsa to face Greg Valentine at the Fairgrounds,
Shreveport to face Greg Valentine. Jackson, Missippi to face Dick Murdock North
Little Rock, Arkansas to face Bob Griffin. Lafayette to face Ron Starr,
San Antonio to battle Shavo Guerrero once again in San Antonio for the championship.
One hour time Limittraw to Corpus Christie Rocky versus Rocky Johnson, that is,
versus Terry Funk time Limittraw. So Rocky Johnson, I mean he was made
already kind of but I don't know, if I think about his career,
he was just becoming a headliner in San Francisco and some other select territories right
around this part of the seventies. So fucking Terry Funk is probably the first
world champion that Rocky Johnson ever touched. Think about that, thanks to the
Thank you very much a Rocks family. Right if plus you word Peter my
VM before, as we said, fuck it, yep, that's right.
Doesn't stop. Saint Louis Keel, Jack Briscow and Genkiniski over Terry Funk and
dorrif Funk two out of three falls. Back in May, then to Saint
Petersburg against Dusty West Palm against Bob Orton Junior. There's the Orton's getting involved.
Down to Tampa against Mike Graham wrestling Eddie Graham's son. In May,
Miami Beach against Jack Briscoe, Tallahassee against Barbarmb Strong. Out to Houston now
the Sam Houston Coliseum where Terry Funk faced Rocky Johnson time limit draw, two
out of three falls. Out to Greensboro for mid Atlantic where Dusty faces Terry.
As Dusty comes through mid Atlantic. Double d Q turned the calendar to
June, San Angelo, Texas Hank James versus Terry Funk and Avaline, Jerry
Briscoe versus Terry Funk and Marilla, Terry Funk versus Jack Briscoe for the world
title at to Saint Louis at the Keel. It's about a monthly thing now
that the Saint Louis appearance. June nineteen seventy six, Terry Funk Is Champ
defeats Gene Kiniski, the champion that his brother took the strap off of and
Fritz von Eric's best buddy from back in the day and one of his most
lucrative opponents, Terry Funk's wrestling gen Kiniski. Still, of course, I
had a card now at Texas Stadium called super Bowl of Wrestling June fifth,
nineteen seventy six, urb in Texas. Hey, what's this all about?
Fritz von Eric versus Terry Funk? Super Bowl Wrestling? What's going on here?
Oh? My god, that's my proposal. This is among the highlights
of Terry Funk's NWA title campaign. Meltzer saying he drew seventeen thousand against Fritz
at Texas Stadium on this one. Wow, So just think about you know
how big of a deal the Texas Stadium shows were during the World Class Journey.
Yeah, Terry Funk comes through his world champion and draws seventeen thousand against
Fritz and one of them, one of the earliest ones. And it seems,
oh, yeah, that's enough of that. Let's go to Japan.
Oh, you're fucking kidding me all Japan, June eighth, Giant Baba and
Samson Kutsuwata defeat Terry Funk and al Hayes in a two to three falls match.
Then to Nigata where Giant Baba faces Terry Funk two out of three falls
for the world title. Then to Takawaka where Giant Baba and Jumbo Sharuda and
the Destroyer beat Terry Funk and Al Hayes and Bob Geigel. And then we
go to the World Champion Series in the Sumo Hall where Terry Funk beats Jumbo
Sharuda in twenty seven oh seven. This is a two or three falls match.
It's called Chumber Shruda is ten special challenge match series. This according to
Melt sergeruis sell out thirteen thousand fans and other Ladmark title defense. We already
talked to Jesus. I want to talk about giants. The Funks brought in
and then Terry Funk fucking Jumbo Sharuda now one of the field. He there
was there from Giant Baba. His handpicked successor in Jumbo Sharuda was prepped and
seasoned here in Amarilla by the Funks. And here's Terry coming back as world
champion in seventy six to give him a further boost. Unbelievable. Nagano Baba
Destroyer in Akihisa, Takachiko, pardon me, Takachiho beat Terry, Funk,
Al Hayes and Bob Geigel, Taco Chico Santana, Texigo Ortiz, Boba Shroud
and Anton Gee Sink beat funk, Al Hayes and Bob Geigel. Then we
go to Yokohama where Bob and Destroyer beat Funk and Hayes, and then it's
about of tag matches here. So yeah, he works most most of June,
the first half of June all for All Japan, and then he comes
back. He works fucking June sixteenth in Kimatsuki Cagoshima, Japan, and then
he's back on June twenty third and San Antonio resting Jose Lothario in a bull
rope match. I mean, how do you even breathe? I mean you
don't. Corpus Christi the next night against Rocky Johnson, and then Houston the
next night against Rocky Johnson, and then Austin the next night against the Jose
Lothario. Now to July Tyson the next day, Austin then Tyson. Yeah,
then July am Morello Funk versus Super Destroyer. Back to La He wrestles
Chavo Guerrero on July second at the Grand Olympic Auditorium. Then he goes back
to Charlotte, Greensboro to wrestle Wahoo McDaniel and Paul Jones and Rufus R.
Jones, And then he goes back to Abilene, Texas to wrestle Fritzvan Eric
and then to Calgary for Stu Hard at Stampee where he faces Archie Gouldie.
Then he swings back to Orlando to wrestle Dusty Tampa to russell Dusty in a
tag Miami to wrestle Dusty Atlanta to wrestle Dusty New Orleans to Wrussell Watts.
And this July seventeenth, nineteen seventy six title defense at the Louisiana super Dome
between Bill Wats and Terry Funk drew seventeen thousand fans and this was the first
ever pro wrestling card at the Superdome in New Orleans, Jesus. As you
know, this was an absolute landmark Megacard venue for Bill Watts, particularly a
venue that a Junkyard Dog drew record crowds for wrestling in. And it was
Terry Funk who christened it. That's amazing, set the state record. According
to Meltzer, and of course Bill Watts as the tumbleweed blows in, he's
nothing if not an optimist, right, Oh, yeah, totally. He's
nothing if not somebody that's going to see the best in somebody. He's got
nothing but shit to talk on Terry Funk in his book, Oh for the
most part. I mean, that's a little bit of an unfair characterization.
But for a guy who completely disappeared after he had that weird scandal with the
nutritional product gimmick, after WSWT people chasing him down, he sure has taken
shots from the sidelines. He writes, I also thought Dory Funk Junior was
a great champion, but I thought Terry Funk liked to clown around too much
in the ring for a World's champion. I like Terry, but I thought
his style wasn't right for the world title. I always thought Dorry was a
better champion, but Terry was a better character. The guy Terry won it
from Jack Briscoe was a great world champion. Terry was great in gimmick matches.
I just thought the World's title needed to have a certain class that elevated
the sport. The NBA in retrospect, was smart luthez was a great world
champion. He wasn't flashy or that colorful. He epitomized respect to being an
athlete. He didn't punch you or kick you. Dory Funk Junior didn't either.
He used his wrestling moves to beat you. He epitomized a wrestling champion.
Terry Funk, however, was ultimately a gimmick. He'd cartoon show his
ass, get tangled in the ropes and get the people laughing. As I
said before, Watts writes, I never thought he was a great world champion,
although I thought he was a great character who used right, drew lots
of money. Thoughts boss Ah, I mean it, I don't. I
don't understand, you know, how can he I get what he's saying that
he wasn't like the other people, But I just don't understand how you can't
call you have to call him a great champion. You have to the schedule
he's working, the amount of money that he's drawing, the amount of it's
it's always that shit where I get the vibe that because he was doing something
different and that was out of the box. It sucked to him, Yeah,
pretty much. Yeah. Bill Watts was the ultimate stickler for this is
what wrestling is, this is who wrestlers are, and this is what it
should be. And that's it and there's no way around. Yeah, that's
that's all you get. You perform this way, you belong in this box.
You perform this way, you belong in that box. But I can
see, just as easily as you can say Terry Funk is redefining what it
means to be NWA World Champion here in seventy six, you can also say
he's failing to be what an NWA World Champion is supposed to be in nineteen
seventy six. It's one or the other. You either see him as the
harbinger of things to come, or you see him as the guy who's not
able to reach out of the same deep toolbox that the champions who came before
him were able to. But I think the way champions carried themselves after Terry
Funk tells us that like everything else in his life and career, he was
ahead of the curve right exactly. He was wrestling in a way that anticipated
where it was going, as opposed to trying to pick up the mantle of
someone who came before him. That might not be putting forward the product that
the slowly subtly shifting wrestling preference was, wrestling fan preference was pointing to.
Now. One reason that Bill Watts might be saucy all these years later and
writing about Terry Funk in his book is because when Bill Watts had the book
at WCW, Terry Funk no showed Halloween Havoc ninety two on him, So
that pissed him off. That's all of a sudden, he wasn't a good
world champion. You know how that goes, right, Yeah, all of
a sudden, everything he offered to the he didn't actually offer anything to the
business at all. Right, So I'm not sure fortunley Terry's not here anymore.
And I don't think he was ever really asked much about Bill Watts.
Interestingly, of all the interviews I've seen with him, he doesn't seem to
have really been asked about him. So I'm not really sure how he felt
about Bill Watts. I'm sure he had a whole thing. Oh, he's
always great, you know. Yeah, there's some things about how you know,
Bill Wats's booker in Florida, and he came down there for him.
He talks in his book about how he'd had a lawsuit over some money he
was owed in WCW. In a nine ninety two Bill Watts had become VP
of w CW and said he'd settle with me and get me some of the
thousands of the company owed me. But I also had to buy one hundred
and fifty dollars of Swipe, the cleaner he was selling on the side as
part of the deal. Ell Bill fucking fraud, that's right. Yeah,
He says, a lot of the guys Terry Funk does from my era don't
see things the way I do, and I don't necessarily mean that it's a
bad thing against Bill Watts, oly Anderson or any of those guys like them.
I don't watch it on TV every week, but I stay involved enough
and keep my finger on certain things. So that's pretty much what he has
to say about Bill. He made sure to tuck in the cleaner thing.
That's not something Bill mentioned right in trying to nor would he right get credit
for a bailing Funk out of a financial situation. So it's over to Vancouver,
now, because why not where Terry wrestles John Quinn out to Portland for
Don Owen, whe wrestles Jesse Ventura in nineteen seventy six. Hello, heyuck
Seattle. Now we're working the thing there, you know, getting the getting
time, getting the townge getting getting involved. Eating chocolate before it be came
off limits to me due to diet terry restrictions. What I'll tell you,
I gotta be honest. What I remember most fondly from the wrestling days is
that I could have to walklett You know the thing I you know, when
I think about my days in the ring, well, I mean I was
Jesse the body Ventura. I think about exactly that one thing that I could
eat chocolate Seattle against Paul Ramos, Victoria b c against gen Kiniski. I
wasn't able to. After I retired, I got got that Jess, I
came across, came across the transom. As they say, it's a detriment
to most plays because I can't eat chocolate anymore. Then to niame O,
you Columbia, I don't know if I'm even saying that right. That's what
the world champion is. In July of seventy six the Civic Center in British
Columbia. What's the progressing John Tolos? Then to Abilene, Texas. Back
to Abilene to wrestle Sweet Hanson Odessa against Dennis Stamp. Oh my god,
funk defended against Wow, he defended against Dennis stand Yes, sir, how
could he ever say he was never He's not book what a bit? That's
the ultimate book, Dennis. I want you to be there, Dennis.
Remember I remember I would defend in the world title against you. I made
you star. Well I'm not. I'm Terry. I'm not booked anymore.
Terry. How can I? How can I? How can I walk outside
my house? I have I booked? Terry? Terry? I can't.
Everyone thought Dennis Stamp didn't leave his house because of COVID. Little did we
know if it wasn't for COVID, he still would have left, right he
wasn't booked, Terry. I I can't. I can't. I'm not gonna.
I can't show up. I'm not booked, but I don't understand.
I'm trying to book you. It's too late, but I'm not. I'm
intended. I've already made plans, but what Yeah, but he's reconsidered,
Dennis. I'm walking away from you, but it means a lot to me.
I mean, it's my it's the retirement, it's my life. Please,
it's my life. I gave you a shot at the title, but
I wasn't booked to win. Oh that's correct, Dennis. I did not
give you the NWA World Championship in nineteen seventy six. That's right. That's
a mark against me. You're saying I'm not booked. I'm not booked.
All right, we'll leave you in Odessa. Then booked, booked, he
booked, Yeah, booked, but to San Angelo. Mark mark Mark Mark,
Mark, Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark rep Howkin Sweet Hanson over Funk and
Romero to Amarillo, Super Destroyer and Terry in the Texas Death Match Lubbock Terry
against Dennis Stamp again San Antono. Rocky Johnson versus Terry Funk. Out to
Wichita. In August, Bob Brown and Terry Funk Trenton, Missouri, Bob
Brown versus Terry Funk, Kansas City Memorial Hall, Harley versus Funk again,
Tulsa. Terry versus Dick Murdoch Shreveport. Dick versus Terry Time Limittraw two O
of three falls, Jackson Mississippi, Harley Race versus Terry Funk, New Orleans
against Murdoch, Saint Louis against Kiniski again in August thirteenth. Wow that down
to West Palm Funk versus Rhodes, Funk versus Steve Kern, the Future Skinner
Jesus in Tampa, Miami and one person who should never get a fucking world
title shot. That's I know, fucking Skinner Sarasota, Dusty versus Terry Back
to g c W in Atlanta, Dusty versus Terry Funk in the Atlanta City
Auditorium in August. Down to Memphis now against Jerry Lawler for the first time.
August twenty second, nineteen seventy six, Dallas Sportatorium Funk versus Rocky Johnson,
San Antonino Funk vers Jose Lofario corpus Christy Lothario and Funk Houston, Lothario
and Funk. Now it's September. Let's get to Nova Scotia to wrestle Leo
Burke, North Sydney, Nova Scotia to wrestle Leo Burke, Monkton, New
Brunswick to wrestle Jean pardon Me Leo Burke at the Jean Luis le Veccarina,
Halifax against Leo Burke. Saint John against Leo Burke. Fredericton against Leo Burke.
Leo Burk's the guy that Brett credits with coming up with the finish that
he used against Davy at the ninety two Summer Slam MM had a big impact
on Brett Hart in his working style. Now back to Atlanta for September tenth
against Dickie Slater, Albuquerque against Larry Lane, San Angelo, Texas against Sweede
Hanson, Odessa against Dennis Stamp again Brownwood, Texas against the Super Destroyer,
and Marilla against Fritz van Erik, Lubbock against the Super Destroyer, Wichita against
Bob Brown, Sedalia, Missouri against Bob Brown and Poria, Kansas against Mike
George, Kansas City against Harley Race, Houston against Tose Lothario, Selina to
Kansas against Mike George. Down West Palm for CWF against Dusty Tampa against Right
Candy, Miami against the Assassin, Jacksonville against the Assassin. Now to October
Tallahasse against the Assassin, Punta Gorda against Steve Kern now out to Des Moines,
Iowa against super Intern Wichita against Bob Brown, Abilene against Jack Briscoe,
Kansas City Memorial Hall against Harley Saint Louis hil Auditorium against Bob Backland an hour
draw for the Championship Wow in October with Pad O'Connor a special guest referee.
That's a full circle of moment for Bobby Backland, who just a year or
so earlier was getting made by Terry Funk in the Areaville. Ron Fuller and
this is a big one. He goes down to SECW Southeastern Championship wrestling the
Fullers, of course, the Colonel Robert Parker's family, Massive Cox. That's
right, And this is what Terry full Cox was that Fuller Cox. Speaking
of which, let's get another dispatch on the road. As Terry talks in
his book about a colorful story, I guess you could say about dealing with
the Fullers, Boss, please take it away. Every time I went down
there to wrestle one of them, it was an automatic riot. I send
tape to Harlan Kentucky one time and had a unique promo on TV to promote
my match with Ron Fuller. I said, look at these hands, Look
at these nails. There's dirt under these nails. You people in Harlan,
all you do is sit there and take welfare, except for the ones who
go down to those stinking coal mines. All you coal miners do was sit
at card tables and play all day long. You don't do anything, you
idiots. You have no brains, and most of you are married to your
sisters or brothers. At the arena that night, security took away something like
seventeen guns. I know it sounds like bullshit, but they did. We
finished the match and I had to fight my way to the back because the
fans were rioting. Vicki and I reconcile by this time, but this was
a trip she probably wished she had stayed home for. We were leaving the
arena that night and we were driving down the road coming down the mountain of
out of Harlan, when a pickup truck came up behind us brother and started
ramming us. I started to pull over, but my wife said, don't
stop, don't stop. We kept going and finally they stopped following us.
But it was pretty damn scary Jesus, just another you know, bit on
the road there, normal life, and you know, I don't know.
When he's talking about the welfare and everything, I feel like that's kind of
a little glimpse of what he probably said about, you know, the guerreros
and stuff. Oh yeah, just not aimed against white people. So he's
just going he's raising hell everywhere he goes. I mean, that's the bottom
line. Yeah, I'm flicking through because I had to appreciate it how many
times he worked Rocky Johnson. I'm flicking through Rocky's book, which is wonderful
piece of fiction in its own right, to see he's talking about Addy.
Graham's talking about Dusty. I'm not sure he talked much about Terry Funk.
I don't remember there being any flashpoints. I had no idea he worked him
so much in seventy six, what a year or two, like you know,
bi centennial, yep. So much about America was being like re observed,
redefined, yep, recontextualized. There's a tremendous amount of strife like around
here, there was all the stuff, and oh yeah, of course it
was definitely a time to reset in the country. And I guess why not
reset what it means to be NBA champion. Yeah, perhaps at my at
my LEI leisure here. He is in West Lubbock, West Texas and Lubbock
seventy six. No, but that's uh saym okay. A few days later,
I got a call from Doroy Funk Junior h This is a Rocky Johnson,
writing in his book, who owned the West Texas territory with his brother
Terry. When you're looking for a place to go, give us a call.
I told him I'd call, but I had no intention of following through.
I had heard rumor horror stories, he says about the trip's meaning longer
than those in the Florida Territory down there, And even if they hadn't been
the case, I knew i'd never go back. When I got my two
hundred dollars payoff for Lubbock, it would have made much more than at night
in Houston. I also coudn't figure out why they didn't bring me into Amarilla
if they wanted to get Pez over Pez Wattley was his tagning partner. The
match would have meant a whole lot more there, even on Emerla TV,
than it would have in Little Donna Lubbock say he kind of talk shit on
West Texas and sound like he says a lot about Terry. Anyway, we
move on, so from and thanks for that. From the stopover in Knoxville.
Back to Vancouver against Chinkiniski Victoria b C against John Anson, Portland,
Oregon against Jimmy Snooker in nineteen seventy six. Core's the guy he would tangle
with in the Rings of All Japan as well as Brodie's partner Memphis against Jerry
Lawler again at the Mid South Coliseum. Those are important seeds being planted for
down the road. That's a general that's a defining opponent of Terry Funk's right
there. Out to the Sportatorium against Rocky Johnson, San Antonio against Lothario and
Johnson a tag match teaming with Sefried Stanky. I can't even deal with it.
For the NBA Texas tag team titles as they were called. And to
Harlingen, Texas against Jose Lothario Houston against Lothario Augusta, Georgia for George Championship
against Wrestling Too Macon against Bob Armstrong the Bullet Columbus against Mister Wrestling too,
Dothan against Dusty Rhodes, and to Atlanta against mister Wrestling Too and Saint Petersburg
for Championshipressling from Florida against Dusty. Now we're turning the calendar to this time
of year November nineteen seventy six and Angelo against Swede Hanson, Odessa against Swede,
Abilene against Tank Patton, and Mailla against Swede Hanson, Lubbock against Tank
Patton, West Palm against Jack Briscoe, Tampa against Jerry Briscoe, Miami against
Bob Backland for the NWA World title. I mean was no, when did
Bob Becklan win the WWWF title? Boss? Was it seventy eight? A
yeah, I think seventy eight? Uh Backland and so he was yeah,
yeah, he won it for every twenty twentieth nineteen seventy eight, So getting
ready against Terry, no question against in Miami and other cities. Saint Louis,
wow Okaala against Dusty, then to Atlanta against Wrestling two and then Lakeland,
Florida against Dustin in a bull rope match, Tulsa against Billy Robinson,
Shreveport against Billy Robinson, Jackson against Harley Race. Then up to Toronto for
Frank Tiny and they Believe Gardens against Dom Denucci, Lawton, Oklahoma against Ken
peterra fort Worth, Texas the Will Rogers Memorial Center, which of course was
the Monday night stop for World Class. He rested Less Thornton there, then
Mobile Alabama for Gulf Coast against Ken Lucas, out to mid Atlantic for a
no Folk shot against rufus Ar Jones, Saint Louis against Harley Greenville, South
Carolina against Paul Jones Columbia, South Carolina against rufus Ar Jones. Then to
December of seventy six, and this is rounding third here for the title reign
of Terry Funk Paul Jones Toronto against Carlos Rocha. Wow, I haven't seen
his name to avan. Carlos Rocha was a big Portuguese baby face star in
Toronto. There's a lot of Portuguese West Palm Beach against Terry, Dusty Rhodes,
Mike Graham and Tampa, Miami against Terry against Dusty Rhodes, Jacksonville against
Dusty Rhodes, Atlanta against Wrestling to o'calla against Jack Briscoe. Then up to
Stampede in fucking December. He's at Saskatoon, Jesus Larry Lane, Regina against
Larry Lane, Calgary against Larry Lane. And it's here I'd ask you to
warm up those funk pipes again, Bos, because he has a whopper of
a story coming through Calgary. As champion, Let's give it to the people.
Fuck this, it's hard time. One of my most memorable trips as
champion was one I made was one I made to Western Canada for Stu Heart's
Stampede promotion. Stu was the father of Brendan owen Hart, both of whom
became stars for the World Wrestling Entertainment years later. He was also one of
my favorite characters in the wrestling business. When I went as World Champion into
his terror toy in nineteen seventy six, he was taking part in the City
of Calgary's annual Stampede Week parade. Every year, they had a parade to
promote their Rodeo, and Stu made his wrestling promotion part of the event.
Stu had a wrestling ring hooked to a trailer, pulling it through the streets
as part of the parade. In the ring, Stu had a menagerie of
human oddities there was a hunch back amidst it all. Yep, there was
a hunchback. And I don't know if he was working around the house for
Stue or what, but there he was. The ring contained several other people,
including midgets, and many of the people were not wrestlers. Hell,
I think there were even a couple of goats in there. The gigantic Obeast
McGuire twins, Benny and Billy. Didn't we talk about them at some point?
I think we talked about them in cinemat Yeah, I'm pretty sure we
did. Why the City a guire Twins wrestling movie, I don't know.
I don't know why it would have come up. We're also in the parade
riding alongside the ring. They were on mini bikes, but their cheeks hung
down so far they looked like a couple of two wheeled asses. And I
don't mean donkeys. That was good, that's really just like you'd say it.
The trailer had small airplane tires, and after a few blocks of traveling
on bumpy streets beneath that ring, the tires started popping out. One tire
went, then the next, and the next. When the last tire went,
the decision was made just to shove the ring out of the path of
the rest of the parade. I guess the human Menagerie stayed behind too.
I was riding in the back seat of a Cadillac convertible behind this collection of
humanity. Hondre the Giant was supposed to be in the back seat next to
me, but he wisely decided he wasn't going to be a part of this,
and he stayed in the hotel room on the On one side of the
Cadillac the words world Champion Terry Funk had been written. On the other side,
it read under the Giant, and they never bothered to take Andre's name
off of there. The parade was being televised live, and as the car
went by the side reading on to the Giant was facing the cameras, the
host said, well, here comes Andre the Giant, and well, he
certainly is a good sized fellow, but he doesn't look like a giant to
me. Riding with me in the car was Bebette Bardoux, a big name
stripper up there who spoke in a thick French accent. Owen, the youngest
Hart boy was sitting in the front. At one point, Babed Zipper broke
and the crack of her ass was hanging out of her dress. After the
ring collapsed, Owen decided he had just about it. Ten year old Owen
was so embarrassed that he hopped into the back seat and crawled down the floorboard.
He just lay there, refusing to get up until the parade was over.
He was hiding, Oh my god, Owen. As we drove slowly
along the parade route, a cowboy and his horse rode alongside us. Every
now and then we had to stop as the parade got congested. One time
he asked Babbet if she wanted to ride on the horse with him. She
said, we we, I would like that very much. The travels of
Terry funk. She got on the horse and we kept on going. But
he had to catch up a little, so he put the horse in a
rough trot that had Babbet bouncing around a little more than she liked, I
guess, and as they came by the Cadillac, she shouted, get me
off of this goddamned horse. Her French accent was gone too. Those McGuire
twins ended up having a rough tour and stampee. They would take vanloads of
wrestlers to the next town. We had worked Edmonton and were headed for a
big show in Calgary. That morning, we were packed in the van like
sardines and the van started to heat up. Bruce, Stu's oldest son,
was driving the van and told the McGuire twins, you two fat asses have
to get out of the van. We're not gonna make it to the town.
We'll come back and pick you up. So they got out and we
left them by the side of the road, and then they forgot about them.
That afternoon, Stuo asked Bruce, eh Milly and MILLI, oh shit.
Bruce said, I forgot about him. So Bruce went back to get
him, and when he got to them, they were just lying there on
the side of the road and they looked like two gigantic lobsters or red whales.
They were just roasted caillou they can. Somehow, somehow we got them
in the van and they both just lay on the floor like two great,
big fat cells. They went I had, don't They went ahead and got
them in the damn fucking van and started dry humping the fat focks. Another
time, I stayed at the Hardthouse while I was in town. I woke
up in the morning and went downstairs. I heard so many crazy stories about
how Stu would cook breakfast for the guys and scoop up cat shit with the
same spatch like he used to cook the eggs. I love how they have
this fucking giant house right yet they are they might as well have been living
in the trashiest fucking trailer. It tells the whole story, like it's so
great that I had my reservations. But sure enough I went downstairs, being
very observant, looking for catshit everywhere I went because I'd heard those stories for
years. Well, everything in the kitchen was spotless, stew had eggs,
pancake, sausage, and everything else you could imagine. Everything was just wonderful.
And I was sitting there and enjoying my breakfast, thinking what a bunch
of crap they spread all these stories about this guy, and everything's as clean
as can be and just wonderful. And I had a cup of coffee in
my left hand. I took a drink and set it down. A few
seconds later, I grabbed the handle in my other hand, which gave me
a view of the other side of the cup for the first time. As
I got the cup halfway to my lips, I noticed that there was a
big booger right in the middle of the side of the cup. I decided
I'd had probably had enough coffee. That's right, Darry. Another time,
Stu had some of the wrestlers over for dinner and he had a grand meal
prepared, roast, beef, salad and the works. He asked us in
his unique growl, he he wants a salad. Several of us asked for
salad, but he turned and he turned to the large bowl where Bow,
the family cat, was laying all over the salad. And where are we?
I said, fuck it, yes, I'm just gonna do summer salts
in the kitchen, going into business for yourself. Let the fans know.
I'm gonna do a damn flap back camp on the island. Darry, it
could be in his book. I'm not as well eat a fucking cherry on
top. The cat uses the salad as a bed. The big salad bowl
was normally one of Bo's beds, apparently, and I guess he decided that
they had made a bed of lettuce for him to lay down on. Stu
shoot the cat away. He get damn out of here, your damn cat
both scooted on out of the salad bowl, and then Stu grabbed the tongs
and put batches of salad into the smaller bowls. Okay, now, who
said they wanted salad? But Stu was the greatest guy in the world,
and we all loved him in his day. He was one tough son of
a bitch. Yes, and he was still putting submission holds on guys when
he was eighty, like old Dad clearing out the furniture. Hey, you
didn't, Terry, you didn't think Maybe you should counsel Stu to not do
that, considering what happened to your old man a honna. Oh but Stu
was the greatest guy in the world and we all loved him. Oh yeah,
son of a bitch. Uh, where who's the what? What's a
stew eating garbage? Touching the handle of the big thing? What the fuck?
What are you reading like a random generator touching the handle of the big
thing? And where are we a licking the door knob for clues? Among
other things. Of course, by that point he was true, he was
tricking them. But it's still hurt once he locked it in. Okay,
you lay down here in ah. Yeah, let me have you back on
here and ah, and the dumb bastards would do it. Next thing they
knew they were waking back up and they'd pissed themselves do it. He's watching
these guys like guys. When Stu tells you to do something, you should
not do it. It's going to hurt you. Me give me, give
me, give me. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I
show you all. Then I tell you what. I catch holds and and
I'm just gonna if you I'm gonna put my hand down my pants and I'm
gonna see some action. And the dumb ass did it. He put his
hands on his pants, He put his hands down stew pants and grabbed his
cat. So I said, what the fuck is going on here? I'm
gonna go make myself a polar cereal. And as he drops up the stairs
of the Stu Heart basement, you here, my tiger, it doesn't feel
like wrestling anymore. But okay, Stu, oh man, this is just
a weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm i gotta find a
way out of here. He steps in the living room and sitting in the
barket lounger looking over her glasses is Helen Hart. Well, ma'am, I'm
Terry. Fuck go fuck yourself, you stupid prick. Well, ma'am,
I just wanted to come and say hello to the matriarch or the Heart family.
Don't you even think about calling me a hot you stupid Texas fuss?
Who he is? He calls him the Texas fucking He goes An't you the
champion? Yeah? How's how's your family holding up with all this travel?
Terry? Do you are you still married? Oh? Well, you know
we've had our ups and downs. Right now we're in an up. Well,
you know what, I'm gonna throw up all over your fucking How long
it's been since I've been in and up? And he's not even a champion?
Terry? Can let me tell you something, all right? I haven't
been in it up since before I was married? Right? I hate my
life. I hate my family. I wish they'd all leave me alone so
I can go up to my room and drink my miseries away in peace and
quiet. But instead that piece of shit husband of mine downstairs getting his dick
fucking dutch by some pre pubescent now, and I gotta sit here and deal
with that fucking count sh she knows he's down there convincing his trainees to move
their hand toward his crush. And the good Lord doesn't take me away.
All I want is to die. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna go
ahead, and I mom tell you, ma'am, I'm gonna go ahead.
And uh and why don't you go ahead and fuck yourself? That is a
good one, that is she uses to go ahead against him. Oh my
god, that's good. Why don't she cut him up? Why don't you
go ahead and go fuck yourself yourself? Yes, ma'am. Anything else from
hardhouse and that's hard house. Wow, That's that's it. That's what you
know. The stuf ops. You make his champion, right, normal shit?
Columbus Georgia back from Canada against wrestling, to Marietta against wrestling, to
Augusta against wrestling, to and making against wrestling too. Now we're going to
turn the calendar and he only has a two months in seventy seven when he's
Randy his champ. He's already set them, you know, already declared that
he wants to bring this title reign to an end, his wife has signaled
interest in getting back together with him if apparently the rigors of the road can
reduce substantially, and as we'll talk about making moves about unloading the Amarilla territory
from his plate as well. So this is the UH. The go home
for Terry Funk's reign is NWA Champion. It starts on the first of the
year, New Year's Day, Keel Auditorium. Terry Funk wrestles Stick the Bruiser
in a two or three falls match for the title in Saint Louis. That
to see the Rapids against Harley Race, Wichita against Ted Oates, Kansas City
Memorial Hall against Bob Brown, Saint Joseph, Missouri against Bob Slaughter. That
is to say, ladies and gentlemen, Wow, Harry Funk versus Sergeant Slaughter.
In seventy seven Selena, Kansas against Harley Race, Odessa against Harley Race
Brown, Woold Texas against Harley Race, Amarilla against Harley Lubbock against the super
Destroyer Colorado Springs against Dennis Stamp fort Worth against Les Thornton, the guy who
was wrestling with his father when his dad had the heart attack. Then to
Dallas at the Sportatorium Wrestling Moondog Mainz and in Tone against Great Goliath, a
Big Mexican superstar, Corpus Christi against Hose Lothario Houston against the KH Terry Funk
versus the KH for the NWA title ge Anuay seventy seven, Augusta, Georgia
for Georgia Championship twenty fourth against Thunderbolt Patterson Warner Robins, Georgia against Wrestling one
Columbus, Georgia against Wrestling One Athens, Georgie against Wrestling two Atlanta against Dusty
Rhodes January twenty eighth, and returned to the final month of two. Everyfunk's
ring is NWA World Champion February nineteen seventy seven. It starts at the Bayfront
Center in Saint Petersburg, Florida, where Dusty Roads defeats Terry Funk by disqualification
in a world title match. But as Funk said in his book, as
champion, you had to go and you had to be in top form when
you got to each town, whether it was Japan or Harlan, Kentucky,
which we didn't see on the schedule. Those fans were expecting a championship match,
and you'd better be there. One time, I left the arena after
a match in Saint Louis and went to the whiskey of Go Go, a
bar in the Gaslight Square district. I ended up getting pretty drunk and I
had to make it to one of those red off lights. Bound for Atlanta.
I borded the plane after midnight and there weren't even twenty people on the
plane. There was no one in the seats next to me, and I
was still drunk, so I laid down to go to sleep. Okay,
Okay, I didn't go to sleep. I passed out. I ended up
rolling off the seat and halfway underneath it. When I woke up, I
crawled out from under the seat and the only other person on the damn thing
was the guy sweeping out the plane. I asked him, are we in
Atlanta? He looked at me like I was crazy and said, Atlanta that
was two stops ago. You're in Memphis. This fucking guy is rolling around
an airplane, drunk asleep, and the world champion missing two hops on his
flight. Whenever I picked up a red eye in Dallas, i'd land a
few hours before sun up, so i'd get on the tram and just go
to sleep while it went around and around. I'd wake up after a couple
of hours, sit up and ask them a fuddle stranger, what time it
was. Imagine that to save money instead of having to pay for a hotel,
thank God, to make your connecting flight overnight, you just go to
the airport that your flight's and you just fucking fall asleep on the tram and
no one ever asked you to get off. So you're NWA World Heavyweight Champion
in nineteen seventy six and seventy seven could be spotted on your local airline or
in your local airport tram. Sleep like a fucking bomb in the corner.
Jesus of course, But it was all said and done. I'd made more
than four hundred thousand dollars in my year's champion, which was huge money at
that time. Boss, Can we whip out the yeah, I'll take a
look at seventy seven old infulation calculator. This is part of why started to
make sense to get back together with VICKI and build the of the estate.
Sometimes I wish I'd kept it another year. Maybe I could have afforded to
quit sooner. Maybe I could have done only one retirement match. As NWA
champion, I was paid ten percent of the house. I tried to keep
track of it. I mean, so what when when did he what month?
Though? Oh, February, let's say February, okay, nineteen seventy
seven, four hundred grand would be in today's money mm just over two million
dollars. Wow? Yeah, so I think eighty two months with the strap
he made two million dollars mm hm today's money. Wow. As NWA champion,
I was paid ten percent of the house. I tried to keep track
of house sizes. But if I was getting the short end of the stick
with a payoff after a match, what was I going to do? Even
though I was called the world champion, I didn't have the power to control.
You might think I might make fifteen hundred dollars working in the omniate Atlanta
and then seven to fifteen in Kansas City the same day, yet they could
afford to fly me on a leer jet from one to the other. It
was the kind of thing that made me think something just doesn't have upright.
They can afford a lear jet because I have that much importance. But I'm
only making that much money. The NWA president had historically controlled the champion's bookings,
but Atlanta promtor Jim Barnett, officially the NBA secretary, handled bookings for
me as champion. The reason was after Sam resigned, NWBA members wanted to
figure out a deal where they could have someone who knew what he was doing
book the champion, but they wouldn't have to pay a percentage of their gates
like they'd have to do with Sam. Besides, Fritz didn't have time to
handle all the details involved in booking the champion because he had his own territory
to run. Barnett was willing to take on the job. Barnett was great
to work with, although one night Dick Slater and I stayed out all night
before a meeting I was supposed to have with him. The next morning,
when I got to Barnett's office, I was so drunk I could hardly stand
up. That's the problem to this guy's getting Oh my god. I mean,
Terry does does not have something to do with why VICKI divorced you as
well. I mean, one of the first things we heard is how your
father said, don't bye, don't take this car and buy Booze and you
immediately go with Jack brisco On Buy Booze. I never got divorced, I
never got married. I never went home. Well, I want ahead and
had sixteen Bobweiser's and said, you know, I want to kill I want
ahead and said, you know, mom, I've been what boss, I
gotta commit, I gotta confess. I've been walking around lately going, oh
what a hell, saying it like all kinds of likes, like urgency,
almost like a preacher would say it. I went ahead and prayed to Jesus
that my mom would come down and take the almighty the almighty bump and work
the style. And my dad never could work the style. Consider in pro
wrestling, there's a such thing as style style, right, that is to
say, you do this move instead of that one. Oh God. Took
a drink and said, you know what, Now I'm home. Yeah,
And that's always the problem, Terry, is you wait you get home with
your family to get fucking bombed. I didn't know where I am. When
I got to Barnett's office, I was so drunk I could hardly stand up.
I still had the suit on that I'd worn in the last town for
most of the last day and all night. That suit had booze, gravy,
star bits of eggs, and God only knows what else on it.
From my midnight breakfast at the pancake house. Hey, Terry Funk, your
world champion could be spotted a sleep like a bum on the tram all night,
drunk with a suit stained with gravy and eggs, his leisure suit collar
open, you know, the shirt collars open, and he's got the world
title in a fucking Halliburton. It didn't smell very nice. I walked in
from my Elminam meeting and as I got close, Barnett said, my boy,
you know I'll have another meeting right now. I'd love to be with
you at this meeting, but I have to go off. Jim went and
that was the end of the meeting. In general, though we got along
because I was doing good business and I was always there. But when I
got the championship, I knew what I was going to do. I was
going to run with it. I was going to wrestle as many times as
I could with it for as long as I could hold it. I didn't
complain about the crazy travel or even the bad payoffs, because the bad payoffs
I got his World Champion were still a hell of a lot better than any
payoffs I'd gotten before, and better than the other boys were making from the
start. I wasn't planning on holding it for three four years or more.
I knew better than that and profited from seeing what people had done in the
past and what it had done to them. I figured i'd be ready to
drop it after two years at the most. I ended up lasting half that
long. Vicky and I had started talking again, and she eventually agreed to
get back together with me. You know, it was about the best news
I ever got in my life. I knew i'd have to give up the
title. Though I just told the NBA had a bad knee, I wasn't
lying. My knee was terrible still is. In fact, as for Vicky
and me were still together. My family has come first, which has been
very difficult in the wrestling business. When I had gotten so obsessed with the
business a few years earlier, there had been a cost my family, and
paying that cost just wasn't worth it. MM And this is a terry funk
who when you hear him talk about his career, When you hear him talk
about his flirtations with retirement, his constant sense that I need to be wrapping
this up, only to come back for another infusion of cash. He's a
guy who has that problem of like always feeling like he has enough to step
away, and it never really is enough. No, never is, and
he knows it is, but he needs to tell himself that he has enough
to walk away if he has to. Did At at any point during your
career, did you ever just get so frustrated at one point where you just
contemplated retirement, where you just he'll have retired twenty five times? Have you
ever contemplated retirement with the actual, you know, thought, I'm out of
here, this is, this is, Oh I have I've done it before.
Yeah. I had forty dollars by right, and I told my wife,
Honey, we got enough to live for the rest of our lives.
I'm momed God for sake. Yeah, and actually intended on being you know,
yeah. And then that's whenever I was I can't remember. I had
to take my kids out of school, board up the Double Cross and drive
to Florida, had one down there and totally broke and that was in gosh,
I don't remember what years in the seventies really and drove downer and all
I have is an old flick up the put kind of horns on the front
of it. You got of being a poor bastard. I was an eccentric.
It worked. What what made you at that time when you had the
forty thousand dollars in the back? What was it that you just said you
just got tired of the business, or well, you gotta figure out how
many years I've been in this business, you know? Yeah, And I
think you have overloads of it periodically anyhow. And I think that I just
periodically become you know, I mean here I am sitting here at this you
know, at these certain times in my life and being out on the road
two hundred and fifty days or something like that. And that's what it was
in the you know, seventies, eighties, two, yeah, one up
in eighty five. I'd be on the road and everything and you finally get
professional burnout. Yeah. But for some reason, as I would stay out
and then I get this long lean for it and its love for it would
re emerge. Yeah. Surewood. Another love that re emerged again was that
with his ex wife Vicky, and as Meltzer wrote, during this period,
Vicky's second marriage fell apart, and she and Terry started talking while he was
constantly on the road. So how about that, because he's constantly on the
road, but they're not together, they can be sort of pen pals over
the telephone. Yeah. Yeah, well he puts in the work needed to
collect that kind of a nest egg. And of course I'm sure Vicky's inquiring
just how much you're pulling down Terry. I mean that's a busy schedule.
Well, you know, I'm closing in on probably four hundred grand right now.
Hey, Terry, do you do you want to get coffee next time?
You're ah, well yeah, if you don't, If you don't mind
putting your mouth on my cock, you do that. We got a deal
gold times, like gold time. I mean, I want ahead and I
want to head. I went ahead and got some hair. It is from
Vicky. Well I'm smoking some crowd sh No, it's not for cute.
It was smoking crack. When do you guys feel like the laps Funk really
reached like a height of absurdity that one episode where the boss said, I
went ahead and got some head from Vicky while I was smoking crack crack.
Oh oh you go away, go ahead, go ahead? I went ahead,
and I went ahead, and give him ahead. He just woke up
on a plane when ahead, I don't have any surrounding. You fucking preached
Terry Terrence. Oh shit ah well. On February fifth, seventy seven,
Saint Petersburg is discussed at the pay Front Center. Terry Funk defeated Dusty Roads,
wrestled Dusty Rhads, lost VDQ, and in the process, Rhodes was
booked to destroy Terry Funk's knee. That would be part of a storyline that
would play out years later between the two. Of course, Dusty versus Terry
gets its own chapter and the lapsed Funks till to come. But as a
result of that knee injury, the story was that Terry Funk, much like
was the claim of Dory Funk when he lost to Hartley Race the first time,
came in with an injury, and when you come in with an injury
to an NWA title defense, that's always right, boss, A very convenient
excuse, excuse to save a bit of face when dropping the strap. Yep,
it was Dusty Rhodes who softened up Terry Funk for his loss of the
NWA World Heavyweight Championship. It took place February sixth, nineteen seventy seven,
at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada. Again to that point about
having a championship change on neutral ground. This isn't Texas, this is ne
Marilla, this isn't Kansas City or Saint Louis. Harley Race defeats Terry Funk
in fourteen minutes and ten seconds to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion four the second
time. As Terry Funk finds his way once again out of the pressure cooker,
We're going to take a look at the match, but first I wish
you could share in the dulcet tones of Harley Race himself his recollections of the
run up to his real crowning as world champion. In late nineteen seventy five,
I got the news that I had been anxiously anticipating I was in line
to replace Briscoe as the champion. Eager to see the fruits of my labor,
I quit the booking job in Tampa and headed back to my Kansas City
home. Finally my dry spell had ended. I was going to be the
next world heavyweight champion, Only it didn't happen. On December tenth, nineteen
seventy five, Terry Funk won the belt from Briscoe in Miami. The NWA
had changed, had changed his decision that I do something wrong. Was all
my work for nothing? No, I told myself it was a setback,
nothing more. So I held my head high and kept plugging away. When
Funk won the title, he never intended to keep it for a long time.
His plan was to get in, kick some major ass and make some
money and get out, and that's what he did. Funk made his mark
during the eighteen months that he had the title, but that was only the
beginning. Terrible Terry Funk went on to become a hardcore legend that towers over
his six foot one stature. He's lost countless quarts of blood and barbed wire
matches and nearly blown himself to smithereens and matches featuring c four explosives. In
the ring, he became known for his moon salts, backwards somersaults from the
top turnbuckle onto his opponents. After one and a half years on the road,
Funk was eager to get back to his double cross ranch. Once again,
it was time for the NWA officials to pass the belt once again.
I was waiting in the wings, ready and willing to carry the NWA banner.
But politics often entered the NWA's decision making process and I wasn't about to
enter the fray that fray. Luckily, others were Bence McMahon Senior was a
powerful and respected promoter of the Northeast Territory. By nineteen seventy nine, his
operation would splinter from me NWA to become the Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment now known as
World Wrestling Entertainment. Vin Senior wasn't on the end of it Away's championship selection
committee, but he wasn't afraid to use his influence when he felt strongly about
something. Members of the committee later relayed to me what he told them at
the time in a speech to the committee, which was divided on who should
get the belt. Then Senior reportedly went to bat for me. I was
told he said something to the effect of I think this kid deserves a shot
at this and the opportunity to take the belt and run with it. Whatever
he said, it worked. The committee needed five of the nine members to
agree on a new champion. I was told later that I was a unanimous
choice of the committee. So how about that? Yeah, then stepping up
as well? That's wild. Yep. It's fascinating to hear the different perspectives
from guys who got the strap on what happened at the NBA board because they're
not in the room, but you know Fritz casting the tie breaking vote to
put the strap on Terry Funk, thus putting the belt back in the Funk
control. After there was a movement to get it to Race, and Race
kind of reading the tea leaves and saying, wait a minute, I thought
I was supposed to get this championship. Why is Terry getting it? I
thought this was coming back around to me. Well it is, but it's
just going to be the Funker himself handing it to you, Harley and not
Jack Brisco. So we go to the night, we go to the Fateful
occasion. So this is the title change between Terry Funk and Hartley Race.
It's precluded I believe, a pre proceeded. I believe by a promo that
Terry cutt before the match. Let me just get this configured here and we'll
get rolling it's time to feel what we need to feel. Look at Terry
first, describe him. Oh my god, he's looks like a fucking child
with his big, bushy hair. And he's wearing some kind of weird ass
T shirt plunging v neck with like a frilled almost like a lattice design around
the collar, three button down short sleeve. And there he is, you
know. And this is just as he's starting to take off his baby face
in Japan, just before it as well, so he's still kind of a
heel in Japan as well. We can't lose sight of the fact that in
the timeline we are jumping back here in the NBA title a bit versus where
we left off in funking in Japan. And I can think of one few
that was probably the biggest feud in professional wrestling's history, and that was a
feud between Dory Funk Sr. And Mike Dbasi and Mike DBIASI went ahead and
passed away in a ring in Texas. And my father had respect for this
man. Although that he went ahead and he hated some of the things that
he did, he respected him as an opponent and he asked to be as
pallbearer at his funeral, and he was This is a kind of respect.
I hate the man, but yet I have a respect for Harley Race because
through the years a feud has grown between he and I went ahead and UH
defeated my brother for the World's heavyweight championship. I went ahead and I damaged
partial visions to enter his eyes in a Russian chain match. There's no way
that I'm going to go out in this ring and think that this is the
only thing is up as a World's heavyweight championship because something There's no way I'm
going to get ahead of personal reputations. I know that I'm going to go
into that ring and if necessary, I'm gonna have to squeeze or turn or
twist a little bit harder and break a bone because it's got to be ended.
This thing cannot carry on for on and on and on. There has
to be an ending point at it some time, in some place. I
don't want to put up with this man anymore, and I know that there's
only one way to go ahead and get him off of my back, to
get him off the Funks Family's back, and has to go ahead and definitely
try to permanently injure the man. This is a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year belt. In other words, if you have this thing,
you make in a range of two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand
dollars per year his solid gold. But it wouldn't matter years, steel or
what it was. It's what this belt represents. You represent that you are
the best in your profession. That's what I am at this point. That's
what I intend on being. After I wrestle Harley Race, I intend on
still being the best in my profession. I intend on being an offensive type
of a weird decision. I'm going to the man in relationship belt. I'm
not going to run from the man. I'm not afraid of him, but
I do respect him because I want to be made the decision that that was.
Likewise, I would do the same to him. Hold on, here's
the match. Cut his shoulder and fall into the match. Harley Race.
Terry funked that unmistakable angle from the balcony at the Maple Leaf Gardens. Such
a huge ring to pick what we used to say, which come ends up
in a back breaker on a funk red trunks. It's a back breaker in
Harley Lado Press gets too was able to hold him past the one. He's
got red trunks in the back of blue up front with the stars across there
both. Armie Race is very days right now, so again a bunch of
people turn it out to watch a title match. No one expects an NBA
world title change. They're so rare. But you can't see him. But
these people are not to get it. In Toronto, Army Race is very
groggy. Takes him in up into a pile, ris head into the pile
driver by the Funker. Looks like here cover by funk, great great cave
into the count by this official bad take that pile drive and still to get
up on his feet. Heresy, he's got a lot of stamina. He
has a lot of stamina. Now he does a nad drop on a stamina
a g CROs one thing that these men are in good conviction because they wouldn't
be able to take all this Abu gon Funk Buffy, Yeah, Yeah he's
taking it. Yeah, I fetch chop looping left hand by the Funker.
Harley ricocheted off and throws the hand of his own k legs spread wide,
grabb at the top rope with one hand and like teetering. Look at the
teeter, look at the legs. Oh, the champion is broggy swinging at
air as Terry as Hartley closes in with the snat layer and then dropped to
the forehead of the funker. Wow. Us, that's a Terry funk that's
been through that whole rigorous ringer that we just detailed. Me up on top
of the champion. What a feeling it must be to know you're going into
the ring to finally relieve yourself of this burden. It's interesting in it,
like you think about how everybody, uh you know, you get those those
incredible emotional reactions now when you achieve the championship, But here it seems like
all you want to do is get rid of the damn belt after you had
it for a significant amount of time. If you're doing well as Terry did
and every champ before him, the NBA doesn't really want to take the belt
off you because it's working right. You had to fight for it, so
it's even more of ah tell you that. Wow, that was a very
nice move by it by Terry hardly went for one too many side backbreakers,
hardly converted one into a head says or takeover. Very clever by the champion
hard you know, working the headsaiser on the canvas, putting a squeeze on
the challenger. MM. The best matches I've seen it in a very long
time. This is one of the best matches I've seen in a long Sure
how our Maple Leaf announcers were in seventy seven of who they are, I
don't know if I've actually seen a match ever before this one. I guess
I can say this is the best master. This interesting carries the ESPN Classic
Canada watermark. There's the surviving footage this match. This one's to the air.
This pin Classic Canada must have gotten their hands on Maple Leaf Wrestling archival
matches from and the National Wrestle then a certain point of course, April if
Wrestling associated with Jim Crockett Promotions. Yeah, up until about eighty five when
they shifted allegiances over to WWF got that hitcher You've gone, I mean already
work, I'm very hard on and Jack Tunny switched allegiances as well. Funk.
That's right, funk. Now changing the headcissor to our top position.
Oh oh, nice funk finds a way to maintain the headlock the lake scissor
fans here may be leave gardens are enjoying a great This is not a wild
and wooly Terry funk. This is the funk that no very methodical doing all
the things Bill Watt said he didn't do. You have promoters from all over
the United States and Canada. We're telling us promoters from all over the United
States and attendance. Here we have mister a promoter from much Nick, promoter
from Saint Lewiston, attendance away president and he was pleasant for twenty five years.
Rake from the mine and funk with a bit of a describe break of
the boot across the face admonished by the official functions Hardy. The race is
definitely the baby faces. Yeah, that's interesting. I wasn't expecting that.
Really, I only ever can imagine. I've never imagined Harley races a baby
face Rob tossed him cargo is not sim It's a Harley race with a funk
esque whipping. An opponent of the ropes to the country a wide apron in
Toronto. Seriously, the ropes are like ten feet in the ring. There's
a ten count for him to get back into the ring and wrestle. Funk
climbs up to the apron and Funk has his head rammed into the buck walk
by Harley Race takes a hold of a game whatever buckles there are. Look
at that. It's like, I know, silk bare bones takes him over
the back and now snapmare Funk puts down, put down by Harley Race,
who drives the knee of the forehead. Harley's gonna go up top bright Acton's
walking into the cap a. Race got off Flaire style, we should say
Flair does it race style. Terry Funk with a gorilla pressed slam, sending
Harley Race crashing off the top to the canvas and just picked him up from
body slammed them down to the mat right from the very top rope, Pride
from the dr top rope. Now Terry in position, dropping his knee into
the knee of Harley Race, setting up undoubtedly the spinning toe hold work in
your game on the leg. This is the name of the game. You
take Harlan absolutely body and them. And in the native parlance, yes,
he went for the spinning toe hold. But Harley grabbed him by the hair
and pulled him out of a position. Funk right back on it, sings
around Harley again, grabs up at the back of the head. Terry this
time shakes it off, reapplies the spinning toe hold harbor racing and compromising position,
but he popped the right hand in to break it. Uh fifty nine,
I believe, and Terry made Bristol with the spinning leg hold Suplexit tents
wow By race, but Funk falls across him in a cross body for a
close tucking referee. Oh, just a fucking dart worst bronco lubitch of Canada.
I mean side head lock fronicalle lubag is like earl there compared to this
clown went around the world from the hammer lock to the drop to hold again.
As Terry Funk puts down on Hartley Race and he's trapped again. In
the signature submission finish of the Champion tapping before tapping count it is Harley Ray
again. Funk spins around, He's kicked off. Harley Race back to his
feet, Funk snatches the side head Lockrace negotiates the shin breaker. Impressive that
race at the lake strength after being stuck in the toe hold. He got
him down. He's hurt. Terry really selling the knee on that impact.
And that's the knee that Dusty had softened up, remember, And that's the
knee that's taped as well. And look at this. Race scrambles and applies
an Indian deathlock, drops down to maximize the pressure. Terry Funk is flailing
about. He's got nowhere to go. He's feeling exquisite pain the center of
the ring. Look at him. He keeps going Race almost as if swimming
to continue the pressure on the on the limbs. Funk dropping trying to find
a way to alleviate the pain. But he's he's trapped. He's swinging desperately
at Harley Race's head, trying to get free. Race keeps dropping down to
keep himself out of striking range and on a play in the pressure. Funk
is making no progress towards the ropes, none whatsoever. Harry Punk is trying
to get up with us people, trying to go over the top of the
body of it. He's doing all kinds of different Croatians and ladies suddenly just
grabbing the side of his head and wrestling most painfuls it off. Wow,
you don't know howsyweight champion? Look at Harley Race, two arms extended,
leaping up and this time for real, Harley Race is n W a world
heavyweight champion billing around the rings? Sam? What do you think about this?
I think that it's a great opposite and it's good an ambition that Harley
Race has. Hell think that's Sam much to himself. Yeah, and you've
got the gold belt packed with hard winner that the time fourteen minutes, ten
seconds, with an Indian gift block the new have you win? A champion
of the world, Harley Race? I just can't believe it's Sam. Yeah,
you know if Well, here's a man he's This was the second time
he's won the world's heavyweight championship. Not only did he won the World heavyweight
Championship twice. Some random guy hits the ring and embraces Harley. Yeah,
where are you at? Harley quick to snap the strap around his waist,
turn the face plate forward. Who his victory? That was wild? So
the world title campaign of Terry funk is over. A Harley of Race would
reflect on the friendship with the Funkster in this part of his book, first,
Funk says in a contributed quote, Harley was the kind of guy who
would do anything for the business if necessary. I did too. It was
important to have believability because we went back to the same place as time after
time. Sometimes believability went to the extent of taking bumps the hard way,
which Harley did. I've done it too. It's not a very pleasant feeling,
Harley begins the chapter. This way, boss, pain is temporary.
Yeah, pride is forever. That could sum up the attitude Terry Funk and
I shared toward wrestling. Scheduling a match between us to switch the title seemed
appropriate. Since the late nineteen sixties, Funk and I wrestled each other for
money, for fun, and for blood sport, but pride was the main
reason we tied each other into pretzels and bashed each other senseless time and time
again. We probably wrestled each other hundreds of times, and in those matches
we dished out and absorbed more pain for our profession than many of our contemporaries
combined. But even during our most brutal feuds, when we were taking crazy
bumps from each other, we always remained friends, watching us in or out
of the ring was like watching two brothers double dog daring each other to do
something increasingly more insane. Once Funk and I were wrestling in Japan and Funk
wanted to prove to me anything I could do, he could do better.
At the time, I was performing a move in which I take a bump
into the turnbuckle into a complete backflip to the floor. So during our matches,
I threw Funk into the turnbuckle. He whispered watched this. He hit
upside down and backwards, and then landed on the top of his head,
temporarily paralyzing the left side of his face. The crazy bastards still finished the
match. And our matches against each other, we've spilled each other's blood countless
times, and we've literally scared each other for barbed wire match, scarred each
other for barbed wire matches, Texas death matches, strap matches, and chain
matches. During most of the seventies, Funk and I seemed to specialize in
these crazy ass novelty matches. Fans love the matches because it's almost a guarantee
they'll see us and our crimson mask by the time it's over. In a
chain match or Indians strap match. Blah blah blah, there's notice qualification.
The combatants are connected by twelve foot any event. During one such match,
Funk got behind me and wrapped the chain around my head and proceeded to saw
it back and forth against my face. I turned my neck back and forth
Jesus Christ the blow of the chain to minimize the damage, but a link
of the chain caught onto the skin under my eye and it ripped my face
wide open. Oh fuck, of course we played it for all it was
worth, both in and out of the ring. I basted in the blood
like a crazy Roman gladiator. After sufficient blood letting, Terry dragged me across
the ring, touching all four corners. Then we headed back to the dressing
room before making obligatory trip to the er. I asked Terry, what the
hell are you doing out there? Funk trying to blind me? That's the
idea, Harley, he said, with a smile, Hey, that I
don't look so good. You ought to get it checked out. What a
fucking mad man? Serious. I took twenty seven stitches to sew me up,
but I wasn't done yet. If Funk was going to scar me for
life and he did, just look under my left eye. Then I was
going to get some mileage out of it. So I wore a black patch
over my eye for the next several weeks. Everywhere I went in public,
whether it was eating at a restaurant, driving, or in the ring.
When I went to get promos, I wore the patch and laid into Funk.
Darry Fog, you try to blind me in our last match, I
shouted into the microphone, But you didn't succeed. The doctor saved my eye,
but no one's going to be there to save you the next time we
meet. The patch caught people's attention and we got a spike in ticket sales
for weeks. The only reason I took off the patch after a few weeks
was because it caused my right eye to start becoming the dominant eye. So
when I started using both eyes again, I had to put up with the
blurry vision and headaches until they read and readjusted. I can't claim credit for
being a pioneer and exploiting real life injuries to advance storylines. It's been done
long before me, and the wwdes this more than ever these days. As
promised, I did get Funk back for nearly songing my eye out. But
my payback wasn't actual retaliation, and it wasn't intentional. With just another day
in the ring in this crazy business and Lubbock, Texas, Terry and I
were beating each other so senseless with chairs that he left the match with a
concussion and cracked vertebrae in his neck. Of course, for Terry, that's
just like a stub toe. By the time you read this, Terry's sixtieth
birthday will have come and gone, But as of this writing, he's come
out of retirement for the umpteenth time. A recent match involving Funk was stopped
after he got wrapped up in barbed wire and passed out. I don't remember
if that was during a match or out here on the ranch. He cracked
when I asked him about it. I don't remember if I was towing a
match arlier out here on the ranch. I don't remember if I was if
I was just having a sexual time, or if I was working a match.
Texan is one tough son of a bitch, and he's got a sense
of humor to boot. The two of us probably wrestled fifteen to twenty chain
and strapped matches against each other during the late sixties and throughout the seventies.
Towards the end of that run, the state Athletic Commission and both Texas and
Missouri stepped in and essentially told us, enough is enough. We had to
tone down our last couplet for a change. What's that and it's time for
a change, so they wouldn't find or shut down our respective territories. If
I wasn't pissing off athletic commissions with various wrestling antics, I was pissing off
local authorities. He talks about a Matchkin's Grizzly and Amarillo Grizzly. Smith spelled
out of the ring. Police came arrested him. The cops wanted to know
one thing. Did Dory Funk Senior put you up to this? They had
hit the nail on the head, No, sir, I replied, one
thing just like to another, and pretty soon we were out in the street
blowing each other. No. I could have told Dorry Senior I didn't want
to do the stunt, and he would have understood. But like Dorry,
I knew the publicity would be worth it, even if it meant spending the
night in the slammer luckily, and I wouldn't own up to Dorry's involvement.
They released me. Since Story was the promoter, they were still able to
stick him with a fine, but it was a small price to pay for
all the attention at got years later, I almost paid a much our price
in Japan for doing the same. He talks about a match with Abduel and
the Butcher and Japanese officials. We were always looking for new angles or ways
to shake things up. Right about the time of the previous match, I
described, I had another one against Funk in which we wrestled the one fall,
no time limit match until we started going past the auditoriums closing time.
The match wasn't always action packed, but it turned out to be the longest
of my career two hours and eleven minutes. Terry tells a story about wrestling
against me in the beginning of his career. It was a tag match Larry
Henning and Me against Funk and Dennis Stamp, filmed in Minneapolis for TV.
A dozen minutes or so the match lasted. He thought he wrestled out of
his mind and was convinced he was already a great wrestler. The next day,
I went to Denver and wrestled Butch Levy and had the worst match of
my life. I didn't realize the night before it was Harley and Larry that
made me look like a million dollars. Geez, they were putting holes on
themselves. I just thought I was good. That's how dumb I was at
the time. Hum I felt honored when Terry later told me that there was
no wrestler he would have rather face lost the world title to than me.
We also shared some wild times together, often heading down a Texas highway full
throttle with a case full of cold beer. On one occasion, I met
up with Funk and Dusty Roads and his manager, doctor Jerry Graham in El
Paso, Texas. We wrestled in El Paso that night, then had to
make the drive to a Dessa, Texas for another show the next night.
The problem started when Graham decided to head across the Rio Grande for a little
South of the border fun that night. When he got back early the next
morning, he was even drunker than usual. That saying something for a man
who was drunk far more off and than he was sober in those days.
I once asked him if someone stuck a boose filled ivy into his arm before
he went to bed each night seemed like he had a rehabit for quitter's attitude.
He went to bed drunk, woke up drunk, and spent the whole
day drunk. It was this size you'd like that. It was this side
of Graham that we saw more and more during the latter part of his career.
Of course, during this period he was a shell of the man he
once was. Graham's success was in part to his colorful personality and larger than
life aura. When it came time to cut promos, he could talk with
the best of them. His gift for gab was what extended his wrestling career.
The problem with Graham being drunk that night in Texas was first that he
decided to die his wrestling trunks a different color, since they were the only
pair of trunks he had with them. Naturally, he wore them into the
bathtub with the die. As Funk puts it, he apparently decided to dry
off by doing somersaults around the room. The next morning, he somehow managed
to die the bed, the carpet, the walls, and everything else in
the room, and a top things off, he was still drunk to the
point of being incontinent, and Jesus here we had a four hundred pounds white
elephant on our hands. And Funk and Roads immediately stepped up with the leadership
that I came to expect from them. He's not getting an r car,
Funk said, flatly, looking expectantly at me. You don't want me to
take him? Knowing damn well, they did. We read an impass.
None of us wanted to take Doc, but we all knew we needed to
move him from point A to point B. That's it. Suddenly it dawned
on me. We needed to move him. And what do you do?
We need to move someone? You rent a U haul? Of course,
So I threw Doc, his booze and a blanket into a small U haul
and we hit the road. Problem solved. AH Memories of Wrestling Terry Funk,
Memories of the Road with Terry Funk, Memories of being made by Terry
Funk. Harley Race one of the first people you ever think of when you
think of the most celebrated wrestlers this country has ever produced, as in no
small part the deepest regard for Terry Funk's role and setting him up to be
just that. We just saw the championship change in seventy seven, and here's
Harley Ray sitting with Terry Funk with Bill Apter for that High Spots event.
We've played some clips of already talking about how important this whole time period in
transition was to him. Prince van Aera, who was the president everything I
should and uh uh the fella that was going to uh uh the two fellas
that were being pushed was being Harley Rice right, And I feel that it
was a very strange situation and uh, I was very lucky to make it
to the position of having the tiedle. The vote was three to three and
and Fritz Vanering made a deciding vote and for whatever reason, I don't know,
but uh, this guy over here later when I had an uh a
made history bye by by being a eight time world champion. And I really
don't feel and and the set of a gun is that a good part about
it was is uh he wasn't a nine time world champion. And that's because
I got it that one time. But no, I'm I'm serious that the
guy just did a great job with him and it was it could get pretty
into a pretty airy situation there, and he could lose friends over it and
you could make enemies over it. It was that uh prestigious about a position.
Wouldn't have heard it, Yes, it was uh. By the by
how that vote came down. Probably it was the biggest brain for myself of
anything that's ever happened to me since I've been in wrestling. And it made
total sense after it was over, and Terry uh was included in that loop.
It had opened up, Uh, Risco. But either one of the
founds me with either one that founds me with Risco. It just opened a
hell of a lot of doors. You look back at history, and it
all worked out right. It all worked out right. Uh at the time,
there was never any bitterness between me and Harley. But there was never
any Uh. It's funny us as it's just and there would have never been
a b betterness no matter which way it came m But uh, it was
very crucial in our success in the world of wrestling. What happened there.
It's a good question. Did you ever think back then that you'd be able
to be sitting here at a place like this and telling people exactly how that
worked. I mean, that was tamboo back then and who right today?
Bill, I don't feel comfortable in the same way and talking about a whole
lot of this stuff. It's just been throwing out there from everyone from the
top of wrestling to the bottom of it. And to me, I've got
a quote in my book that is on a need to know basis, and
nine percent of the time they just don't need to know. Harley Race looking
fondly back on the passing of a torch in an era that is very much
by gone. So Terry Funk is no longer in wa champion. He's back
on speaking terms with his ex wife and high school sweetheart, Vicki. There's
still the issue of running and operating the Amerala territory from their late father,
and in addition to unloading the asset that was the World's championship, Terry Funk
also finds a way to unload that asset as they sell the Amarilla territory to
Dick Mardoc and Blackjack Mulligan, who were for whatever reason interested in it.
It wasn't really it really wasn't something with any future even when they got rid
of it. Even if the national expansion wasn't entirely clear yet of someone eventually
coming and taking over the whole country. It just wasn't a part of the
country where it was very easy to sell a lot of tickets, and the
Funks certainly didn't see themselves being a regular enough presence and having world title you
know, plot its to bring back. We got to remember, Boss,
this is it for the Funks as champions. Yep. It's not like Dori
is gonna win it again. So if the fans came out in the Amarilla
territory because the Funks were the biggest stars in the country as pro wrestlers and
world heavyweight champions in different eras, different moments in time there or at least
challenging for said strap against the likes of Brisco and Race. Now that's just
not on the table anymore. Both of them are going to transition into different
sort of business forward parts of life, and they're not going to be chasing
another world title run. And so you have to think it's that much less
interesting suddenly to be a fan of wrestling in Amarillo because you're not seeing the
Funks as world champions come through and have matches that define the state of wrestling
in the country before your eyes, but Blackjack Mulligan and Dick Murdoch. Dick
Mordock, of course has mentioned several times a friend back to West Texas,
although Murdoch was from West Sexas but didn't play at West Texas State, even
though he claimed he did and showed up at the alumni football game and was
allowed to play as if he did because he was just that fucking brash about
things. Wow. The step son of Frankie Hill Murdoch, who was a
very strong opponent of Dorriy Funk Senior in the territory for years and years with
young Terry and Dorry running around as kids at ringside is mentioned. They took
on the responsibility of owning the territory and they started taking on a more active
role. Remember there was that one clip we were able to play because there's
so little footage that survives of the Mbillo television show. Yeah, but there
was one from the time when Dick Murdoch owned it where he's doing commentary over
a Dory Funk match and there's like that orange canvas in that small intimate setting.
You remember that that's sort of the m rollo that Mulligan and Murdoch were
running, and so Terry found someone who might take the territory off of their
hands. So we went ahead and made a proposition to him. And it
was interesting that they sold to Mulligan because this is someone whose regard for the
Funk family is directly along the lines of delineation that have become clear at this
point and the lapsed Funk in terms of the difference between how people viewed Dorry
Junior and Terry. There's a quick excerpt from Mulligan's book about dealing with the
Funks. I had a near catastrophe in Amilla one night. I was working
for the Funks. I brought a hot finish with Dory Junior, and on
the way out, a guy jumped from the balcony right on top of me.
The impact nearly knocked me out, and when I recovered, I picked
him up and threw him up against the wall. Bam. He hit real
hard and I saw blood gushing from his ears and his eyes rolled back into
his head. Oh my god, I killed him, I thought to myself.
I headed to the dressing room and by then the police were there.
Dorry Junior really backed me up on this one. I'm being facetious here,
folks, What does he do? He says, he's not responsible. I
see this whole attack as another receipt for the NWA double cross in Detroit,
which is his story he told earlier. So Dorry deserts me in the dressing
room. This was his territory and he just bailed on me. Terry is
there and he tries to help, but the detectives come in and try to
charge me with murder. They're getting ready to handcuff me when they get a
call that the guy came back to life. This scenario goes back and forth
for an hour as this guy goes in and out of consciousness. Finally they
advised me not to leave town, and I tell them that I didn't live
there. While they were fixing to read me my rights and charge me,
when Terry spoke up and vouched for me, they took my address and all
my information. Now I lived three hundred miles away in Austin, but because
of the incident, I had to engage one of the top criminal lawyers in
this great country, and it took mucho bucks to do that. I'll bet
you're wondering about the jumper. Well, he lived, but he became a
vegetable and my insurance paid dearly. Just another exciting day in the life of
a wrestler. But regardless of the fact that he attacked me, I was
guilty because I planted him against the wall. This strained the relationship I had
with Dorry for years to come, and it's still bullshit to this day.
Terry Funk has always been a stand up Kui to me and one of the
best wrestlers of all time. He was always a hard worker, always giving
the folks their money's worth. Even today, he's still working somewhere and the
folks just love him for his work ethic. There's just a lot more that
can be not a lot more that can be said about Terry Funk, Mulligan
wrote, he sets the bar that everybody in this business should strive to attain.
He can change like a chameleon to whomever and whatever the occasion calls for.
He's a master student of the game and a master teacher, all in
one package. He was born into the business and was nurtured on its ways
and mannerisms, and he became the ultimate performer. I understand that when he
was growing up his family used to make him eat at the hog trough.
M Terry was tough. He'd throw rocks in the air and try to land
them under them, and land under them they came down. One time,
while leaving the ring, he got stabbed in the neck and the knife was
still stuck in there when he got back to the dressing room. And to
think I used to bitch about two hundred stitches. What a complainer I was.
Terry understood what I was talking about. When I spoke of generating white
hot heat. That meant generating so much heat that people wanted to kill you.
Now, I know that's strong, But one has to reach this level
to really understand this business. Of course, no one tries to obtain that
level any longer because they don't know how. All the veteran teachers are almost
all gone, and the liability is so great now the promoters can't take the
chance. In today's business, the promoters make the wrestlers. They give them
their names, their gimmicks, and tell them how to do a match.
There is no independence out there anymore. These kids are in investments who everything
is planned out for them. And then there is that rare group of wrestlers
who make the promoters. You can count these wrestlers on one hand, and
Terry is in that group. There is an unbelievable feeling in taking a promotion
by its bootstraps and putting it on the map. In my opinion, Terry
Funk is just great. He gave the business what it dearly needed. And
what was that A tough, grizzled old veteran who taught the business as he
lived it. I think Terry is simply one of the best ever period.
So it was quite a decision to sell to Blackjack Mulligan, who one of
the only guys who hated Bobby Heen and I'll tell you something about the guy,
right. And then there was the small matter of him being arrested in
I think nineteen ninety one for trying to pass off counterfeit bills, meeting with
undercover Secret Service agents and selling them one thousand dollars in bogus twenty dollars bills
and agreeing to meet the agents later in the day and sell them more bogus
counterfeit money. So the father of Berry Wyndham doing time on that one.
But it's fine. You could see why he'd be interested in the Amarilla territory
after all. And here In an interview with Jim Cornette on The Cave Commentary
series, Terry Funk reflects on divesting from the territory his father. His father
epitomized, of course, under the predecessor promoter down there when he first arrived
and got involved with cal Farley and doctor Sar Paulis was his name, and
upon s. Paulis's passing, Tory Funktionior became the man, the boss,
the patriarch, the progenitor. You know how much we sold that to him
for. I'll let you tell, Well, did I read your book,
twenty thousand dollars, which was a pittance, a pittance, a drop in
a bucket, a mere bag of shells. Yeah, and that was for
twenty and then but and that was what we sold it for him, to
him for and then we just was it just because you knew they probably couldn't
afford anymore, and you were just exactly do it exactly because they wanted to
buy it. Yeah, so we said twenty thousand dollars and I think they
put five thousand down a piece. And then uh, and it didn't make
it, which you know, I wanted it to make it. Now you
wanted it to make it, but it was a rough It was a rough
time to go into the business, and Funk actually did see the national wrestling
expansion starting to form, just ever so slightly, right around the time of
making the aforementioned transaction of the Mberilla Territory, writing in his book, after
I came back to Amorilla regularly, the territory was running fine. Having two
former world champions in the area was a huge plus for the territory. In
nineteen seventy nine, I noticed something new cable TV, in particular a wrestling
show coming out of Atlanta. I knew there was a change coming in the
professional wrestling business, and once that changed with national television hit, I knew
that we would have fragmentation of this once mighty alliance as everyone thought to be
the national power. Sure enough, that's what ended up happening, first with
the WWF and then with Crockett, who ended up in nineteen eighty five on
TBS where I first saw Georgia Championship Wrestling. Even in seventy nine, I
knew the day of the national wrestling promotion was coming. I also knew how
much work it would be for Junior and me to keep m Mailla running.
I didn't want to repeat what happened after my dad died, when I became
obsessed with the business to the exclusion of all else, including my family.
I knew that had been a mistake, and it would be damned if it
was a mistake I was going to make again. Junior and I talked and
decided to sell the Emeral territory to Bob Wyndham, black Jack Mulligan and Dick
Murdock. Before the deal was done, though, I told them both that
I didn't think the future was too bright. Gosh, cousins gotta be tough
with the TV going the way it is, I told them, and they
knew it was a possibility, but they decided to take their chances. Junior
and I decided to take the ten thousand dollars a piece up front from them
for the territory and beyond our way, they got five or six rings in
the existing TV and arena deals we had. They were supposed to pay off
the remainder to us over a period of time if they were successful. Unfortunately,
for all of us, times were changing and they weren't successful. The
Emeryala territory had been a big part of my life for almost all my life,
but it didn't feel strange not to be in it because I realized that
with the way things were going, there really was no such thing as in
Arena an area rather any more. In this new era, it was the
United States that was going to be territory. And so without the Amarilla Wrestling
Office to establish the roots, without the Flying Mare ranch of the family,
patriarch Dory Funk Senior in the family anymore, and having sort of cycled off
of a Texas centric lifestyle and identity after splitting with his wife Vicki and touring
his NWA World champion and becoming the true vagabond that he was, Verry Funk
returns to Texas and he buys the following tracks of property according to property records
I was able to pull up in nineteen seventy seven. Tracked one, a
two hundred and fifty two point twenty five acre tract of land h and GN
Railroad Company survey, Randall County, Texas, which is easterly of the BNSF
Railroad right of way and westerly of US Enterstate Highway number twenty seven and Track
number two three point six to two acre tract right next to it, being
a triangular shaped tract and being all of a one hundred and ninety seven acre
tract of land as filed in Randall County, Texas, easterly of the US
Interstate Highway number twenty seven right of way. These two tracks of land,
along with others in Canyon, Texas, would be yes the Double Cross Ranch.
As he writes in his book, At one point, after my dad
left Boy's Ranch, he got into a disagreement with Dory Detton, which resulted
in us leaving the territory for a while. We headed north, far north.
My father wrestled under a mask during one stretch and Vancouver, British Columbia,
working for promoter Rod Fenton. That was actually where the Double Cross Ranch
name came from. My father is the Outlaw, wrestled is the Outlaw and
was billed as being from the Double Cross Ranch. It was a great name
because it had that double meaning, both as a brand two ex's side by
side and in the sense that the Outlaw would double cross you. It's a
name that stuck with me. I've lived in that parcel of land known today
as the Double Cross Ranch. Yes, it's a real place. For twenty
seven years. Of course, this was as of the publication of his book.
He would ultimately move away from the proper these days, when I go
to church, Funk says, I tell people it represents two crosses. That's
what double cross. He's just that much about Jesus and Boss. It would
be also a place, a property that would be the namesake of permits filed
with the county, because you have to register livestock and when you have to
when you do that, you know as a like you have to register a
car almost And take a look at this. This is something I pulled from
from the records in the county, the Randall County records. Terry D.
And Vicki Funk Double Cross Ranch or Shore and Amarilla. And you see there
the markings of the double Xes. That's that's what you have to draw as
the brand on the cow, like, oh my god, that's how they
know what ranch the cattle belonged to. That would be the Double Cross ranch.
You see there checked off male and female cattle. So the Double Cross
Ranch is now established. Terry and Vicki Funk are back together. The NWA
World Title when and all of its requirements, all of its stresses, all
of its demands are behind Terry Funk. The Amreilla Sports Office, the wrestling
office that his father moved into, moved in on, and then epitomized as
now divested as well. Boss the Funker is unencumbered. Yeah, and I
think we can only imagine what that means and what that portends for the lapsed
Funk. It's going to start with a certain ex sucking dog, you know,
good for nothing egg sucking down. What was amazing? Man. 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.