Ep. 366: The Lapsed Funk 'Funkin in Japan' (Part 1)

You know, good for nothing eggs sucking dumb man. We did it our
way because we love it that way. We love it that way, and
I have this wonderful gun feeling and I've had it all my life. When
it's time to go, I think it's now. There's time to go.
Welcome Indeed two the Lapsed Funk here on that fucking cast. We're rocking and
rolling here into episode three. Boss, it's time to start funk. And
in Japan, what do you say? I'm ready to get my funk on.
I mean, you know, of all the places that Terry Funk made
an impact and it's on par with no really, no other wrestler ever,
Japan is where it's like, Okay, this guy's in a class all by
himself. Because not only was Terry Funk a former NWA World Champion and transformed
himself into the hardcore icon and was a big earner in every single territory in
this country and everywhere he went made an impact, but he's essentially the most
beloved American wrestler ever in Japan. That's crazy. We're going to get into
why here on this episode is of course, last time we were with the
other Lapsed Funk. Terry Funk had entered the ring after coming off the West
Texas State University football field and having learned another tutelage, of course, of
his father, Dory Funk Senior. We talked about the passing of Dory.
We're gonna push the timeline a little bit back because when Terry Funk first comes
to the Land of the Rising Sun, his father is still alive and his
brother is just beginning his campaign as nWay World heavy Weight Champion defeating Gen Kiniski
in nineteen sixty nine. It was in nineteen seventy when Terry Funk first came
to Japan or their bouts as we'll get to, but I mean everything we
talked about on paying off the Pacific as it regards the Hulkster in Japan,
Boss double that for Terry Funk. Wow, brother, what in that?
Dude? Why it's one Terry or the other when it comes to a guy
jeans or or you know, it could be Edwin Jeans as well, which
was one of many brands that Terry Funk did sponsorship, advertising four on Japanese
television in his heyday. Let me also preface so I'm not at home in
my normal place. Right, So I'm even hearing the echo of this apartment
that I'm currently in. I'm staying here in case you don't know, it's
show week opening King of the Jews on Saturday, and my wife very kindly
found me an apartment. I look at that. That's that's fucking you know,
that's an agent at work. Tell me, you damn right, tell
me, tell me if this isn't true. Okay, if this is,
if this isn't one of the most unique things that I think only really happens
to New York based theater folk, and correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe
this happens another place show in other industries that it is a common thing.
Okay, let me preface by this. I've never met the people who's apartment
I'm staying in. I have no idea who they are. I mean,
I know who they are. I've met I like, but I've never seen
them face to face. I've only had a conversation with the mother the wife
who lives here, or we talked on the phone, we've been texting.
Does an airbnb situation Nope, this is so, it's a so. What
often happens is people who live in New York we go. You go away
on jobs, right, you know, you you get an acting job out
of town. You got to go someplace, You got to go to a
different location. You got to go to who knows where, you know,
for a regional theater gig. So you don't want to give up your luscious
apartment. So you want you just want to sublet it because you want to
come back. So you let it out to somebody, usually an actor who
you may not have ever met before or no. You find them on different
Facebook, you know, friend groups and stuff like that, and you check
them out and stuff, but you usually let you let them stay. This
one's a little bit different. This is this this woman and her now husband
were getting married, but you know, and they were looking for a cat
sitter. That's a very actor thing is to babysit pets, to have a
place to squad. Absolutely, but like you know, would you have a
complete stranger. You may have connections with here and there, but someone you've
never actually met just come into your house and stay there for a week.
So these people are actors themselves. I believe I believe that she was.
I'm not sure what he does. Yeah, I think that's it is You
know, you would not expect, but you would like someone else to be
able to do that for you, and so you're willing to do it for
another person of the uh, the fraternity or the sorority, so to speak.
Yeah, it is such a common thing, you know. Our first
apartment in New York was the same thing. We sublet from a couple who
were on a nine month acting contract. So we stayed in their apartment for
nine months until they came back. And now in another place, I'm racking
my brain to think about examples in Oh, I don't know, professional wrestling,
where you go you'd set up shopping a territory for several months, and
ye as I'm going through my rolodex of people, it's like, yeah,
you get an apartment and you shack up with another wrestler. But every now
and then you do hear about, you know, promoters letting people sleep in
their house for a little while, and uh, yeah, but but the
promoters are home. No, you're right as opposed to letting them sleep in
the house when they're not there, or with no intention of seeing them the
whole time that they're there. Right, Yeah, I'm not sure about that
one. I mean certainly Shueshio Nita, who will talk about as we go
through the lapsed Funk stayed with Terry Funk of the Double Cross Ranch, and
I'm sure lived there at a time when Terry would would fly out, you
know, to work a show somewhere. That comes to mind just because it's
you know, part of the research for this series. But I'm sure,
I'm sure pro wrestlers in some way could identify with with that arrangement. But
point being said, no, normal people, No, I think what I'm
trying to tell you is right, you're you're, you're, you're, you're
in a dangerous category right now. Yeah, absolutely, no questions about that.
But I'm glad you brought it up because King of the Jews of course,
coming to the here Art Center off Broadway, tell them all a lot
of us, that's right. This Saturday, Saturday, October twenty eighth,
we open very excited. We had our first dress rehearsal last night. This
would be this is Monday, so that would be Sunday night. We had
our first dress rehearsal. I went pretty well, you know, having strangers
in the crowd for the first time, and it was, uh, it
was nice. To kind of get it on his feet and not stop and
stall. And it's a it's a very interesting play. It's about the Holocaust.
It's about, I think, a very at least for me, a
very unknown part of the Holocaust, which is the uh the the formation of
what what's called the uden Rot, which were Jewish councils in the in the
ghettos specifically here the Polish ghettos, and uh. They they were basically formed
to do the bidding of the Nazis, so the Nazis didn't have to do
it. And I don't want to spoil too much as to what happened,
but I'm very much intrigued already. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's
a very it's a it's dark, it's it's got some tragic moments. It's
also got a lot of humor in it. And how wild must it have
been when you know, situation injury in Israel and power Stein started eating up.
Yeah, I mean, actually, to be quite honest, it's gotten
it's gotten us a little concerned. We are we are producers and Equity are
investigating potential security measures that we can do right to h to to up the
you know, safety of us all. But it's uh, it's it's it's
a it's a fascinating play. It gets into the absurd in the second act
like it's becomes admittedly a very absurdist play, right, And I'm not going
to tell you where. I'm not going to tell you when, I'm not
going to tell you what, but I I do uh, I take a
bump. Oh my god. I mean, folks, we need't to sell
it any harder. And I just assume if you cancel it for security reasons,
it's like wrestling in the sevens, because you could sell any tickets.
I agree, I believe. I believe there was concern about sergeants slaughter coming,
and there was going to be some some you know, death threats.
The concern if he comes is that you'll start to feel entitled to ten percent
of every single all that passes hand. But now it's exciting, and we're
especially excited because, in keeping with our promise to members of the moat tier
on Patreon, which of course we always stipulate is rich for a lot of
folks blood, we understand that you know that tip top tier on Patreon supporting
the lapsed fan is not within everybody's means, but you'll have to forgive us
for bending over backwards to make sure that those who do vote with their wallets
to that degree in what we're doing here get special treatment, get white glove
treatment. When it comes to opportunities to come together, and what better time
is the holiday's approach. We put together a great outing to go see the
Boss coming up in November on one of his performances, and several members of
the Moat tier were thrilled to say, we'll be joining us for one of
a kind laps to get together. They, of course the mot tier getting
first DIBs on availability and with the limited tickets we had at our immediate disposal,
that's how it went down. So look for more as that event approaches
and post I'm sure we'll put something together. Oh yeah, that can exist
in podcast form, perhaps for all the patroons to get a taste of what
exclusive company you two could find yourself in if you graduate to that tier one
day. But yeah, Patreon dot com slash the lapse about having the balls.
It's all about having the balls. Yeah, it really is, and
under the cinemat no exception. As part of the lapsed funk of course,
we just completed our treatment of the absolutely landmark documentary Beyond the Mat, which
of course features heavily the story of one Terry Funk, a triumph in so
many ways. Boss looking back on it, it's available for patrons. I
mean, what a what a win it is It is available for patrons.
It was, it was. It was such a such a wild journey,
I think, both in in doing what we do, but also in just
you know, finding even even I honestly say regarding some of the people just
you know, skimming the surface in some ways of of these just incredible stories
of making the movie itself. It's such a fascinating take. There's a lot
more there than I expected. I'm so happy that by the time we finally
did be on the Mat, that it came after the invention of under the
cinemat so we could put really unique movie industry research specialty to use. Because
there's a lot about a Barry Bloustein that I probably would have skimmed over if
I was just coming at it from the traditional TLF wrestling center point of view.
But he's you know, but just I mean, the whole story of
it all like this a fascinating tale of how it came together, and of
course we become acquainted with Funk not only with his farewell show in nineteen ninety
seven and Amriilla, but also I'm sure it was the first time you saw
his famous nineteen eighty three Forever Forever retirement speech in Japan. Yes, yes,
for sure, I didn't even I can tell you I probably didn't remember
that moment when I first watched the movie, you know, two decades ago,
but I certainly had a much greater appreciation for it watching it again when
they did air that clip. And that's what it's about here on the lapsed
Funk And if we do our job, which we always do correctly, by
the time we get to that moment in August nineteen eighty three when Terry Funk
is bidding farewell to the adoring Japanese wrestling public, will have understood how he
came to form such a unique bond with the Japanese wrestling fan and what it
was they saw in the Funker. So that a ton of synergy going on
there. And while we're on the subject, if you're still on the fence,
about joining us on the EP and above tier to get access to under
the cinemat on Patreon. I see Halloween coming, and I know you refuse
to let one season pass without a single scary movie season installment. I cannot,
I will and I will not. I will not. We will get
you will get one scary movie this season. I'm very happy about that.
We're going to squeeze it in and it's important. It actually follows a chronology
that we're that I've been building towards for the last couple of years, so
it's very you know, it's always about long term booking, always thinking ahead.
We're excited to see what you bestow upon us this Halloween season as we
transition. Of course, coming at warp speed is the Christmas season and of
course our second annual Christmas Show. Yes and heavy. Thanks to folks like
Martin Ferguson and others who have gotten their affairs in order and made sure that
the kitty is full, Santa Sack will be, you know, prepared to
be drained over the po box when it comes time for us to sit down
and unwrapped, Sack will unload gifts from the mighty Solar System. Very much
looking forward to this and probably as good a time as any to issue you
know, a reminder that we're very much looking for your contributions to that landmark
show coming up in the month of December. But it doesn't mean you have
that long to get your special packages in the mail, especially considering how many
international listeners we have who last year, in many cases we had to do
a follow up show, remember that, because so many came in late.
So many came in late. We found others that were almost like it's like
it was like Ralphie with the fucking oh yeah, with the with the gun,
just like sitting in the back behind a desk and ones we already opened
there were hitting a compartment eight, right, So can't wait to see what
you have in store for the Chairman this year. And it's not for us,
it's for everybody. I mean, if you listen to last year's show,
you know that. Yeah, we do get the gifts, but the
real gift is the audio magic it can create as we react. It's about
reaction. We live in an unboxing reaction fucking economy. Right, So look
that that fucking horrifying picture of Jerry Lawler is still someplace Bosman, deep dark
and hidden, but nonetheless in my basement. What do w itit's sickos like
that have in mind this year. So if you want to contribute, you
want to send your Christmas package to the Lapsed Fan at seven ten Main Street,
South Po, Box one one nine, Southbury, Connecticut zero six four
eight eight. Again, the Lapsed Fan seven ten Main Street, South Po,
Box one one nine, Southbury, s O U T H b U
R Y, Connecticut, zero six four eight eight. So I would think
if if you have it in the mail by the first week of November,
you're probably safe. We haven't exactly decided when we're gonna sit down to record
this motherfucker, but that's probably I would It's probably gonna be a little closer
to Christmas than last year. I just certainly will be yeah, yeah,
all kinds of movie pieces, but definitely want to send that reminder out there.
And and as the season approaches and you're trying to think of what what's
the best gift for the lapsed fan in your life, boss Man's not shy
about reminding you that. Over at cameo dot com, Slash the Last Fan,
every single member of the Lapsed Fucking Murderers Row Rogues gallery of Lapsed characters
is available for you jukebox style, tell them what to say and we will
say it. I mean, it's you know, this is if if you
ever wanted to fucking have a monkey dance, this is it. This is
where we we are the monkeys. Uh. And you know again I've said
it before, I'll say it again. I've always been fascinated by the requests.
Number one, the the the one that was fairly recently, the request
about about you know, someone celebrating their sobriety and oh yeah, any occasion
fucking fucking like and like making fun of you know, actually asking to jab
fun at their sobriety. Absolutely coming to terms with it as you can joke
about it, I'd imagine for sure. Just it's it's a it's still it's
that's That's an odd thing for me sometimes to kind of like, you know,
have to have that that that that form of you know, I don't
know what, but you know, that's kind of freedom to be able to
do that. Just those are my favorites. Is when they're two of my
favorites. Number one, when people ask mostly laps Vince to berate them do
it and to do awful like say awful things to them, which is so
amazing because it lets you know, it reminds you, it reminds you who's
in charge. And second, the ones that without any sort of any sort
of real uh uh like thought behind it, create cannon, the cannon of
the lapsed character storyline. Indeed, the story arc yep, yep, come
up with them to come turn to the backstory that we have to then incorporate
into the reality. It's it's all there for you at Cameo. Just search
for the lapsed fan and get those requests in and and yeah, we're excited
to head into a season where we all shine. I think it's safe to
say. Indeed, and of course look no further if you want to throw
laps down your back this holiday season to progressingtas dot com slash the Lapsed Fan,
where we recently correct unveiled the first Lapsed Funk series T shirt. What
you know about a Sergeant Adam Funk shirt besides nothing at all? That's all
you fucking need, all right, that's what you need for your to give
the gift to your tier to somebody this year for the holidays. Yes,
your Sergeant Funk shirt says as you say, oh god, it says he's
coming for you. He will find you. I don't think there's two ways
to interpret that. I think there's only one way. Phenomenal and much more.
I'm the lapsed fuls before us. As we're gonna do it. We're
gonna go through the motherfuckers life and times. We're gonna stop at nothing.
This is too consequential a life, This is too consequential a career. And
before we proceed here on Funk and in Japan, shout out to the homie
Haystacks Kowloon, who's playing a big role and making a lapsed Funker come together,
as well as Maya, who's played a key role in getting us what
we need to put us in a position to really cover and chronicle the whole
career. Haystax, as you know, is really pushing beautifully the LAPS Archive
Transcription Service call it LATS for short. That's complete archive transcripts of all of
our episodes. And as we head into tlf X our tenth anniversary celebration in
twenty twenty four, it makes all the sense in the world to email Lapsed
dot scribe at gmail dot com and that'll help hayste X get you involved in
getting access to the transcript database and hopefully enlisting you to help a bit in
what is becoming sort of like a history of TLF A volunteer research exercise,
which is just humbling and lovely to see. So totally it's all love all
around and can't wait to see again members of the Mote tier in New York
City to see the Boss take the stage. So a lot going on,
not the least of which is our attempt to grapple with why Terry Funk's name
rings so epically in the country of Japan. What was it about the Funker?
Just to get us started, we talked about Under the Cinema, We
talked about beyond the mat on under the Cinemat and the sort of references that
it makes to Terry Funk's legendary status in Japan. What just basically did you
take away from that? I mean, even if you don't remember much about
it, what did you come away thinking about that part of Funk's career.
Was it sort of like, oh, I'd like to know more. Was
it like, okay, I get it? Was it? What? What?
What? What did he exactly mean in Japan? And I think this
is the starting point probably for a lot of people to understand. Funk in
Japan is this movie? I mean, I yeah, I mean I would
say Japan is always is always a place I want to know more about,
right, And I don't mean the country itself. I mean that, I
mean the wrestling. I don't care about the country that much. I'm not
interested in the wrestling. Shout out to our to our friends in Tokyo.
Of course I may able to understand obviously. Yeah, but uh yeah,
I've always been fascinating. I mean what I I guess true. What I
didn't really know about was the early years of Funk in Japan. I I
certainly had heard about the the Death Exploding Mom matches with Foley, but I
didn't know all the other stuff. And that's certainly tag teaming with with Dorince
Junior. And that's what makes his return in the nineties to the explosion ring
promotions like FMW so impactful, was that he was a bona fide straightforward wrestling
legend of the seventies and eighties in that country, and particularly the seventies,
playing the rather straight laced but a little wild Terry Funk, not in terms
of a Funk that had graduated to the bread and circuses of exploding barbed wire
and thumb tacks and all of that, but a guy who certainly swung a
chair with a little more fervor than the Japanese wrestling public was used to seeing
and staring across the ring from weapon toading maniacs that the Japanese public was just
beginning to wrap their heads around, like the Sheikh Abdullah, the Butcher and
Bruiser Brody so wild. So we're gonna better understand why these guys took a
Japanese wrestling scene that initially, of course, was predicated on the Japanese heroes
dispatching the menacing and ugly and overbearing foreign wrestlers, mostly cast as Americans,
coming to Japan and getting their come upance for all of the tension and all
of the lingering hostility around of course, World War Two, to a country
in a circuit under the eye of a giant Baba, of course, promoting
All Japan Pro Wrestling, and Antonio and ok promoting New Japan Pro Wrestling upon
their split from the initial JWA organization in nineteen seventy two to form All Japan
and New Japan, respectively. A country that starts to see that the public
can really be drawn in to American versus American can really be drawn into cheering
and rooting on an American like Terry Funk against a menace just the same as
they could root on in Anoki or a native born star. And in fact,
yeah, yeah, it happens right before our eyes, and it happens
in no small part because of Terry Funk, because well, Dorriyfunk certainly goes
to Japan and does his thing, and it was a phenomenal thing, and
it was a perfect fit for the emerging jab any strong style and the highly
technical style of Anocchi and others. It was Funk, who I think Terry
that is that showed that glimmer of the wider aperture of what the Japanese wrestling
appetite could look like. You know, sort of not just taking for granted
that they wanted to sit there in their suits and ties and studiously watch exchanges
of holes and you know, basically like a facsimile of Olympic wrestling or judo
competition, but no that they could also be completely blown away and horrified by
hyper violence and come back just like the bloodthirsty crowds we've seen in the rings
of Texas and the territorial era. Just like those screaming old ladies that we
saw in that Houston wrestling footage from from the early seventies. I fucking loved
that. That was amazing. And the people that come to stab Dorry Dory
Senior or naturally not him and Amarilla, but you know, if he were
to go to Houston or people that looked to stab Iron, Mike d Bias
or Killer Carl Cox or whoever might be standing across the ring from you know
the Funks where where they were gods in New Mariilla in West Texas. It's
Terry Funk that really went over there, and with the help of some of
the villains I just mentioned, it sort of demonstrated that there was just as
much of an appetite for that Texas style wild fighting in a pro wrestling ring
in Japan as there was in the United States, and many people were able
to make a living in a legend in that country, and no small part
because of a lot of the matches we're going to be talking about that Terry
Funk had through the seventies that kind of laid that bear admitted obvious so I
mean that that, to me is why Terry Funk's in a class a few
others, Because even a Rick Flair, who had success in Japan and had
many big time matches in Japan, even a Rick Flair cannot come close to
claiming the level of resonance and influence and stature and impact in Japan. So
if you want to say Rick Blair is the greatest wrestler of all time,
I completely understand the case. But if the greatest is sort of like a
composite of making outsized impacts everywhere you went, Funk's got Flair beat on that.
Wow, I mean, Hogan is close, But I think because the
as we'll get to, the extra garnishment on this dish is that Funk not
only went in the ring in Japan and revolutionized what it could look like and
how guidgins could be perceived, but further than that, he was the goddamn
booker of all Japan pro wrestling. Giant Boba himself entrusted Terry and Dorri Fuck
yes, wow. And it's for a lot of different political reasons, you
know, based on where all Japan stood visa via the National Wrestling Alliance at
a time when Dori Funk Senior's influence over the NWA was still substantial, and
it just made a ton of sense, as we'll talk about, to build
that alliance for a pipeline of American talent out of Amarillo to go into all
Japan that Terry was put in the position. But the level of trust,
the level of ability to puppeteer the entire Japanese wrestling scene was just amazing for
somebody who wasn't Japanese. Hmm. And Terry Funk, you know, because
he was able to not only thrive in the rings of Japan, but in
fact author Japanese wrestling in a substantial way. He was also able to appreciate
something that's always been true about the business, which is the Japan And he
basically authored this insight Japan is basically five to ten years ahead of the United
States when it comes to how the business is going to evolve, how the
inn ring style is going to evolve, how the tastes and preferences of the
fans are going to evolve. And yeah, we sit here today after the
rise of you know, Tanahshi and stuff, and everybody sling blades and everybody
does middle ring elbow wars. You know, it's all. It all continues
to be true of the things that Terry Funk said about the cycles because he
was in a unique vantage point. You know, nobody else operated in as
many circles as Terry Funk. It wore as many hats as Terry Funk did
to be able to see so many different perspectives from an office. So I
can blame Japan for that fuck an awful mid ring battle. Oh yeah,
exchanging elbows like that, Oh yeah, totally, that's like the strong style,
who's gonna fall first, prideful exchange. I mean, I'm sure it's
like we're done way better in Japan. I can see Kobashi really doing that.
Well, I'll do it Chops too. Yeah yeah, but fucking price
is the worst thing. Like Americans just like idiots doing it they do they
do. Yeah, yeah, I agree. The but you know, the
style comes from comes from Japan, who who it lays it out first,
you know, And we're going to see a lot of that from what Terry
Funk does in Japan versus what he'll do in the States. As the way
this is going to evolve now is we're going to sort of take chapters of
the Lapsed Funk not just in strict chronological order, but in a thematic way.
So episodes are going to be about, you know, telling the broad
brush story of his key feuds and key milestones in his career. Yes,
no matter how forward or backwards that takes us in the timeline. And if
we're going to be funking in Japan, we've got to turn to Fumisaido,
who is of course, of course, obviously I was going to say,
we'd better be Yeah, where's Fumi at? If you don't know, Fumi
is you know, pretty much like the ultimate Japanese wrestling fan in terms of
like English speaking, and he became a power broker in his own right in
terms of being a translator and a liaison between the main Japanese wrestling offices and
American territories and American wrestlers, and befriended just about every American wrestler that became
anything in Japan, and was trusted and relied upon by the Japanese offices to
be able to provide translation and reach a handout. He actually, I believe,
came to college and in the United States and went to college in Minnesota
because he thought the a w A was so awesome that he he wanted to
go there, my god. And he became a media member in Japan and
was involved in a lot of publications and stuff and how these guys were covered.
But more than anything, he became an incredibly close friend Terry Funk.
And because he's so prolific in terms of, you know, doing podcasts and
doing interviews and doing articles and things, and because he's bilingual in the unique
way that being bilingual and being able to speak the language of pro wrestling is
rare. You know, It's hard enough to find somebody that is bilingual English
Japanese that's sort of interviewable and discoverable sometimes on a subject matter. But a
pro wrestling expert that has that kind of depth, you got to qualify.
It's the best we can do. You know. It's not like it's not
like we can translate every word that's been written in Japanese newspapers and books in
the Japanese language interviews about the scene around Terry Funk and bring that to you.
But we don't have to because of someone like a Fumisaido, who,
if you don't know, does a podcast with Jim Valley on the Wrestling Observer
site that's always terrific where they talk about you know, sort of his unique
vantage point behind the scenes of Japanese wrestling and really, you know, gives
insights to that other nobody else would really be able to provide in the clean
English that he does. And of course, after the passing of Terry Funk,
Jim and Fumi sat down to record a podcast about Fumi's reflections on you
know, always welcoming Terry Funk warmly when he came to the country, and
not only that, but also being witnessed as just a fan initially in the
seventies to Terry Funk becoming the folk hero. He sat there in the in
the arenas and watched Terry Funk become the American that the Japanese fell in love
with. So we're going to turn to Fumi in again highest recommendation that you
check out the podcast that they did. It's behind the paywall, I believe,
at Wrestling Observer dot com, but definitely worth checking out that and other
episodes that Fumi has done because there's so much that we can appreciate that the
nuance and color and texture of because of him. And let's start with a
little bit of a sketch. This is kind of high level of course of
him talking about why Terry Funk became the folk hero he was in the country
of Japan. What Terry Funk is. It's a long story that in Japan
started nineteen seventy all the way to like a till today. Probably the Terry
legacy never died, and he grew older, you know, and grew really
old in from out, I mean in from the audience if you're with you
know, with audience fans like every summer all the end of seventies into the
early eighties and eighty three, some of eighty three to be exact. August
thirtieth of ninety eighty three, Terry Funk retired in Japan for the first time.
Okay, there was a group of fans, a group of his popularly
peaked against seventy seven to eighty three, like a real strong five year period
that Terry Funk era that if we go to the hotel and down the lobby
and hotel three four hundred five hundred kids wrestling fans waiting for the Funks down
a hotel lobby. You know what I'm saying. That's that's really popular.
And Terry Funk Dory Funk more like Terry Funk real friendly that he signed our
graph each and every one of these kids sign the get picture taken sign or
ograph get picture taken right until the last kid wow every time. And that
wasn't typically common that you would get an American right whose stock in trade is
coming to Japan and basically being the foreign menacing heel and had had all the
excuses in the world to not embrace the Japanese wrestling public, to walk past
the autograph seekers, to not take the time to develop any kind of bond.
You know, you could be like a duel with the butcher who doesn't
matter who he's working for. He's headed to the hotel to drink a glass
of milk anyway and have a cigar. But but Funk, you know from
the beginning, because I think because he understood what it meant to run a
territory from his father. He had. You know, guys that grow up
under their father running a territory just have a better sense of like the community
relations component. You know, you hear about my grant. I just wrestled
a man who need a glass of milk. I gotta replenish. I loved
you in spaceballs, Abby, I have to replenish. Can you imagine the
way his stomach activates with dairy? It goes down, It just it finds
a little pit, disgusting, and then it starts to sizzle. Oh,
you know what, I gotta take a ship. You don't say, but
I don't want to move. Well, I guess we're all just gonna have
to sit here and see what happens. It's funny Abby comes up because one
of the things Dave Meltzerz talked about reflecting on Funks passing is that you know
he would he would get together with Terry when they went to Japan, and
he'd kind of follow him around sometimes and spend some time with him, and
Funk would be in positions where he'd be around people he was feuding with in
the ring, and for the most part, you know, there is a
way to kind of not be too warm to each other but still protect k
Fabe in that you know, you can be next to each other and not
have to attack each other. It's not that ridiculous, like right, But
Abby was the exception to that. He said, If Terry Funk ever saw
Abdullah the butcher in public in Japan. They had to throw down. They
had they had to at least scream at each other or make some kind of
scene. And well, as we get to the matches that define Terry Funk's
how doula, I see you're sitting over there, and I'm gonna tell you
right now you better put down my goddamn sushi or I'm gonna kick your ass.
I'm not putting down. There's no chance. Well, it depends what
you mean by put it down. I'll put on the just go and go
down my belly. I mean, let's be clear about that. I'm putting
it down. Putting it downsa. And that's the Japanese loved Terry Funk because
he was nice to them. Yeah, that's all it takes. Be nice,
big. It's a lesson for so many fucking uh, for so many
different professions and people. Be nice. So true, not from the very
beginning, because that wasn't what the job called for from the very beginning,
but he figured it out. It seems to me earlier than most that like
there was a way to be a babyface as an American to the Japanese public
that simply involved showing them that you were not engaging with them as Marx,
not engaging with them as people like you know, crazy Americans who are coming
to Japan have wild experiences and basically looked at the people there as sort of
like features in a theme park. Yep, like features in a theme park,
but instead, you know, human beings, fans, people that wanted
to know you, and and as and as we know about the Japanese wrestling
fans, people that will stick with you way longer than American wrestling fans will.
That's all sure. That's another thing Terry Funk illuminated is just how much
more legs there is. Ask a Stan Hands and ask anybody who had,
you know, thirty years of high earning power in Japan, just because the
Japanese wrestling public has such a longer memory and is so much more forgiving as
you age that you can't be quite what you used to be. But they're
not going to heckle you out of the building. It's just not going to
happen. That's not how it how it how it works. Well, they're
missing out though, when you think about it. Yeah, that is kind
of a fun part of being wrestling. He got his Terry came up against
that DW yeah right, and was able to what we ECW did. What
who? It's funny that that keeps happening, because wait till we get to
the Paradise Alley years right and the Rocky three years as anybody who's listening about
it to the cinema would. Now, we'll have you share with folks.
Boss from Terry Funk's book. Here a passage of kind of the scene,
the sort of feeling the temperature around American wrestlers in Japan when Funk first started
going over there, and how he played no small park in changing it.
The American wrestlers in Japan had always been the big heels, playing off the
very real animosity left over from World War Two. When I went over there,
the fans would bring up things for wrestlers to sign. The American wrestlers
would write insults like you look like you could eat Go ahead say it.
I don't understand why you started laughing. Got finish the sentence. You look
like you could eat salad out of the fruiture or something stupid like that.
You get that right, Terry brother? What stupid? Who? I mean?
That's exactly it. It's like you keep reading because you know that there's
nothing more pro wrestler than thinking you're getting something over on somebody. And the
whole time they're just like, uh, why are you being such a fucking
idiot, Like I know what you're doing. It's not you know what I
mean, You're not pulling the wool over my eyes. It's here's the realization.
Right here. I realized these Japanese fans weren't dumb. Yeah, they
could read the English we were writing. It was really something for them to
associate with an American wrestler. And so I signed all the autographs without the
stupid insults. I showed those fans I really cared about them, and they
appreciated it. The fans in Japan always reacted to wrestling differently than the fans
here. A lot of it was the way it was presented to them in
the ring and from the commentators. The sense of realism stretched from their training
to their booking. It created a domino effect from the promotion to the reporters
and then on to the people. We all lived and we're all part of
the suspension of disbelief. Yes, exactly. The fans were willing participants in
the fantasy, and that's what we lost in America. Yes, oh yes,
I mean we still you know, go to the arenas and cheer like
the matches are unfolding, but we go to see what people are going to
do, not to see who's going to win, and we see what choices
the booking committees have, writers have chosen, right, that washes over our
experience. Yeah, if you don't believe in what you're doing, the fans
won't. One time, Bruiser Brodie and I were to appear on a Japanese
television talk show. When we got there, they were making fun of the
business, with one of Baba's boys sitting right there, laughing right along.
We looked at each other and both said pretty much the same thing. Fuck
this shit, We're getting the hell out of here. We weren't just gonna
sit there while these guys sat there and made fun of what we did to
make our livings, messing with a suspension of disbelief that was such a key
to our business. They were going to present us as a couple of phony,
blowney wrestlers. We got up and left. You might think that storm
enough as TV set like that would have hurt us in the public eye,
but it did nothing but help To this day, I think that suspension of
disbelief is important. Yes, I know Vince McMahon sat in the courtroom in
nineteen eighty nine and said it was all predetermined so he wouldn't have to pay
taxes to the Athletic Commission, and before that no one knew. Yeah,
right, exactly. Certainly, I had no question about it in the eighteen
hundreds, as as we've talked about at nauseum. I know the wrestlers do
interviews on talk shows and in magazines every week talking about it as entertainment.
And I know that if you were to ask the guy next to you if
wrestling was fake, he'd say, oh, sure of course. But if
I were sitting next to the same guy, we'd get to talking and we'd
be talking with a suspension of disbelief with his Guys, what you need,
I mean, I'm talking to you, but I'm gonna go ahead and talk
to you with the suspension of disbelief. Still in talking to you right now,
I'm going to suspend disbelief. I guess it's better than suspending other things.
But yeah, like that's the thing. Like, because Funk adopted this
warm persona to the fans. He was able to keep k fabe and still
be a personable human being, you know, even though he had his moments
where he was wild and crazy and would act that way in Japan, his
his countenance was such that he could carry himself like a respectable athlete would and
still kind of keep k fabe because that's what the Japanese public understood his character
to be. I mean, that's pretty remarkable that that that that that was
the case, because I mean, you know, you kind of you kind
of aggressor today wish they had that fucking power. Yeah, that's it.
They just they don't have to. They don't have to learn this to survive
like they used to, and so they kind of don't. But then they
lose. Then they lose. Uh. It's like people don't get invested in
it as much, you know, I mean, and it takes a village.
Like if one guy comes and does it, it's it's going to be
drowned out. While all the other guys who just you know, become themselves
when they deal with fans on the road and don't keep the gimmick in mind,
and let's all lie to each other. That's Terry's point. It's not
just the talent line to the Marks, it's the Marx line to the talent,
right, it's the Marx who know it's fake, pretending to the wrestlers
that they are who they portray on television when they see them in person.
That's what makes wrestling unique. These characters you can confront them in real life.
On like comic book characters and movie superheroes, you can see them or
even or or even athletes. Yeah, sure, you know you can't.
You can't really confront an athlete in public and say you're fucking asshole. You
know, well, the athletes, you know, sometimes they take on a
life for their own, but they're not paid to portray characters in the same
way. So it's like, yeah, you're you're probably going to see the
same person if you do meet the athlete that you see on the on the
on the field or on the screen. Right. But with wrestling, there's
like this bargain of like, no, the person we fell in love with
is who you portray on camera and so and also you don't you'ren't necessarily threatened
by them. Again, like you know, if you say, if you
call, if you call an athlete a piece of shit, they might kick
your ass because they're they're legitimately pissed off at you, right, Whereas if
you call like a wrestler piece of shit, that's what they kind of do
their job for, right, And you're like excited at how they're going to
react because you know their job is to react to that in a way that
keeps the illusion running. And they never they never let that slip, They
never let that fall too far into into the background. And it doesn't have
to be this way. I mean, everyone can make plenty of money if
it's not this way. I'm just saying, we're we lost an awful lot
when that part of the business went away. Yep. And I think the
lessons of Funk, as we go through the many iterations of TL here speak
to this loud and clear. Here's a guy that everybody credits with always being
ahead of the curve in the business, with embracing the fact that you know,
eventually they all came to be known as entertainers and saw the merit and
every generation's evolution of the business and understood that, you know, the wrestler's
job is to respond to what the public is telling them they want to see
out of wrestling and then providing it to them. But at the same time,
he is the most eloquent defender of the way it used to be of
anyone I've ever heard. So if you're going to celebrate Funk for his evolution,
you also have to celebrate him for the things he made very clear about
the the elements that made it better. Yeah, I mean, and what
better? What you know that? That's it? The elements make it better?
Brother? Ah? What was I Oh? No, Uh, that's
what we wanted to keep with our fans. They knew in their heart a
heart, so what they were watching was not purely competitive sport. It's in
no way competitive sport. Right, you're not competing. But if everyone agrees
that, we're going to pretend you are, Yes, what's the difference.
That's fine, But we maintain that suspension, whether it was in the ring
or walking around in the street. Today, someone asked me about wrestling,
and I'll say it's entertainment, but that's about it. I'll take the conversation
somewhere else because the more I talk, the more I'm afraid I'll be destroying
their fun and emotional investment in watching it. Whether I like to admit it
or not, I am something of a cartoon character from years of appearing on
television as a wrestler. I'm not talking about the guy I go and buy
feed from what feed for his animals? I suppose is what he's talking about.
I guess, But what the it or the waitress who brings my brings
me my eggs? Benedict. Yes, he's definitely a Benedict fan. I
definitely believe he's a Benedtt fan. I think, I think, yeah,
he has an order, fucking loves Hollands. Terry had an order, yep,
you know, and the diner was not far from the Double Cross,
and yep they knew, you know. But could I housk a favor?
Could I get three instead of just the two? Well, like a like
a a menu that's like laminated, Oh yeah, laminated. It's like and
it's it's like four inches tall and three inches wide and it's got you know,
they may have they may have a special on Saturday or Sunday like,
but other than that, what is on the menu. It's like got like
maybe fifteen items total, like a picture of eggs. Yep, yep,
yep, it's like written in fucking typed font you know you know you know
one ahead, and you know you know, you know, you know you
know I want I want ahead, and you know I ordered I ordered eggs
bend it know I got eggs bended it. Continue to serenade me, Terry,
serenade me. You know, sometimes you order a dish you don't know
what you're gonna get. But it's a happy accident when you do order something
and it comes out the way you ordered. That's something he would say with
complete sincerity. You know, sometimes you order a dish and you don't know
what you're gonna get. One time I ordered a dish and the damn cable
company came instead. I would see what does he mean by the guy who
buys his feed from Let let's try to get to the bottom of this,
all right, I'm talking with is or the hope of the waitress. Uh,
I'm talking about the fan to that fan, I'm not a guy who
buys feed or orders expandedict I'm the person that fan sees on TVs. So
he's talking about the difference of how he communicates to somebody that is a wrestling
fan in real life versus somebody who's just in his life because they're a waitress
or because they help. How does he know who a fan is? Though,
Well, the waitress could be a fan. If you're a pro wrestler
and you're a superstar wrestler and you talk to somebody and they never mention wrestling
or never say are you Terry Funk, you could probably take a good guess
that they just see you as a as a guy. I would think,
yeah, I suppose I'm the person, and I have to remember that it's
pretty hard for some people to understand, even in this day and age,
that maintaining even a fraction of that sense of mystery is the key to our
business. Can you see that last sentence again? In nice and slow so
it sinks in. It's important. It's pretty hard for someone This is good,
this one. Uh, maintaining even a fraction hold on. I gotta
find the right thing. Oh man, I didn't difficult. Okay, here
here go. Maintaining even a fraction of that sense of mystery is the key
to our business. One more time, please, Maintaining even a fraction of
that sense of mystery is the key to our business. The lessons of Funk
carry on the wrestlers have to have a mystique about them. The fan has
to wonder, is this guy really the guy I see on TV? Now,
I'm not saying that the Heel even back then, needed to be the
world's shittiest person everyone he met all day long, but he didn't need to
expose himself completely and destroy his facade either. Does that go for Dory Junior
too? I can't help but sometimes expose myself. Oh so, Jerry's coming
out with the second book. So now on the laps T Funk, we're
going to do the first of what we're going to do a whole lot of
screen sharing. Okay, easy for me to say. This is definitely a
hallmark of under the cinemat as the boss is and wonderful about sharing key clips
along the way, and that's how we're going to march through the in ring
career and the provoker of Terry Funk. I'm going to curate from the sort
of endless supply of Terry Funk footage that's available out there, the key beats
along the way, and you're going to be able to hear the audio of
the videos we'll be watching, and where possible, of course, we'll try
to direct you, as we do cinemat style, to places on the web,
you know, typically YouTube, that you can find some of these clips.
So we're going to start with what Terry Funk looked like to the Japanese
wrestling public the first time he went to the country in nineteen seventy. And
it wasn't the it wasn't the all japan superhero. It was this this sort
of punk, blonde haired American who is out there being a rascal to help
his brother keep the world's heavyweight championship against the Japanese. Hear so weird,
It is so weird and disarming. You know, we were talking about what
seeing those articles in the newspapers about Terry Funk playing football, and you were
remarking just how different he looks in the football uniform. Yeah, totally.
I mean all you know, any honestly, anything pre like nineteen eighty five
is just weird to me. Honestly, you know what it is, it's
everything, It's all the years leading up to when he had facial hair.
Yeah, the facial hair actually really is the defining characteristic I think. Yeah,
that is a key. I mean, yes, there is the there
is the the greasy, you know, stringy hair as well. But I
think mostly it's the facial hair without the facial hair, because I even think
about when I when I played you that that little clip show of Funks acting
choices. There's that one that I think about where he played the cop and
he looks like a complete dufus and he's almost unrecognizable without the facial hair.
That is true. There is right there is facial hair Terry Funk, and
there is pre and yeah, forget that, how about like baby fat Terry
Funk. You know, I mean, that's the Paradise Alley right there.
Indeed, and this is a full eight years before even that. So what
we're gonna watch it available on YouTube is a nineteen seventy NWA World's Heavyweight title
match between Dori Funk Junior defending against Antonio Andoki. And so this is pre
the formation of New and All Japan in nineteen seventy two. This is when
Enoki and Baba we're still working under the same umbrella for basically, you know,
the largest, uh definitely the largest wrestling organization in Japan, the foundational
one in so many ways, and while Dori is the one conducting business in
the ring. It's Terry Funk, this blonde kid, you know, playing
all these fucking games to advantage his brother, that brings the magic to the
match. And I think there's so much here in terms of understanding what Terry
Funk to the presentation every time he was out there, even when he wasn't
wrestling. I mean, if you can make Dory Funk juniors matches that much
more interesting, that says a lot about you. Because Dorry is, While
he's a wonderful technician to watch in the ring, all the color is because
Terry, Terrylor, He's the one that figures out, like you know,
I have to be the devil on the shoulder. I have to be the
cane to the able. I have to be the brother that is just the
complete rascal. And it's as we've talked about from the very beginning of the
upbringing of this family. It's not too far removed from the actual dynamic between
them growing up and Amilla. You know, Terry was that rascal. He
was that risk taker, he was that wild child, while Dorry was you
know, he was straight lace, but he's conniving. He was an achiever.
He was not somebody he wasn't a wallflower that was just going to sort
of go along to get along. Dorry was going to get his and he
was going to make sure he was on top. But he was going to
do it in a way where he never really had to shout and scream.
And what happens is, as this will illustrate, and as we go forward,
it becomes clear that Terry does all the screaming, and as over as
Dory was and the many territories he went as touring defending n WA World Champion,
I would argue that it was Terry Funk that made him an actual draw
wow, and that Terry went in first to try to knock off the challenger,
creating interest in the local market. As to this guy that turned away,
Dorry's brother, who is basically his mercenary. And so when Dorry comes
in there, there's this sort of like feeling of this guy. Yeah,
he looks like a total sportsman and he's a great technician and he's the world's
champion. He deserves our respect. He carries himself with somebody who won't cut
corners or anything like that, but he kind of does because he only shows
up once someone tried to do his dirty work for him. And so with
that kind of overlaying the match, any little hint in a Dory match that
he cut a little corner, grabbed the rope on a submission, you know,
took a little bit of an advantage of the referees count, you know,
pounced on a guy when he was looking the other way, took a
cheap shot. He didn't have to do a lot of them. He'd have
to heal on a guy like a big, burly, maniacal wrestling heel that
we think of the stereotype. He had to do just a little bit because
the seed had already been planted, that this guy is surrounded by his support
structure and his crazy ass father and his crazy ass brother that would have killed
this challenger that Dorry's in the ring with right now on Dorry's command essentially,
And when Dorry kind of shows those little hints of healed them, it drives
the people absolutely nuts. And he doesn't have to be a great hero.
He doesn't have to be a great promo, which he certainly was not.
He doesn't have to be a great heel. He's gonna have to know how
to work as a heel. Really, he just needs to do a little
something here and there and still be Dori Funk. And it's because of all
the work put in by Terry ahead of time and into his father to some
degree when he was still alive that made it magic and made it much more
than just a wonderful display of catches catch can but something that had that sort
of subtext to it. And this is how how that dynamic was exported to
the rings of Japan, because Terry funk Is is very much ringside for this
defense that Dori Funk Junior makes against Antonio Minoki. And so find it on
YouTube if you want to follow along. I'm going to share my screen with
the boss man. Here watch some select clips that I think illustrate what it
is I'm talking about. Can you see that? All right? I see
it? See it along for the ride and there with me, folks,
as I position. The first clip will come at the thirteen forty seven mark
as an Oki and Funk here in the ring exchanging pleasantries. But I'm going
to align the audio, so what you see here? Tell the folks what
you see here? I see is that Funk from the bottom. No,
that's an OK, But you think that's an ok standing up a balding white
guy. That's Funk on top. That's Dorry Funk. That's do Funk.
Oh okay a Dory Funk. Yeah, this is Dory Funk versus Antony Younok
to be clear with Terriot ringside. I see, So what does it look
like he's got on? I mean, it looks like he's got on like
a figure four of sorts or some kind of leg maneuver. Does it look
to you that Dorry is the one executing or Anocchi is the one executing for
actually fucking know at all? They so the way they let up to it
is no, I'm gonna say it's gonna be Dorry who's because the referee is
looking on the ground there rcked. So it's Dorry who's basically he's got like
an Indian deathlock standing and Anoch's on the bottom and it's like his legs are
being tied up in the figure four position against his will and he's trying to
find a way out, and Dorry's got a you know, he's got a
technical submission on. But here is that little hint of chicanery that I talked
about. So if you're following along on this video. This is from j
w A, the Japanese Wrestling Association, August second, nineteen seventy. Dory
Funk Junior versus Toni and ok. Let's taking a quick clip of the Funker
that we all are going to become so acquainted with playing a role here Story
working the lake and look at that Story grabs the rope. Hear him.
They protest that Dory is grabbing the rope and look at him. Waved his
brother over all right, level not watching Dory. Watch his hand? Who's
that in the bottom left? I see him? Look at him? Look
at that that rascal reach out for the hand. What I didn't do?
Nothing, just sitting around chewing dip. Look at him so subtle, so
subtle. What do we see there? Dons and terrences and terrence and it
was it was almost nothing, but it was so it's just like you know,
you know, just the hand gestures like waiting for it's it's it's again.
It's in these small details. When you got people, when you have
fans really focusing on every little thing that you're doing, you can really work
with those incredible little nuances because that's where that's where the money's fucking made right
there is that you know, you know, the fans know where Terry is,
the fans know what Dory is trying to do, and he just does
that little hand gesture Terry tries to hand him. I don't look like a
cassette tape. I don't know what the fuck it was. But then you
know, he get they get caught briefly in or at least they don't get
caught, but they get close to being caught, and so he's gonna he's
gonna walk away exactly. And there's Terry out there with the big blonde head
and he's just like he's got this bright orange jump soon on, looking like
nails almost, and he's just now, where's the DOC number? He's He's
just a factor. He's a factor. That's what we can say about Terry.
Yep. And so further along in the match at the twenty seven to
forty three mark, and Nokia has re entered the ring after being thrown to
the floor by doors. It's really an hour long match. Oh yeah,
holy shit, sixty minute time limit, as were so many NWA World Championship
matches in the seventies. That was kind of what the job acquired is that
you could do those all over the world. And and here we're going to
see a Nook firing up, a bit frustrated, a bit getting stepping to
him, and Funk playing a role again that is Terry good Dory beg off.
Look at him on his on his bike. What a piece of ship.
He hits the floor and he goes to confer with his brother. Look
at him, Wow, hold on much, you know, you know,
hold on what you so another glimpse there is Dorry dances away from the approach
of a nok, hits the floor like no, no, no, no,
no, no, no no. And people aren't booing him like a
chicken shit heel like you know, no you would an American wrestling territory.
But they're being very observant of the fact that he's avoiding the fight. And
he goes over and confers and conspires with Terry. And if Terry's not there,
Dory doesn't have that ability to tell that story in the match. No,
And I mean it's it's like again, what's interesting, like you pointed
out, is that they're not booing, right and what they're but but what
he is, he's not like necessarily a bad uh like a like a bad
guy per se. I mean, he's certainly the heel, but instead what
he is is he is a sneaky wrestler and he's not going to, you
know, if he can't win, but on his own, he's going to
win anyway by any means necessary. Absolutely correct. So the next point you
want to jump to in the video is thirty one twenty three is again Terry
is going to show us how it's done from ringside, and here we go,
all right, mhm, story ramming and ok in the corner, hooks
himtuple under hook. That was the finish. Is he gonna do it?
He got him butterfly suplex by Dory funk Rock and Occhi's under the Ring cover
two three. He got him first fall the Dory wow, a fast count
by the referee. I say, there's Terry right in there between falls,
consulting with Dory. Is that Dory funkers at gerald Ford? That was a
good one. Very seventies. Take a beer, Give a fucking beer,
he is, yeah, he had a he had a glass beer bottle.
Did Dori funk a swig from a glass beer bottle? Between rounds? So
the first ball goes to Dory and just I can't I just can't stop describing
a Terry Funk. I never thought he looked like this ever in his career,
and I certainly didn't think video existed. We talked about him so uncomfortable.
It makes me feel so uncomfortable. Why is that? Because he's not
looking the way he's supposed to. He's not looking like a rundown old man.
It's it's, you know, he's another one of those guys, except
he you know, he's not perpetually forty. He's like perpetually fifty five,
absolutely, and I think that's that's what he should always be. And to
see him actually like because even in the WWE and like the in eighty five,
he looked like he was fifty five, you know, yeah, so
he's it didn't look like a young man. Ever. That's what's so kind
of wild about his whole career is like, wherever you choose to check in
on his run, there's a whole different Terry Funk that you don't even know
about, that you don't really see, that doesn't compute with who he is
now. And this is really, I think as early as you're going to
get in that journey for Terry Funk in terms of like the video view of
what he's like. So the next stop on our journey is at the thirty
seven thirty seven mark in the video where we're going to see more involvement here
in the second fall best two out of three here against Pinocchi of Terry and
here we go your story hooking and ok and tossing him through the ropes to
the floor on a he'll move, you know, just no. But he
threw him out right near Terry And look at Terry lord over the body.
Is he going to do something, Joey? Is he not going to do
something? Cheering on Dorry lifting the arm. It just seems like a different
era that Terry didn't belong to. And he's right there. No Dory in
the ring now waiting for he injured. An Oke was slammed into the table
to re enter and then to the other side of the ring, tosses him
right out the other side. That's right, count victory, still a victory,
and Terry is mosied on over to that side of the ring as well.
I better believe it. Face version at the table goes in Oke.
Dory waiting pensively taking his time. Man. Look at the amount of breathing
room between engagement, so to speaks got to be He goes, he got,
He's got him on for the Uther again lifts oh, but this time
an Ok dead waits him. An Oki trying to lift up from the legs,
trying to back drop out of this, Dory hits the canvas, Anoch
bridges on top one two No, the kickout, back up an Ok,
German serplex a Jesus two three, and Oki takes the second fall German suplex
on the German Funk, the the FJA, the FJA. Dory completely out
of sorts at being having the wool pulled out, the rug pulled out from
under him. Now Terry Funk in the ring between falls, consoling Dory Junior
pacing showing panically. This complained to the ref about a trunk pull. I
saw it, son of a bitch, American look at him. As we
enter the third and deciding fall and a rather classic n w A World title
match between these two. We're gonna move now for those following it home to
the fifty three twenty four, aren't. We're about to bring this one home
and again valuable because it's really the first glimpse we get on video that I
found of Terry Funk in the seventies, in the early seventies and the you
know, the first five six years of his career. It's just so weird
to see him, i mean, act like a wrestler as opposed to just
a a brutal fighter. Yes, you know, yeah, I kind of
know what you mean. Extrapolate though, Like you know, I just don't
ever think of him as as being, you know, just like an actual,
like a technical style wrestler. But that's clearly what he's what he's going
for. He's very clean cut, he's very he doesn't have that dirty Texas
vibe about him, no yet, right, you know, he seems very
athletic. Yeah, he's out there in like a like a trainer jumpsuit,
right exactly. He's he's looking the same as just you know, any new
japan dojo trainee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that's what's hard
for people to know about Terry Funk's early years is is the aura he gave
off and how different it was from the one that became his calling card in
the second half of his career. And the thing is, he was just
as successful, if not more so, in that first half. People think,
because he had such great longevity, that the tail end of his career,
when he had the highest amount of exposure in terms of American television,
was the his best years. And we're about to learn. I think over
the early stages of this Laps Trunk journey that that was not necessarily the case.
This is in many ways his best stuff. Sonoki's back on the floor
and look at Terry inches from Anoki. Will he will? He won't he?
And Noki gets back in the ring. Dory with the European uppercuts that
he took from Billy Robinsons side headlock Liahoki. Now Funk pushing off the look
at that, Funk snatches his Terry Funk snatches his ankle. List of the
people, No, he didn't do anything. They want his head. I
thought these were respectful, studious And then Dory whips and oke to the floor
again. He fucking cowers away from the Terry Funk. So funny, Ah,
he's going to town. He's going No, but the referee caught Terry
Funk throwing blows and he stopped immediately and now sauntering around the ring like he's
the most innocent man in the country of Japan, is he not? I
have an oke back up in the apron, dory driving him into the buckling
from the apron. Now open hands slapped by the champion. Tonyook re Enter
starts calling to the gut. Looks like the turnucles. Look like a sausage.
You'd find it at a at a butcher. Yeah, wow, article
souplex, and Ok floats over ladder of press cover two. No, No,
that's how crazy people went for him coming up with a soup lex.
I mean it's a fucking soup flex back up and Occhi coming alive with a
big that's disqualification. Nor he sails over the top of the floor. No
bell, No, that wasn't a disqualification in Japan. All right out of
the floor, right in front of Terry Funk, Dorian and Oki battling,
trading, and look at this Terry intervening, trying to tend to his brother.
Now Antonio and Oki has a cornerman too. I'm not quite sure who
it is. It's not like it's totally without reason that Terry would be allowed
to second him battle spilling back up onto the apron. Now Dory smashing and
OKI's head against the ring apron. Hey, that's right back in Dory with
the European uppercuts side headlock push off by an Occhi, they collide hands and
hit the hit the canvas, black trunks, black boots. Right, Yep,
there's Terry and bright orange pensive at the ringside. Here we go,
nice snap mare air by the by the Funker. He misses the yellow drop
does Dory. An Occhi looks to capitalize with the cover one two not enough
it wow, the big head butt floors and Oki it's tenny. Bring this
one home and all of its glory over the fifty nine to twenty six mark.
For those looking to follow along, this is how this glimpse at a
at a truly bygone era comes to a conclusion and bossible impressions. Just you
know, it's not exactly about Terry, who's in a lot of ways stealing
the show at ringside, but just impressions as you watch Dory work. I'm
not sure you've had a lot of time to watch him. I mean,
listen, the extent of my of my experience with Dory Funk Junior is the
nineteen ninety five or six Royal Rummel, whichever one he's in. Yeah,
that's him and Fresno in ninety six. Yeah, that's that's it pretty much.
That's what I that's I must say. You know, maybe I probably
have seen a WWWE match maybe was he Maybe did they team up at Wrestlingia
two together? Two of them? Yep? All right, so that yeah,
that like but very very I mean, I'll say this, I've never
seen his good stuff. What are you seeing when you do watch him?
See? I mean, listen, I'm actually very impressed by him. Honestly,
he always came across as a goof to me, but it's I actually
enjoy his his very simple but yep, at the same time, a very
he's got that quality, you know, that quality that we've talked about in
those days where he just it looks like a real fight. Yep, it
looks like a real fight. He looks like a guy who's like faced so
many tough guys that he's he's he's playing the odds, he's looking to conserve
his energy. Like Yep, he's purposely going slowly. It's not yep,
it's not boring that he's going slowly. It's completely sensible that he is because
he's the world champion, and goddamn it, every time they put him in
there, they put him in there with some you know, kick ass cardio
machine that's going to test him in every conceivable way. And that's why the
world title was such a shoot in the seventies was because you actually had to
be able to do this. You actually had to be good enough to go
this long everywhere, all the time with any manner of opponent and not blow
up and produce and keep it looking wild yep, and be tough enough that
if some promoter tried to, you know, pull a fast one and take
the title from you in the ring, which had happened in the NWA a
few times, that you could conduct yourself and that you could stop the guy
from making you look like an idiot and stealing the belt or beating the shit
out of you or something like that. So that is a lot of qualities
and characteristics that you need to have in one guy. That's why it was
such. It was so rare to be considered a candidate for the world title
because so few in the business had that full array. And when they gave
it to guys like Dusty Rhodes and Tommy Rich. That's why it was just
for a week or two before you know, Crockett took over the whole thing.
Because those guys didn't have those qualities. They necessarily couldn't go all around
the world and make other guys shine for our broadways and defend themselves if a
shooter, you know, try to break their ankle or something like that.
So it's really it really is in a lot of ways, it's a shoot
that these guys are world champion, and which makes it all the more remarkable
that brothers and do Orientarry the only two brothers to ever do it. Brother
we're both good enough and well rounded enough to be worthy of a strap in
there in their own respect. So here at the fifty nine to twenty six
more, we're gonna bring this one for Jerry Brisco. I know, yeah,
he was never even close. Here we go fifty nine to twenty six
mark, when bring this one home. Dorry versus an nooke with funk Terry
at ringside in Japan. Why's he going to the battle, it's just unfolding
fifty nine minutes He's going for the other hooks who play again and he scores
got it? And look at Terry lift his arms and locked hands to signal
that that was the finish. That is what he's looking for. That is
the move that he knows will devastate Anok. We've already seen it, but
this time. Thenoki kicks out. Now the crowd's like, all right,
where are we going to go? Now? Backup, Irish whip and Doki
off the ropes, kicks Dorries. He drops for a backdrop, and Dookie
scrambles for the lateral presently gets one two. Back up, now Dorry the
side headlock. Terry Funk with his hands on the apron, watching pensively as
his brother knocks down an Oke with a pair of shoulder blocks. Oh,
you walk through the octopus stretch, the abdominal stretch applied by an Ok.
Yeah, it's not the octopus, right, isn't the octopus? Yeah,
he doesn't have the leg over the head, the face and ship. He's
going for it though it looks like he's going for it. Tory gets the
ropes and hiptoses and Ok out of the ring to break the hold. That's
some ring awareness there, climbing back up. That's so god now and wrestling
using throwing your guy out of the ring as an offensive move Ye just standing
there and forcing him to use energy to get back up and climb back into
the ring and OK pulling Dory to the floor now and Dorry happy to oblige,
smashing an oke into the the ring side announced table again. His battle
of whales has re entered the fray to the full. Nelson goes Dory,
wearing down an oke in the center of the ring, bring him down and
locked in pretty solid there an OK, maybe out boss. I like how
Terry gets right there in front of the camera too every time, and he
said, I level looking for any sign of submisions from an OK. Yeah.
Those ring siders, man, those ringside cornermen can add so much intensity.
They give you the cues of how when to get excited. An OK
using kind of like a reverse drop kick, almost almost a mule kick to
break out of Dory funks full Nelson right in front of Terry, back up,
scooped by an oke and a slam cover count one back from another slam
Dory inside cradle and dropped down one another kick out. Both men spent splayed
on the canvas and double down position back up a hauling off funk answering it's
a slugfest, and Ok shifts to the abdominal stretch once again. Wow Dorry
again again, tossing an out right to the side of the ring that Terry
Funk is in, and as re enters the fray, the bell sounds one
fall apiece, third fall goes the time limit. It is a draw for
the world's title. There's Terry right in the ring conferring with his brother.
It's always so funny how many times n w A World title matches would ended
a draw. Oh yeah, that's how the world champ could come to your
area, defend, leave with the bell and not harm the guy. He
he wrestled. I'm looking like a It's like you work so hard to become
the guy they choose his world champion, but then you never really win again.
That's really true. Yeah, yeah, because your job is different now.
Your job is to make the rest of the NWA territories thrive. And
how do you do that by then Oki speaks to ringside announcers, how do
you do that by sparking hope and the locals right, so that when you,
as champ leave, territory is left with someone they're going to want to
see go for it next time. So that's Terry in nineteen seventy. That's
wild looking like a little punk kid from an archie cartoon, carousing ringside while
his brother takes center stage as the top man in the industry, is the
world champion here Justice and Tony and Oki is becoming the man in Japanese pro
wrestling. Just to just take a moment to consider the sprouting of international superstars
that Terry Funk Bear bore witness to to watch Baba become Baba, to watch
Anoki become Anoke, to watch his brother become world champion, through to the
Briscoes and Dusty and Flair and Jumbo Shiuda and Junichio Tenryu and Tiger Mask and
Sabu and m Cactus Jack. You get the point, like, there's there's
never been anybody that's had the kind of career that they could have the vantage
points that that Terry Funk did. And here watching Anok become anoke against his
brother and doing his part to make it to put a little sizzle on the
match, we got a chance to see that right then and there. So
we mentioned that this was in keeping with Terry's early tour of Japan. This
was not his absolute first tour, but we do have a bit of sound
related to his first tour of Japan. The first time he went over there.
Okay, it was the very first one was for Japan Pro Wrestling,
and it was right before they had their downfall and they had to split to
Baba and Minoki became Own Japan and New Japan, and it was it was
quite different. The crowds were quite different from today. Again, you know,
as we've gone through changes over there, we think we've gone through changes
over here. They've gone through dramatic changes over there, much more so than
we have here. Basically, no women in the crowds, you know,
which all of this stuff everyone has heard before. But I mean everybody's dressed
in black because they were all in business and they finished their business and go
to the arena and they'd have their ties there and their little fans and they
said turned fan time. Nobody would make a sound, and they'd clap once
in a while, and whenever you finished, they'd give you a big hand
and go on the next match. It was quite different. But I was
fortunate enough to be over there whenever times changed and times changed again, which
was a force change because business got down and they decided, well, you
know, we're going to have to put some Americans against Americans and some Japanese
against some Japanese. And before that was even unheard of, you know,
which is Japanese versus ugly American tour you know, yeah, big, and
you know we were the big, the big gorillas that came to Japan and
took over their country, and they were the sneaky little bastards and bomb Pearl
Harbor. I mean, that's how our people looked at Yeah. Well,
whenever they went out of that mode and that and made the change, I
was fortunate enough to be there and got over very well. So that's the
description of what the Bans were like when he first started going over there,
and the dynamic we spoke to earlier, what the Japanese saw in the American
wrestlers, and a dynamic that Terry Funk would then set about to change in
a lot of ways. On December seventh, nineteen seventy one, in Saporo,
the Funk's defeat the team of Giant Baba and Antonio and Noki. So
this just months before the split. Boba goes his way and Noki goes his
way to win the International Tag Team Championships. So the Funks are now an
entity as a team in Japan. And as much impact as Dory made over
there defending the world title and Terry made as a single and for a brief
time in his own right defending the world title, it really was the tag
team boss of Dory and Terry together that created the most enduring memories of the
Funks run in Japan. It was tag team matches. It was the contrast
of the brothers. It was Dori, the master technician we just saw against
anok that the Japanese fans had come to know and appreciate, being able to
truly leverage the wild and crazy style of his brother in a tag team situation
that created the outcheme what really brought them out to see the Funks in Japan?
And here were the Funks beating Bob and Andokiman. Jesus Christ's getting bigger
than that, I don't think so it was. I would imagine that that's
going to be the biggest fucking the biggest fucking thing since uh uh, I
don't know, at least for the Funks anyway, Yeah, biggest thing since
Mike Tyson in a lot of ways, I believe, and I believe that,
yeah, at least the biggest, the biggest thing since since Tyson and
Austin that I've ever seen, right, And so that let that be a
clear sign that in nineteen seventy one they were putting Dorient Arry over Giant Baba
and Antonio and Noki, that Japan was going to be the country for these
guys, that they were going to really establish a foothold on a level of
really no other American wrestlers. And here we have a bit of footage of
that time period. So we're gonna only see Terry Funk in the blonde headed
position that we just saw during Dory's match, but in action. As a
matter of fact, why do you make me feel so uncomfortable? Oh?
I know, Yeah, it's gonna be really tough you to deal with.
So this is I'm not sure how far and wide this is available, but
it's Terry and Dorry versus Aenocchi and Baba here, I believe in nineteen seventy
one. It's in highlight form. So we're gonna, okay, look at
him. No no, no, no, no, no, no,
that hard hair part right blonde, there's Dory me. He looks like a
fucking German. Fucking look at the We have a fucking ears on Dornce.
Yeah, Drances the heavens. This is obviously a recap video from the Japanese
television Show's with the music ben underneath it. As they're making introductions. Yeah,
Terry Funk, he just has like this fifties hair part, like the
yeah, the brille cream look right, mm hmm, hard to deal with.
As they come to center and we flash forward to Antonio and Oki working
the canvas with I think that's that's Terry with a double leg. Look at
Terry with the blonde hair, but you can see the face that the profile
of his face is still there. Still see Terry Funk in his face,
even if his hair looks totally different. Giant Baba enters with a big kick
to break flash forward. It's Terry. Look at this, delivering a jumping
head bout to an oke and almost falling on his own ass. Could hardly
get a sense of the chaos that Terry creates, unlike his brother in that
ring. I think so there's just so much more body language at play in
Terry's style, really is. I mean, he's just he's much more animated,
He's much more over the top around Dorrance. Oh look, just fucking
taking a boot huge front kick is the massive giant Baba takes over? Can
overstate how wild it was for the Japanese public to see someone of this man's
size, let alone the fact that he was a baseball star before he became
a pro wrestler. I've never seen a bob I moved so cleanly. Yeah,
this is the early days man. After the match, you see Terry
Fugg arguing passionately with an American referee, and that's something Dory doesn't do.
Dory just stands there like he's frozen. Yep, go look at that.
You know what that clip is? I do don't. So what do you
think the clip where he met the director Barry blaustein, Oh he met him
on this set. Yeah, that's what he says. And they showed the
uh, the Paradise Sally audition film that's still to come. But in the
video I have here that happened to come. Uh next, So what do
you think we have where we have our earliest look at Terry in the ring
here on the lapsed Funk. I mean he's got he's got that crazy personality
like he just you can you can tell he's on a different level. Yeah,
he just has that that physical presence yep, and that ability. He's
a he's a he's a showman and and it really you can tell that better
than you know. He he comes across as much more interesting than Dorry.
I totally agree, might as well be boring, Funk. And what's funny
is that works for Dorry. Yeah, totally. He makes that work for
him. It's not something that it's not something that he would even take he
would take issue with like that. That's who he is. That's how he
has to succeed. It's not like you know, he's failing in anything.
It's just it's just it's amazing how two products of the same family, the
same dad, the same household, the same upbringing, can produce such such
a wild contrast to styles. Yep, yeah, totally. But as far
as what Dorry's thinking during these formative years in the Rings of Japan, we
turned to his book in a chapter entitled Japanese Wrestling Legends to get his sort
of sly take. Okay, now, what pieces are in play now?
Sly would be all about Terry Funk, not Dory. You know he's coming
a giant of a man. I first met my future Boss in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, in nineteen sixty three. He was a giant of a man,
standing six foot ten tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds. He looked
awesome. I reached out to shake a hand that reached around mine. I
said, it's nice to meet you. He looked into my eyes and offered
a nod. I was shocked. I thought that all Japanese people were small.
His company in Japan was only a dream, one that would give great
have great success. The event in Albuquerque was professional wrestling Giant Baba would go
on to be the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, pro wrestler and president of All
Japan Pro Wrestling Corporation. A meeting was arranged in Las Vegas in the fall
of nineteen sixty nine, so that would be just months before the Funkenok match
we just saw Boss in about a year and a half moment yep before the
tag match we just saw. At the meeting was Japan Pro Wrestling representative Charlie
Moto. My father, Dory senior Sam much Nick and me. Mister Moto
told us what the financial arrangements would be for me to wrestle in Japan.
So here we go for the first time. The Funks are working out a
deal to wrestle in Japan. I would receive fifteen thousand dollars. That figure
would be divided by thirteen. I would receive ten parts. Pardon that and
soon and Sam Muchnik would receive How much would he receive? Dori probably more
than Yeah, Sam had to get taken care of, would receive three parts.
It says, I don't know what that means. I took him at
his word. In those days, as was the case throughout my career in
Japan, there were no contracts. My father traveled with me in that first
trip to Japan and Hiroshima. We visited the Peace Memorial I'll never forget the
dome, the statue of the woman protecting her child, and reconstructed scene of
Hiroshima after the bomb. As we left, words could not describe my emotion.
I felt totally inadequate. As I wrote in the register, please God
never again, and signed my name. My first match for the World Championship
Japan was in the winter of nineteen sixty nine against Antonio Minoki. So if
the date of the match we watched was accurate, that was not this match.
We were both an excellent condition and evenly matched at ringside. I remember
see Yoshimra Young, Riki Momodha and Haraigan, and my corner were my father
and Harley Ray. So yeah, that definitely isn't the match because Terry was
in his corner in the match we watched as about rang Harley growl, Let
that fucker get the best of you. I remember thinking, I hope these
people don't speak English, you know. To be clear, he puts like
the the symbols for a swear word in the book, I just said fuck
her. But oh, for God's sake, he might have been. It
might have been a slur, because what Dorry is saying is I just help
these people don't speak English, and that I hope you know something that would
uniquely offend to the Japanese they would have understood came out of Harley Race.
Male, That's what I take that to me. I looked at Anok,
he was a dangerous wrestler. I looked at my father and Harley Race.
They were more dangerous and mean. I thought it is easier to fight an
Nok than to face Harley Race in my father if I don't do a hell
of a job against Anoch, so kind of keep an old kay fave here
in the book is Dorry Junior. A lot of these are essays from like
the late nineties too, that he wrote when he had a website. Yeah,
Anocchi and I matched each other hold for hold. It was the kind
of match I enjoy, fast paced, competitive and for the highest stakes in
the business, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. I made an attempt to take
him off his feet and he blocked, pushing me toward the corner of the
ring. I released and turned, using his momentum to crash him backward into
the corner. I threw a foe arm blow to the body and one of
his chest, and a flash of anger. He swung a punch at me,
and in seconds this great wrestling match turned into a brawl. We fought
through the ropes and under the floor, both of us swinging wildly at each
other in an effort to red myself of Anok's punch. As I reached for
his head and wound up with a handful of hair. I grabbed tight and
threw him off. He landed against the announcer's table and sagged to his knees
with the breath of air. I returned to the ring. As I looked
back, my father was standing over in noch. He reached out to help
him back into the ring. When my father touched Anoki, the fans were
on their feet, protesting. They thought he would hurt Ainochi. From the
second balcony, I could see a projectile hurtling towards my dad. It must
have been thrown by a pitching ace for on one of the Japanese baseball teams,
because landing with a thud against my father's chest was an orange. It
split open and there was fresh orange juice running down my father's new gray silk
suit. In anger, Dad shook his fist at the balcony. The final
ten minutes of the match were bedlam. My dad was on the ring apron
several times, the fans were on their feet, and periodically oranges would fly
under the ring. Now the bell was ringing the one hour time limited elapse.
This match was a draw, and I knew I would retain the world
heavyweight championship belt. Talk to an Oak. He shook his hand and told
him a great match. My second trip to Japan was in the summer of
nineteen seventy. The featured match of our tour was again in Osaka. My
opponent was Giant Baba. I knew mister Baba as an exceptional athlete and professional
wrestler. His athletic career began as a pitcher for the Murray Giants in the
Japanese Professional Baseball League. However, he was soon attracted to professional wrestling as
the new hot hope of the legendary father of professional wrestling in Japan. Who
would that be, Boss, none other than Ricky Dozan Ah, of course,
fucking get it, do it. Let's fucking do it. On the
last Pecky Dos Everybody layout Rerecky Dozer, Freey Dooser available now Ecky Doo under
the cinemat Archives Patreon, the Ricky Dozen film Ah fucking oh, what a
hollow ending that film. After the death of Ricky Doze in nineteen sixty three,
Dorri writes Giant Baba had taken his place as the number one wrestling star
in Japan. Every seat had been sold in advance the building was packed.
NTV was there to record every move for a live television audience that would number
in the millions. In Osaka on July thirty, TV doing Japanese wrestling before
w That's amaze. I would be as a nipon on July thirty, nineteen
seventy. There was no air conditioning. The temperature in the building was one
hundred and five degrees fahrenheited in the ring under the TV lights. It was
extremely hot. It was so hot in the ring you could have fried an
egg on the mat. Speaking of a Terry's breakfast order, one of the
other wrestlers on the card that night, Brew Bernard returned to the dressing room
after his match, dripping in perspiration. He said, my god, anyone
who is in that ring, wrestling for more than five minutes is going to
die. Thoughts raced through my mind. I'm not going to beat Bob in
five minutes, and I'm not losing in five minutes. I'm not going to
die in the ring in Osaka, Japan, eight thousand miles from home.
I knew the risks I faced. I also knew the planning, expense and
hard work that goes to a major wrestling production. I decided to accept the
consequences. I entered the ring dripping in perspiration. Flower girls were in the
ring dressed in colorful kimonos. The ring announcer was wearing a black suit and
tie. An official dressed in suit and tie was holding a proclamation he would
read before the start of the match. They were all dripping in perspiration.
I looked over the audience, fanning themselves with whatever they could find, fans,
programs, wrestling magazines, but nobody was leaving. Giant Baba came into
the ring. I wondered, are we all crazy? The TV people,
mister Baba, the flower girls, myself, and yes, even the wrestling
fans too. The show would go on. We fought from our hearts that
hot, sweltering night in Osaka. Baba would not quit. I would not
quit, the people would not quit. And even the referee okishineka oh shaikina,
pardon me, who was over fifty years old, wouldn't quit. I
remember it was a great wrestling match. After fifty five minutes, we fought
through the ropes down on the floor and continued the match outside the ring.
The referee counted us both out of the ring and stopped the match. It
was a draw. I was thrilled with the decision. That match was the
most difficult and hardest physical event I've ever lived through. It was the toughest
match of my career, and it was the night in Osaka that I learned
what a great competitor and athlete Giant Baba was. On that night, he
was the best I have faced. After the match, as I laid exhausted
on the floor of the dressing room unable to move, the referee from the
earlier matches came in and said, come on, Funk, we party tonight.
The cabarets are waiting, Let's go. I just looked up and said,
Turko, there is no way I'm lucky to be alive tonight. On
my third trip to Japan, a meeting was arranged between my father, Dori
Funk Senior, Saam Muchnik, myself, a japan Pro wrestling agent, Charlie
Moto, arrangement from RAID for a return match for the World Championship in Osaka
against Antonio and Oke. I was happy to wrestle Anoke again for the World
Championship. I came to the arena that night in Osaka expecting one of the
most challenging matches of my career. I expected it would compare with the first
match with Anok in nineteen sixty nine. The match never happened. Anoki did
not show up that night and was replaced by former World Judo champion side Yisaka
Gucci. I was fortunate to gain a victory and leave Osaka is still the
champion of the world. Anoki claims he's Japan's greatest wrestler, but that night
in Osaka, he was mister Chicken speaking of Abdullah's breakfast order. But so
there were two sides, a Baba and Anok, and the Funks were all
Baba, all all day, all the way forever wow. And there was
this early period when Baba and Oki were both wrestling under the same JWA tenth
that the Funks interacted with and dealt with Anok and wrestled took But for the
rest of their time, particularly Dory Junior, wouldn't pass up an opportunity to
remind folks that Anoch failed to show for a title defense and just basically be
in the business of denigrating Antonio and Oke Okay because they had made their bed
with all japan pro wrestling and but Giant Baba, and they were very much
lying in it for the entirety of their Japanese run. That third trip in
nineteen seventy one Dory Wrights was the last time I would wrestle for the old
company japan Pro Wrestling, for reasons that I was not aware of. The
company had fallen on hard times and would go out of business. After the
last match on that trip, I went to get my pay for wrestling on
the tour. Mister Endo, representing Japanese Pro Wrestling Company, sat across the
desk from me. He paid me first than one hundred dollar bills. He
then reached into his inside coat pocket and counted continued to count my payout in
twenty dollar bills and then tens. Finally, he reached into his pants pocket
and pulled out his dick no sorry, his billfold. He counted out the
rest of my God, I see a cock any bring back any memories Dorance.
Finally he reached into his pants pocket boys Club. He counted out the
rest of my guarantee in five and then one dollar bills. He stood up
and shook my hand. We had an arrangement and he lived up to what
he said he would do even if it meant taking money out of his own
pocket. His word was his bond. Japan Pro Wrestling Company folded and Tony
and Oki had left the company. John Baba was soon to meet my father,
Dori Funk Senior, in regard to securing American wrestlers to come to Japan
to wrestle for his new company, All Japan Pro Wrestling. In the twenty
seven years of All Japan Pro Wrestling, there has never been a tour that
did not have Funk's talent on it. Something Wow, first tour ever for
All Japan Pro Wrestling booker wrestler Dori Funk Senior, Fred Blassi, Jerry Kozak,
Dutch Savage, Dominic de Nucci, Terry Funk, and Bruno Sam Martino
brother. So that was the crew that first came to wrestle for Wild that
is Fucking Wild. Bruno full loyalty to Baba, always felt he was an
honorable dealer and dealt with him before the split and despite w w F and
Vince Senior being aligned strongly with the Anoki in New Japan, thus leading to
you know, Stora Sayama coming to Madison Square Garden to wrestle. We saw
Tatsami Fujinami be the WWF Junior Heavyweight Champion. We saw Hashashi Shimna, the
lead executive of New Japan, become the WWF President for a time in the
early to mid eighties. Despite that strong WWF New Japan alliance, Bruno would
always be loyal to Baba. He would always wrestle for All Japan instead of
New Japan. And Terry Funk would carry that on too when he went to
work for Vince and still in system of being able to work for Baba,
even though the clear preference in every we don't We're not a Baba. We're
not a Baba Baba for corporation. We don't Baba around now. Abdul the
butcher, of course, is a Bobka guy, so that's a different discussion
altogether. Kaga taga sort of chocolate pauca. Please, I really could use
a chocolate Yeah, you don't say so. Terry Funk is now established the
bond between the Funk family and Giant Baba's All Japan Pro Wrestling is now firm
the talent pipeline to bring American wrestlers from the Amarilla circuit to the rings of
all, Japan is now firmly established. And what does that mean? That
means the city of Amarillo became synonymous the idea of Texas and indeed the idea
of American cowboys to Japanese wrestling fans. God, you can't forget that the
Japanese were really kind of taken with American culture and cowboy culture, as will
get to and in the Funks they saw their first real glimpse of, you
know, kind of full bodied characters with depth that represented what it was to
be the American cowboy. And that, perhaps more than anything, is why
the Funks had that first, that first initial draw and connection and mystique with
the people as they leaned into that image, and Amarillo, Texas, as
Fumi Saiito explains here on the Wrestling Observer podcast, became just as well known
of a part of America as any of Texas's major cities thanks to the Funks.
Actually, do you can you believe that Amarillo, Texas is more famous
than Dallas or Houston in Japan because you hear it's Dallas or the Houston of
or maybe San Antonio, right, But in Japan when you hear Texas,
I'm around on Texas seriously. And in the late seventies, there was you
know, the Japanese brand denim denim Edwin Edwin brand. There was a Texas
Jeans the modrowed after Terry Funk. He was an advertising advertisement, you know,
Edwin Jeans, Texas Jeans slightly you boot cut like a bell bottom mish.
Yeah, and Terry funkumaro for that denim company. Now unfortunately, uh,
well you're you're able to hear that right? To be clear, yes,
yes, footage of these Edwin Jeans Terry Funk Japanese television commercials from the
seventies do not exist as far as I can tell. But man, did
he do a lot of commercials in Japan that the thatp bespeaks his level of
cultural residence. And yeah, Edwin Jeans Jesus Christ Brad Pitt went on to
do an ad campaign for them in Japan. You can find a ton of
that and wow, and and the ads are a lot of him sitting around
scenes of campfires and what looks like, you know, the Texas desert very
much lionizing the idea of the American cowboy. It's an image that really captured
the imagination of the Japanese public. If you know, when I sit around
in the desert and I'm building a campfire and I'm waiting for a rattlesnake to
find its way in my trousers, I like wearing Edwin jeans. They guarantee
the greatest comfort, you know, when you're getting your dick bite off by
a rattle, when you go ahead and let that snake up the pant leg,
you know, and you go ahead, and you know, we all,
we all took it very seriously. Just imagine you've been riding a horse
all night, all night, and you're taking a break and you just put
you have the campfire going, and you're laying down to get a good night's
sleep under the open air of the good old American Southwest. As you're doing
that, you get a you get a rattlesnake, and you get a couple
scorpions crawling up your leg and and finding its way up to your dingus and
before you and I'll tell you what the best, I'll tell you what,
I'm happy to be doing it. As long as I'm wearing my Edwind jeans.
I'll take the punishment because I'll relish the comfort. Okay, fine,
you want to fucking make T shirts. Go ahead, I'll take the pain
because I want to relish the comfort Teddy Funghu for Edwin Jeans. Hung he
was noticed the Texas Bronco in Japan and he would wear a T shirts Texas
Bronco on it. They just love this idea that he was Texas, and
as Fumisito said, Amarillo, Texas in particular, was, at least among
wrestling fans, Japan a city that rang as illustratively as any other American city,
let alone any Texas city. And so in Japan, as we learn
from Paying Off the Pacific and Hulk Hogan's journey through superstardom in that part of
the country not too long after Terry Funk came to prominence, when you become
a superstar of that level in Japan, bust does there have to be I
don't know, a music album? Oh my god, are you serious?
Did the Funker have to enter the booth and cut a track with Jimmy Hart
on the ones and twos before Ichiban is Hogan Son? Hogan song is number
one? Oh I got Ichi is Funk and song is? This yet another
of many examples of Terry Funk lighting the way for Hulk Hogan in terms of
professional development and ability to get over in new arenas, be it the film
or Japanese pro wrestling. Ladies and gentlemen's fighting in the world so freeful for
the world, really great, che fuck your hair. Oh my god,
you'll fight them every day. You don't fight them anywhere, Jerry, He's
gonna beat them all the time. There is no one out there in his
arrange and heartendons in his legs, muscles in his thighs for day fires,
fun Funker. Sometimes I feel so sad. People think I'm so mean.
What my heart is soft and sweet? But they all love fighting. Oh
one two? I mean that is tremendous. Can you imagine that being on
sale at Japanese record stores in the same I love the idea that that.
I love the idea that fucking that that he has Like one line, he's
just talking. Yeah, that's the problem is, you know, ask if
he can sing before you cut a deal from to record a record. And
that's exactly the world Jimmy Hart played on Eachimani's Hogan's on same thing. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I'm doing that whole thing. Ye is he providing
the whole musical guidance for the wrestling star. That's just in the booth to
take advantage of his start. But I mean, you don't, you don't
cut an album like that unless you are the man, you know what I
mean, right, And that's pre Hogan doing it in Japan, just you
know, and him saying I'm a warm, soothing, nice guy. That
says so much about what he had become to the Japanese wrestling fans. That's
actually the lyric that he lays down in that track, I'm boggled, My
mind is boggled. The band that was behind it was called Blues Creation.
It was a Japanese rock band formed in Tokyo in the late sixties and it
was basically, you know, an attempt to you can hear you know,
flashes of you know, the popular American music at the time, with a
little bit of like funk to it fittingly, you know, I don't just
mean terry funk voice, but I mean the musical style of funk. And
it was it was an interesting band. It was. It was one that
kind of tried to mimic that sound in style and was was pretty well respected
and acknowledged and they came out with a song called Spinning toe Hold, Oh
my God, in tribute to the Funks finishing Hole. And it was their
their song Spinning toe Hold that became the absolute famous and we'll hear it as
we go here in the lapsed Funk entrance song for the Funks in all Japan.
There was something magic about that song. Hitting It brought the fans to
their feet. It brought uh, let's say, there were there were women
who would come to the matches dressed as you know, sort of like Friday
night lights, high school football cheerleaders with Funk written all over their their shirts,
and they would have Pom Pom's boss and they would you know, carry
on a cheerleading like celebration as these Texans, these true made their way to
the ring. Of course, this being Terry, he's flattered by the attention,
but at the same time kind of cognizant to the fact that people are
making money off merchandising his name. And he's never cut in, Oh,
here we go. Anything I did on the side the Altapan office wanted more
than its fair share of. But that's just the way it is. Wrestling
fans have been tricked again Baba was not happy with some of the licensing deals
I made over there. He wanted the company to have a piece of things
like the record I made in nineteen eighty three, which contained some of the
most god awful singing you've ever heard. So, yeah, the tension starts
with him and Baba in part because you know, he starts capturing opportunities to
get paid to license his image and not in a way that cuts the office
in and the deal. And that's why he was always such an odd duck
for the WWF model. I mean, you know, hul Coogan will always
tell the story about how taking the Rocky three roll right kind of crowded him
out of a job for vin Senior, right, you know, the way
hal Cochin tells that Vincinyrd simply did not want him to do the movie,
and Hulk reached for that opportunity and came out all the richer for it.
Terry Funk laid that groundwork. Terry Funk was the one pissing off Giant Baba
by going to America to shoe Paradise Alley in nineteen seventy eight when he was
the hottest wrestler that Giant Baba Had who was an American, and Bob,
according to Terry Funk, did not want him to do the movie, did
not want him to not do the tour because of the movie. He's doing
all this before Hogan is and he's saying fuck you to a system that won't
allow him to monetize the likeness he worked hard to build up or wanted an
unjust piece of it. And that's why I think, more than anything,
if you really scratched the surface, why Terry Funk was such a vagabond in
pro wrestling wasn't just because he was mister reinvention and popping a territory and then
leaving and liking that lifestyle and liking the fact that he could return to the
ranch for months at a time between runs and areas and was really a creature
of the territorial model in that way, but also because he just would not
hesitate to push against the grain of control that the promoter he happened to be
working for at the time would insist upon or would expect, and so he
kind of developed this reputation of a guy that, yeah, you can bring
him in, he'll pop the territory. He's one of a kind. But
the second someone presents a scenario to him that might be more favorable than sticking
around, he's going to go and so deal with him accordingly. You know,
get your program in, make your money, peak the program, get
the match done. But eventually, whether it be Hollywood or a television opportunity,
or a commercial opportunity, or hear an opportunity to cut a music record,
he's going to do it. And he's not going to ask for your
permission, and he's going to keep all the money. And if it pisses
you off, he'll just wait it out until the phone rings again, because
it will because he's Terry Funk. As he wrote, Jimmy Hart wrote the
songs for me because I was too cheap to pay for the rights to songs
that people had already heard. All the songs in that album had one thing
in common, he writes, I'll sucked. One of them was called I
Hate School. Can you imagine? Yes, who in the hell, he
writes, would think it would be a good idea to have a thirty five
year old man singing I hate school. I hate school, but I like
to drool. So I got a question for you, Yes, what would
that downed bike, my future, don't mind my music. Future don't like
like the shovel where the sun don't know because we hate school, but we
rock and roll. Hey, you're there, you're good. You got any
comments for us? This is the podcast after all, we're looking for your
thoughts. It's that last fuck bitch, don't my music you don't like?
You know home, like the shop where the sun don't suck? Fucking he
nails it. It's like, just say these things into the mic, Terry,
please let us do the rest. Just just fucking listen. Just say
the fucking words, all right. We're not here to right here to to
to you know, make it look good, you know, Just just fucking
say the words and we'll do what we have to do. So before you
gin Vince all the credit for the wrestling album Don't Forget About Each Vonis Hogan
Son and I Hate School by Terry Funk. There you go. We get.
Oh Jesus Christ, what's up? Day? We got a cat?
Just brother? What are you doing? Okay? Okay, thank you,
puss in big boots, serious brother literally rubbing its head on the fucking microphone.
I guess you loved the Welcome to Reality here the Terry Funk song she
wants Funk. Okay, now stop, Hi go get that here. After
we finished recording Funk Rights, I flew back home, and that was when
I found out this country isn't as free as we might want it to be.
That's because I learned that. When I sang, I was actually charged
to do it. What do you mean I owe you twenty bucks studio fee.
I'd been working with studio musicians and when we finished, they presented me
with an electric guitar that I couldn't play, But I wanted to bring it
back because my kids might have wanted to bang on it someday. I was
only in Japan for a day before flying right back to the States. As
I came through customs with my long hair and guitar, the customs man said,
come with me. He took me in a room and asked, where
are you coming from? Well, I said, I was coming over from
Japan, you know, just cutting an album. I don't mind that as
a T shirt either. I was coming over from Japan, you know,
just cutting an album. You know it's that, you know? Oh always?
You know you got a guitar in there, Sonny, I said,
I did, and they searched me like I was public Enemy Number one?
Would that be Johnny Grunge? I had some that's bad. I had some
mochron an anti inflammatory, and they broke up my pills, pulled down my
pants. Here it is again. It's only a matter of time forere the
funks get pants. Do you ever notice this? Yeah? I'm not.
They just seem to always need their cock out, Dori, show them your
dick. Pulled down my pants, made me spread my cheeks and stuck a
finger up my ass and I said, do it a little harder. I
think it was his finger. How greate is day funk? This is book?
Hell? I hope it was his finger. I swear to god.
They tore everything apart in every bag I had. They thought they had a
goddam everything apart my asshole. And then he then and then he kissed me,
and then he double crossed me on my ranch. Yeah yeah, at
the end it was that ranch that they thought they had a goddamn hippie punk
rock singer or something. Hell, who knows. Maybe the guy knew who
I was. He had an Indian look to him. Maybe he was a
Brisco fan. Maybe maybe that was a tomahawk he'd stuck up my ass.
He writes that do you ever have a tomahawk up your ass? And another
upp his ass story. Foumi tells the story about how Funk would go to
Japan and do something I've never heard of, butt darts. Do you know
what this is? I do not know what this is. Put a coin
in your asshole, and you walk around in such a way that you can
drop it in a cup, and if you can drop it in the cup
cleanly, you win the game. Oh my god, I invite you to
pick picture Terry Funk, who has a certain gait to him anyway, walking
in such a way to keep a yen squeezed up his fucking asshole the same
I prefer to walk the same cavity that they searched for upon suspicions that he
was coming back from Japan having recorded an album. Yeah, okay, you
hear the purring? Do you hear the purring? I actually think it's a
really ominous sign. This close to Halloween is the cat black? No,
no, orange? And white? Brother, Oh my god, this is
so weird. We've never had this happen. This has to mean something.
It's gonna take me, like the rest of laps Funk to figure it out.
But this means something has Terry visited us in the form of an orange
cat. Brother, do you have anything to say Terry? Yellow does make
orange. I'm telling you as soon as I played, what are you doing?
Seriously? Okay? Yes, I know you like attention? Ow fuck
ow? Oh my god? Okay, is it attacking you? Well?
No, but you know whenever it stop? Christ But you know, like,
do you have headphones on? Can you what? The headphone is kind
of close to the cat's ears And I'm gonna play the song again. Let
me know when you're ready. Okay, yeah, go for it, my
future. Don't mind, you don't mind. You know, I can't push
one. I nearly started because we hate school but we love rock and roll.
Oh my god, did the cat go away? No, not going
away, but he keeps pushing the headphones away. Tell you, Oh God,
what night fucking christ. I was at a bar in Amilla talking with
my wife VICKI. A man came up to the table where we were sitting
and asked her to dance. I said, sir, would you mind waiting
a little bit? I'm talking to her right now. He said, Terry
Funk, I said I was, and he put out his hand. I
put my hand out to shake, but he grabbed my hand and started squeezing
as hard as he could. He's about three hundred pounds, not the most
solid guy in the world, you know, not a monster with muscles,
but he was big. I was trying not to register it, but his
squeezing was hurting like hell. I reared back with my left hand and slapped
the shit out of him a diamond ring I just bought. Was really proud.
I flew off my hand and he went down to the floor. Now
this bar's tables were made of iron, including the one where we were sitting.
They were very heavy, and after the big man fell to the floor,
he grabbed one of the tables with both arms. I reached down to
pick him up his pants, and as I tried to lift him, his
pants ripped off. There they go again. How many times our trousers dropping
and flying off and Terry Funk's life. I just can't help it. I
think you know, I'm better I'm better off without pants. The enduring image
of the early episodes of The Lapsed Funk was a Funk family member with a
blazing inferno behind them. Right then, going forward, it's going to be
someone who, for no particular reason has no pants on. Just imagine fucking
Terry funk Okay, this is this is what I imagine now, right,
Terry Funk in like a white T shirt, cut off sleeves and his you
know, in his his Japanese bandana, no pants, no underwear, just
fucking like he's walking to the ice machine at the hotel. Yeah right,
he's getting He's at a hotel. He's getting fucking ice. He's got He's
got nothing on from the from the waist down. His pants ripped right off
him, in his underwear too. I was looking down at his bare,
fat ass. I thought, shit, I'm on as well, and so
I dove down and bit a chunk out of his ass. And that was
the end of that. What fun until the next day when he sued me.
I ended up setting it out of court for seven hundred and fifty dollars.
It was the most expensive piece of ass I ever had. Oh my
god, thoughts, I can't out Okay, okay, seriously, fucking get
get thing's going on here? Don't you have like a door you can close?
Not really because where I am, I'm in the I'm in the living
room in this place, and so you need to buy some catnip to strategically
deploy for the next time. Oh my god, Well, hopefully won't be
a next time for here. So if you become a household name as a
foreign you know, curiosity slash beloved figure in Japan, you gotta cut an
album. And what else do you have to do? Boss? You have
to inspire an anime character, don't you. Oh what you know about Terry
Man? I know nothing except that hul Cogan is very jealous. Yeah,
I would say so. As a matter of fact, there is a cartoon
character that was very famous in anime on Japanese television named Terry Man that was
inspired by the Terry Funk that we just bore witness to in nineteen seventy.
Oh no, not the one with the curly brown locks. Not not the
one in the late seventies, the bleached blonde all American Texan made into a
comic book character Kinukuman. You remember they came out with that line of generic
wrestling figures when we were kids. It was called what was it called?
It's called Strong. It was like a bunch of like like almost thumb wrestler
guys. Yeah, what was it called strong? What were they called?
I don't remember, but I know I know what you're talking about. One
of that, A certain line of them was inspired by Kinu Kuman. You
might recognize if I'm saying that, right, I think I am. It's
a manga series. I don't know a lot about this stuff. So if
I say some things that are like sort of like eye rolling, I apologize,
and you can also go fuck yourself. But here's here's the guy I'm
talking about. Let me know if Kinu kumanuh brings anything to mind. Do
you recognize that sort of vestige that sort of look, I don't see what
we got it? Oh? Sure, yeah, they're they're musclemen. So
that's what it was. M us c l e. Yeah, as if
as in muscle was some sort of acronym, that's what it was. Muscling,
right, Yeah, the muscleman totally. That was sort of like you
know, the imported Japanese anime characters. You know, to Americans, it
was just like this weird line of wrestling guys. But in Japan, where
it came from, it was sort of like a fictionalized cartoon wrestling superhero.
That's funk there in the middle. I think it is. Wow, that's
wid. We're gonna get terry Man right now on your screen. Why don't
we don't need to? Yeah, let's share the audio with the people on
this. That would be fun. Okay, yeah, let's pull this puppy
up. So what do you remember about Muscle I mean anything? Did you
have them? Oh? God, I had a ton of them. I
loved him. I had no idea that I remember. We talked about this
once a while ago. I had no clue they were wrestling figures that they
were wrestling guys. I thought they were just, you know, weird because
they were so weird. They had like, you know, like there was
a brick guy, there was a uh it's just all weird, like muscular
bodies with weird characteristics to them. But I loved them. I thought they
were really cool. I had a friend who had them, and they were
like flat one color, right, yeah, yeah, they well yeah,
yeah, they were usually like a you know, like a you know,
Caucasian flesh tone for the most part, and then but then they had some
of them that were other colors, Like I remember, I had a couple
of purple ones and like a green one and a red one. I guess
they were trying to add to their diversity. I remember the skin color.
I don't remember that really. Yeah? Yeah, So you ready for Knu
Kuman versus Terremon. Oh my god, actually sampunk. It's from the cartoon
Kuman and it's Terrymon versus a Suraimon And it's just a like a three minute
clip. What about Achiman from Yeah, no mercy, nothing, nothing from
him yet, but just I mean, think about what it means in terms
of Terry Funk's cultural residence in Japan that he would have inspired this character here
as we watch along, what the fuck? Teddymun, Oh my god,
look at him. That's wrong right there? Terry Man. Oh yeah,
the guy with six arms, I remember him. It's anime. So you
got static faces with the background moving, Teddy Mount taking the musclebuster essentially from
this eight arm to the creature right outside the ring though, King King King
King King King King King King King King. They have cartoons of Japanese wrestling
announcers at ringside. Not good brother, shoot him the guy battling Terry Man.
His face just changed and landed a straight right Terry against the ropes left
hand, right hand, upper left hand, upper right hand. Terry Man
getting worn out against the ropes, all rights and left locked. I assure
him on Terry Mon bleeding, his blood is glowing, has a flashback to
training with his dad God in Texas in the desert. They will know,
they will take voice. You hear as the father training a baby Terry Funk
back in Amillo amongst the cactive. That's the memory of that that gives new
life to Terry Man, and he's gonna hulk up here there he goes,
brother, Oh, look at Jesus Christ. The Japanese wrestling announcer is crying,
and that's that. Wow, what did you say? I mean,
that was wild? Just oh, brother, didn't you get it? Sorry,
I'm sorry, I mean I I don't even know what to fucking say.
It's crazy just to realize that that was Terry supposed to be Terry Funk.
Yeah. Yeah, Oh, it's a blonde, blonde hair, incredibly
muscular, Like it's funny that the Japanese saw Terry Funk as a muscular American.
Yep, yeah, because compared to the bodies of the eighties he was
small, you know, never a muscle, heead but totally, but he
was able to kind of create that or nonetheless. And for some reason,
the Terry Man character has some arm that are almost like sleeves, like brown
sleeves, and he's got like Jeff Hardy's arm things right, And in another
episode of this show that I saw, he gets the arms ripped off his
body and then they like regrow as like hmm, super limbs or whatever.
But what he did there is he got pushed up against the ropes by the
guy he was battling sure him in and he was taking rights and lefts,
and he just collapsed against the ropes, breathing but bleeding from the mouth like
he was dead basically. And then it appears that Kanukiman says something to summon
his spirit and remind him of what it was like as a boy. And
what we see is a cartoon depiction of Terry Funk the boy learning how to
fight. I really don't even know where to fucking begin with that. It's
so bonkers. So when you hear Fumusato talk about how m maillo was such
a resonant thing in Japan for those who knew wrestling. It's not just because
of pro wrestling, you know, al Japan, It's because of cartoons like
this that sort of mythologized where it was Terry Mann or Terry Funk which everyone
understood to be Terry Funk came from and that little depiction I just think it's
so like, that's so something we don't have as American wrestling fans. Yep.
It is like wrestlers who took off in an entirely different fantasy and fictional
medium that so informs people's affinity for a wrestling character. It's like they when
they see Terry Funk, they see Terry Mann as much as they see Terry
Funk. And that's so wild to me because that's just not I mean,
yeah, there have been wrestlers in America, of course, Hulkgan being among
them, multip warrior that get over and they're essentially live action cartoon characters,
but they weren't actually in cartoons. Hogan was with Holgan r Rock and wrestling,
but he wasn't like a he wasn't like a fighting cartoon. He wasn't
like a Superman or Batman, right right, that's kind of what we have
here. And of course look no further than Tiger Mask, which in a
lot of ways was the discovery that led New Japan to pull way ahead of
all Japan and create a sense of panic in the late seventies and early eighties,
in particular early eighties, we should say, from all Japan of trying
to come up with something to counteract this cultural phenomenon that was Tiger Mask,
because it was this incredibly popular comic with Japanese kids, and then they imported
that gimmick into the wrestling ring and dressed up Saturasayama, one of the great
workers of all time, like the comic book character, and it just drew
a completely different demographic to the product and made pro wrestling so sticky to kids
that loved cartoons. And we know a little something about that, you know,
we do. Indeed, our Saturday morning wrestling growing up came on right
around the same time Saturday Morning cartoons did. That's where you exactly first fell
in love with the wrestling, as they were smart enough to position it right
next to it and begin to dress up the product in such a way that
it was that much closer to like the bright colors right in the the over
the top personality presentation. Oh yeah, oh for sure of a cartoon.
And so it's a fitting, right, It's totally fitting for like an eighties
cartoon, and that was turned up, the dial was turned up times ten
on sort of exploiting that channel if you will, in Japan. And so
the fact that Terry Funk was among those that were lionized with cartoon characters,
I think says a ton yep about where he stood influentially. Of course,
he says in this book, Hell Tiger Mask wasn't the only character who existed
in both the wrestling and cartoon worlds at that time. Years before, a
popular cartoon magazine strip debut called Terry Boy. In the story Terry Boy wrestled
and he looked awfully familiar, But I never saw Nickel from it. Are
you fucking kidding me? Even became a TV cartoon Old Terry Boy did,
all right, Funk wrote, So apparently this Terry Man character that we see
in this animated series was also a cartoon character prior to this. That's wild,
and that's just you know, they just run away with this like idea
of this person as if he's not a real person. That's owed like recompense
for the exploitation of his likeness. It's like, well, the real Terry
Funk isn't who we're imagining here. It's our idea of Terry Funk that were
running in the comic books, because you know, I mean, I guess
if you knew Japanese wrestling history in the time period of ligning, you would
get that this was Terry Funk inspired. But when you just look at the
guy, especially if you haven't seen the blonde hair Terry Funk that they're trying
to elicten right here right, you wouldn't know it's Terry Funk. What the
Japanese fell in love with was the idea of Terry Funk, and I think
it's distilled most purely in how we see him portrayed in the Knogi Man series
every night in the ring fucking nuts. Terry Funk remembers I loved Baba,
loved Missus Baba loved Wally Yamagucci, one of Boba's right hand men. But
the fact that I loved those people didn't keep me from seeing that I wasn't
getting everything from all japan that I probably could have. Case in point,
Wally Yamagucci would bring me a stack of twelve by twelve cards which I'd sign.
I'd sign twenty five or thirty of them, God Bless Terry Funk or
whatever, hand them back to Wally and he'd take them to be sold.
During the big shows. Wally up Gucci would sit in the back of the
locker room and he'd be like a machine signing my name on those guards.
And what I would assume, and what I would have sworn rather, was
my own handwriting. If I didn't know better, brother, he could sign
those things at a clip. You wouldn't believe he actually could do an exact
duplicate of my signature and do it faster than I could sign my own name.
They were selling these for two thousand yen apiece. Guess how many and
I saw out of those zero not a one was Wally the Pirate profiting from
my name. Of course, not I didn't complain. I looked at it
as part of the package. But all Japan also took a cut off everything
I did outside of wrestling, whether it was the record album or whatever.
That's kind of weird because he just said earlier in the book that Baba was
pissed at him because he wasn't cut in on the record royalties, and then
here he is saying that all Japan took a piece. So yeah, I
think Funk probably thought that he was now steeped enough in the ways of Japan
to actually cut a deal for himself where he kept it all. And then
he found out that there was no such thing in Japan that you will always
keep what they want you to keep and not a cent more. That's right,
But that is a huge point. Like Japan paid so much better in
the seventies and eighties than any American wrestling territory. So when you say,
like, you know, why was Brody always in Japan, with Stan Hansen,
Abdullah the Butcher, the funks always in Japan like half the year,
it seemed like sometime, it's because no one could pay like that. They
wouldn't pay everybody that much. But once you got over to the Japanese wrestling
public in that time period, man, you were set for to life because
you would make more going there for two months than you would make going you
know, to another territory and busting your ass making every town on the loop.
That is so crazy, and so that's really what was happening. Is
Japan was shelling out huge money and you didn't. And even if you felt
you were owed more, even if it felt like a lot more people like
Funk clearly did, were making money off your name, you still didn't want
to compromise the sweetest payday in the business. And with Terry, I'm sure
as booker he was getting even more than that, and Dorry as well,
in addition to talent fees. And there is always the unknown in Japan,
Terry says, Mmmm. The unknown part of the business is what goes on
behind the closed doors, and it's a very big part of the business.
Guy Jin's had very little understanding of that part of it. I'll probably never
know how many opportunities for commercials or other ventures I lost out on because Baba
shot them down, Yes he did. So what of the cowboy in Japan?
What is it that they saw in? Terry Funk? May twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety two New York Times. This is a letter to the editor
that was written in response to an article about the globalization of American culture,
and it was written by a documentarian who had recently done a project on American
cowboys in Japan. His name was Lewis Alvarez, and he wrote the following
I have some comments on Todd Gitland's article about the globalization of American culture from
May third, based on my six months in Japan co producing the Japanese Version,
which is a documentary film about the widespread Japanese appropriation of American popular culture.
Wow. It can be tempting to look at the surface and assume that
when other cultures borrow our images and icons, they draw from them the same
inferences and associations we do. But this sure assumption can be a trap.
In Japan, I came across a group of businessmen who, in their time
off, dressed as American cowboys, straight from Central Casting. They rode horses,
learned show roping, and knew by heart the words to the theme song
from Rawhide. When I pointed out that we Americans tend to view the cowboy
as the quintessential loaner and therefore a surprising passion for the group oriented Japanese people,
they quickly set me straight. You're wrong, said the group's leader,
who went by the name of Doc Suzuki. For us, the cowboy myth
is all about working together. Cowboys are the people who worked the cattle drives.
They got together around the campfire to solve problems. It's all about teamwork,
Alvarez concludes. Once American culture leaves our shores, it takes on a
life of its own and ceases to be American. I'm flabberg acid by that.
Got to realize that that's part of what is going through the minds and
hearts of the Japanese wrestling public when they laid their eyes on the funks.
Boss, would you like to see some Japanese cowboys? I don't know,
but I suppose I should. It's the actual piece. It exists. Apparently
the Japanese version was like a recurring series of documentaries that were done in small
chunks about, you know, the Japanese version of any American pop culture phenomenon.
And this episode is about Japanese cowboys. So let's see if we can
pull this puppy up for everybody. It's on YouTube for those that want to
follow along with what we're we're experiencing here. So we're on the sheer screen.
Tip, do you see it? I don't know how your screen yet
you stand by? There we go, there we go. Wow, how's
the cat doing? By the way, making fucking making the rounds right now.
Ah, brother, I'm sure we'll be back. All right. We're
in position everybody. So if you want to find it, going to YouTube,
Surprising Japanese Cowboys, it says the Japanese version, episode number four.
And this is as far as I can tell, the piece that's being referenced
by that writer to the New York Times. Here we go, Ank Williams.
Figurine owne Star, Texas Pride, beer cans, Jesus, A mural
of cowboys on horseback, lasso ropes and cowboy hats hanging off the hook.
And there he is. That's cal cal Farley. Wow. Yeah. A
series of Japanese men sitting at a bar, dressed like Terry funk cowboy hats,
sporting jackets and dan is tied around their neck. There's the Dak Suzuki
character. Look at them, thoughts, he sees, what the fuck?
How good is he? It? Sounding like he's singing, Hank Williams,
he really is. And look at these Japanese folks square dancing with the big
belt buckles and the cowboy boots under jeans. This is what the funks were
to these folks. They loved it. They loved the esthetic, they love
the sound. I don't get it. Is this such a strange thing.
It's so Japanese, so bizarre to me. Got a bull riding on the
television screen, and the bar here, and the bars made to look totally
like a Western saloon. Guy's playing with a lasso rope with adoring crowd watching
on. And it's like they're not being ironic about it either. They're not
like smiling like this is so funny, and look at us playing stupid.
It's like, no, this is we want to be doing this exactly.
I first got in cowboy things when I saw American movies and TV shows.
There he is. Then I started listening to country and western music on Armed
Forces Radio and hanging out with these guys so Armed Forces radio pipe watching music
into the country. That's interesting. I don't know. I think my life
is sort of like a cowboys what no ude? This is? Yeah,
customers, is this guy like my spirit animal? Yes, exactly, Tokyo.
You can choose your fantasy by choosing your dream bar. Oh my god.
At home, sitting here, we began to think that these weekend cowboys
had merely captured the look and missed the essence of a cowboy myth. I
don't think so the Japanese way. When you boil it all down, what's
the most important thing in a cowboys life? Pride in his work is comfortable
in Japan. Terry takes pride in his work. That's a good point,
just like cowboys do. And I've got pride in my work too. Oh
my god, this is so bizarre. Explain what you're seeing, boss,
I mean, I'm described it watching those old TV shows like Rawhide and just
a bunch of men from Japan as if they're in the fucking wild West.
It's not about being an individual. It's about working together. Whenever those guys
had a problem, they'd get together and figure out how to solve it.
That's why they're okay, so popular in Japan. That's why they used teamwork.
It's walking on the street dressed like this, goofball amazing. I don't
know what to make of this, you know what, Sorry, I don't
know what to make of this, So I feel very uncomfortable. I feel
like I feel like I've been touched. Funny, it's that unique Japanese culture.
I don't know who else to put it, you know, just like
these the way they like unpack cultural signals and like repurpose them. And it's
like that's what you see when you see a cowboy, and it's not wrong,
it's just like it's just so fascinating. The way they interpret it are
the way they interpret the qualities of the cowboy, like what is what it
does and doesn't belong when you want to portray yourself as a cowboy again with
a totally straight face. These people are not smiling and joking. I mean,
they're happy to be have no irony here. It's it's very sincere.
And that's what's just, you know, disconcerting, very sincere indeed. And
so they talked about how the song to Rawhide, well rawhide would be piped
in and different cou music would be piped into the country through the American Armed
Forces network of course after World War Two and not going down the way it
did. And I don't know, I just feel like, if if they're
going to talk about raw hide, we need to taste it, we need
to feel it ourselves. Oh give me some raw hide. We're going to
figure the cultural context that Terry Funk fell into uh and taking over the country
of Japan it's not the rounding up and the roping and the branding of the
cattle. But it's the big problem for the ranchers. It's getting them to
market. Fifteen hundred marcury miles from the southern tip of Texas to the railhead
at Sedelia, That's where I come in. Youll favors my name, trail
boss. Wow, that was the team by the raw Hide theme. Oh
the raw o that thing, raw Hide? Hello, r raw Hide.
Is it wrong of me to drop a quarter in the jukebox here in the
saloon? I think it's called for for talking about the essence of funk in
Japan. Let me get it going here. It's been a while, that's
true. I think I got a lot of credits in the bank. I'm
ready to start using him. I would say, yeah, presenting now on
the La Funk the raw Hide thing. Music, There we go, There
we go, is only a matter of time. Rolling, rolling, rolling,
rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling roll. It's
still going. Boom rolling, rolling, rolling, bricting. Dongy's rolling right
hereside, raw Hie raw Hide rode him in roll There it is. And
so if the Japanese public was receiving these cultural signals about cowboys and music,
about the cowboy way of life and interpreting it in theme bars and as such.
You know, and they knew of John Wayne, and they knew of
Clint Eastwood, and their movies were in Japan. What would it mean if
you could go to the wrestling arena and see Clint Eastwood? Oh yeah,
but as a wrestler. If you can imagine how distant and therefore sort of
exotic American culture would have felt to the Japanese in the seventies and the eighties.
It's like it has this incredible charm and allure to it because of how
far away this country is. And I'm sure a lot of the people that
dove with both feet into the culture around cowboyism never had any designs and ever
actually making it to America and walking in Texas, right, it was just
something that was too far to access. But in a country so small as
Japan, what if if the cowboy came to you like the Funks did and
Stan Hansen and the rest. It's you can imagine how irresistible the appeal would
be to any Japanese that had a scentilla of interest in cowboy culture. It's
so wild. These are bona fide giant American cowboys with all the clothes right
and the whole look and the whole mannerism coming right to Japan. And if
I buy a ticket, I can see them throwing down like a cowboy.
And it's something that I think Fumucato put very well and discussing the appeal that
he observed the funks developed in Japan. Is this this affinity for cowboy culture
in cowboy cinema? You know, movie is one thing, you know,
John Wayne movies on Gold Movie Theater, all these things. But you can
actually see Terry Funk every week, you know, and also summer things.
See calendar, even the calendar year is designed very well with all Japan progressing.
Every kids are out of school summer right, every summer July you have
Meal Maskers and in August you have Terry Funk and Dorifunk, Dicky Slater.
You know, every summer it was like that. So it's agoing summer comes
Summer Action Series Part one you have Mill Maskers and those cares and probably Butcher
as an opponent or somebody, I mean, Abby is always but in August
following month, Summer Action Series Part two you have funks. Yeah, you
know, and that's how our kids remember their summer. Yeah, I mean,
I guess that makes sense. It's pretty cool to have that that kind
of thing where it's schools out for the summer in Japan and the kids can
now go to the arena and see Lucha Libre Mexican cartoon characters and then cartoon
American cowboys the next month. It just yep, it kind of pulls you
back from like it's these aren't just wrestling fans we're talking about here. These
aren't just people that show up because they want to see wrestling. These are
people that show up because they want to see almost like a parade of cultures.
Well, I was gonna say, actually, it's it's like that's the
one thing you know, I feel American wrestling fans kind of miss is that
I don't mean miss as in we don't have it, I mean miss and
that we don't see it the kind of the cultural relevance that play like countries
like Japan hold wrestling and wrestlers. Yes, you know, it's not just
a goof to them and what what curiosities they have about America that wrestling can
satisfy it's it's not it it's not a place to sort of turn turn your
nose up to in Japan in terms of being able to give you like your
fix of exotic cultures, what they would consider exotic cultures. It's like a
great place to do it because again, these these folks are coming here in
the flesh, and we can go see them, and we can observe them,
and we can, you know, actually see their real physicality, and
I don't know, it's just something that I think is like beating under the
surface when you observe the hottest periods of Japanese wrestling that it's really hard to
appreciate. But once you start unpacking it and realizing that there's this sort of
like there's this like delight that that the Japanese public takes in seeing something quintessentially
foreign, something quint essentially American, quint essentially Mexican. I mean, luchadors
have had an amazing string of box office appeal over the generations in Japanese pro
wrestling. You know, they're just so taken with the luchadors in the high
flying style and anybody who went over there that was a high level luchador you
know, earned a real seat at the table in terms of the public imagination.
And I don't know, just something that I think it's hard for us
as non Japanese speakers and non Japanese to really access like the real cultural feelings
around Terry Funk when he was the phenomenon that he was. But I think
we're getting kind of close by pulling together these pieces about cowboyism and yeah,
you know, I mean it's one of those things I don't think we'll ever
really will never be able to fully understand. Yeah, but at the same
time, will this will this will help get to a certain level yeah,
of understanding indeed. And so how did how do we close the gap between
where we left last time on the lapsed Funk where he was just starting his
career wrestling in Amarillo and making a quick jount to Minneapolis as we talked about,
and then making his initial voyages out to Saint Louis with this arrival in
Japan as we saw earlier in nineteen seventy, accompanying his brother against Antonio and
ok and then teaming with his brother against Anoki and Baba Well in sort of
quick sketch fashion in nineteen sixty five, as we mentioned, Terry Funk makes
his pro wrestling debut in Amarillo, having a couple of matches that are poorly
documented, and then of course the famous opening match, so to speak,
his unveiling match in Amarillo against put Nec Monroe. By nineteen sixty seven,
Terry Funk was on his way to Florida, as we discussed, where he
met and worked with the great Malenko Boris Malenko, who, of course,
as we talked about last time, was a deep inspiration to Terry Funk in
terms of how to cut a really cerebral heel promo. And even though he
was only in Florida for a little while, on that first jount was Terry.
Because has mentioned, Dorri Funk Senior calls Terry back to Amarillo. After
the passing of Doc So Paulis, who was a promoter of Ambarello. Upon
who's passing, Dorri Funk Senior became the main boss and Amarillo un thus needed
the boys there even more and could be in a position to pay them more
than they would make in Florida. They come right back. But that visit
to Florida in the early days of Terry Funk's wrestling career. Nineteen sixty seven
was enough for him to see meet and sort of experience Boris Malenko's style and
incorporate that in and then going back to Amarillo because his dad had taken over
in the middle of the year. Funk then makes his first john to California.
Terry Funk wrestles in nineteen sixty eight in San Francisco as the Texan for
Royn Wild. There are a couple of aliases that Terry Funk went went through
in his career and they were never they never stuck. I mean, he
was overwhelmingly Terry Funk everywhere he went, but he did wrestle in certain areas
including Florida as the Texan as well as uh, San Francisco is the Texan.
And then he did one a doctor nose at all, as in nose
like he had a big nose. That was like a one off thing,
but it's it's listed in his aliases over the years. After wrestling in San
Francisco in sixty eight, he goes to the Keel Auditorium in January nineteen sixty
nine and wrestles Lou Fucking Thees. Yes he does. I mean, this
is a guy who wrestled Luthez and wrestled Kevin Owens. I mean, come
on and then, and I have to eat Crow on this one, because
way earlier in the series I said that Terry Funk wasn't one of those guys
who rode the wave of superstation TBS and the national availability of Georgia Championship wrestling
like Oly Anderson and Dusty Rhads did to become national names. He did.
Terry Funk was very much an entity on TBS Georgia Championship in nineteen eighty and
in fact, unbelievable, his legendary feud against Dusty Roads spilt onto the superstation
and thus was available coast to coast for anybody who had access to cable in
its fledgling earliest days. But here he goes to Atlanta for the first time
in July of nineteen sixty nine to work with his brother Dory against the assassins
Jody Hamilton and Tom Arnesto. I believe it was at the time in Atlanta,
so he's getting around. How about August nineteen sixty nine, he goes
to the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles now for the first time to wrestle the
Destroyer. He's wrestling every single guy who's meant anything in the business. Within
the first three or four years. He's wrestled Lamont. It's amazing. He
worked a tag team. I mean, is that I mean, I'm assuming
that's not normal. Oh no, nobody would. I mean, you know,
you try to get around as a wrestler in your early years, but
to have to have that many doors opened to you in that many different territories
to be able to work the top guys everywhere you went, that was a
charmed existence. That was because he was Dorri Funk Senior's kid. At Dorri
FUNKX Senior was a power broker in the NWA, and he was increasingly becoming
a power broker in terms of supplying talent to Japan. Those scenes developed,
so yeah, he just but he embraced it with both arms. You know,
it's the same exact program as we talked about that Fritz set the boys
up for. But Funk's going around and really absorbing this shit and becoming his
own man. Worked in a tag How about I invite you to consider Saint
Louis, Missouri, nineteen sixty nine, Terry and Dory Funk against Blackjack Mulligan
and Bobby Heenan. I'd invite you to consider Terry Funk wrestling Bobby Heenan.
I don't think I can fucking fathom that that's unreal sits there and our heart
aches for access to what it was like. Yes, how about it goes
down to Florida as the Texan in nineteen seventy one and works against Tim Woods,
mister wrestling fucking megastar in that part of the country, and that's the
first time he starts wrestling with the Briscoes, and man, will that be
a fucking through line in Terry Funk's life. Nineteen seventy one, goes Florida,
Let's fucking go Houston, working Mill Mascaris in nineteen seventy one, Charlotte
nineteen seventy one, wrestling Johnny Weaver the fucking no there we Shifty, I
had motherfuck fifty eyed touchdown Babyface pre Flair and pre Steamboat and all the rest
under George Scott there in that part of the country. He even went to
the Worldwide Wrestling Federation and Madison Square Garden fuck out of here. In August
of nineteen seventy one, teaming with Dori Funk Junior in the tag match against
Al Hayes, who is in the amilitary trait. A big part of Al
Hayes's American Jaunt. One of his first stops and he spent a lot of
time there was Amarillo. Lord Alfred Hayes went to Amarillo and wrestled Terry Funk
repeatedly deal with it, I believe in Amarillo. About September seventy two,
he goes to Detroit and wrestles the Sheek, the guy everybody came to see
in that part of the country. Portland, nineteen seventy three. So by
night Terry Funk debut is in sixty five, and by seventy three he's wrestled
and been around Boris Malenko, Luthez, Bobby Heenan, the Assassins, the
Destroyer, Mister Wrestling, the Chikh, Johnny Weaver, Milmascaris, Lord Alfred
Hayes, I mean, these are things I guess where I'm where I'm flabbergasted,
is that I mean this reputation of his. I mean, it's not
like today, and it's not even like the eighties and the nineties where you
had this the exposure on on, Like, where did this all come from?
Yeah? What made him? Because you don't wrestle these guys unless they
know that they can draw money with you, right. I think it was
the fact that Dori Funk Senior was a huge star in the business. Yeah,
a lot of magazine publicity, good relations with Saint Louis, good influence
at the NWA, and everybody knew that he was going to turn out boys
who could draw, and they were willing to go with them before they proved
it. And they were big enough to grow into it as opposed to shirk
from it, Yeah, as opposed to be shrinking violence in the face of
this ambition. No, they went there, They absorbed, They learned,
their father brought them up in a way where it was like but like Terry
talked about as a stroke of genius. You know, his dad was so
hard on them in front of the other boys in those early years that the
early boys took up the cause for the other boys, took up the cause
for the funks for the kids, and said, maybe made a little too
hard on him. And that's what that was. The whole idea right to
eliminate any idea that you know, Senior was forcing the kids down anybody's throats.
He became their harshest critic. He exercised that boys ranch discipline that we
talked about on his own kids early on, and all of a sudden it's
blossoming because they had to make the adjustments to meet this very, very high
standard. We played that sound clip of Dory Funk Senior on Emillo Television voicing
over training footage while he's in the ring of Dory and Terry remember that,
yes I do. And he's talking about all the finer point things that they
are doing right and doing wrong. And that's a real glimpse I think into
how he girded them to be this well traveled and a lot of these guys
they're wrestling, Yeah, they became legends, But Heenan wasn't necessarily Heenan at
this point, right, And Theez was not necessarily Sez by the seventies.
I mean, certainly he was a progressing superstar, but he wasn't NWA World's
Champion, and he wasn't back on the track to being the champ after the
mid sixties. So you know the fact that it's like Terry came along just
as as his arrow was winding down, but he came at just the right
time to get in the ring with most of them, and then I mean,
really bridge that that that gap totally unlike it's so crazy because as much
as Dorry was right there with him, and eventually you get to like the
eighties and Dorry becomes more of an office guy, more of a booker,
and Terry just keeps going. Terry just keeps bridging new generations with the next
crop of talent that rises up, and pretty soon you can't find a pro
wrestler in the country that doesn't feel like he owes a tremendous amount to Terry
Funk right up until the day he died. Just this year, and we're
starting to see it come into relief not only here but in Japan as well,
And it can't be overstated the importance of the alliance between the Funks and
Giant Baba and establishing the Funk legacy in Japan that we've been talking so much
about. We turned to an art Idio shoot interview that Dory Funk Senior did
kind of characterizing which we've touched on already, but I think he puts it
kind of well. He crystallizes it here. If we're going to go back
to bridging the gap between Terry's debut and getting to Japan, it's an appropriate
yard marker here to let Dory explain how the earliest seeds were planted between the
Funks and Baba. It was the mister Baba's group was with the National Wrestling
Alliance as his new group, and my father got together with mister Baba and
helped him with the National Wrestling Alliance membership and also helped him form his company.
He also provided him with the first tour of wrestling talent which that mister
Baba ever had for All Japan Pro Wrestling, which included from the Emerald territory
my brother, Terry, Funk, Dutch Savage, Hank James, Jerry Kozak
to name a few. But my father booked the first tour for All Japan
Pro Wrestling, and for well over thirty years there was never a tour of
American wrestlers, but there wasn't at least one wrestler that was Funk's talent,
either my brother, myself or my father had booked over there. So the
ties are now established firmly. And again it was it was a question after
the Baba anoch split from j WA, which of the two would have the
National Wrestling Alliance Association, which would be sort of I guess you could say
the Japan Office of the NWA. And it was that process and that attempt
to become that entity that led to the strong Bunk Baba Bunk Baba Funk Alliance,
Baba Bunk Alba Bunk Alliance because it was Dory big Baba Bunk could help
sort of hold Boba's hand in terms of becoming the NWA representative of Japan.
There was some argument about this. Eddie Graham wanted to side with Antonio and
Nok in New Japan, and of course Eddie Graham, former NWWA president,
hugely influential post much Nick in the organization. It's kind of like, you
know, Fritz Eddie Dorry all kind of jockeying Barnett too to some degree though
he wasn't you know, sure a former wrestler for control and for influence and
sway. Jim Crockett coming up the rear two getting involved and kind of getting
more and more forward in terms of controlling the champ By the time Flair was
elected as champion, it would sort of be the Jim Crockett Show from then
on. But this is before that, and there was some disagreement like who
should the NWA side with in this Andoch versus Baba war, and it was
Baba, and it was Baba because of Dorrifunk Senior. And so for the
very first time the Funks go to Japan in November of nineteen sixty nine.
This is still in the JWA days, and it was Dorri Funk Junior,
Dory Funk Senior and Hartley Race take on Heiro Matsuda and Tonio and ok and
Mitchiaki yoshimorra I fint you to consider Dori Senior versus Antonio and ok I can't.
And then they came back also on that tour and had Hero Matsuda wrestle
Dori Funk as well. So the very first time the Funks went to Japan
was nineteen sixty nine. That's when we can chart the beginning of the relationship
that would then blossom into Dorian Baba building an alliance. After the split,
we turned out to Terry Funks book, or at least you will, Boss
if you can warm up those West Texas pipes for everybody yeah, good job.
It's like a do do Robbie. Right. I'm warm right now,
share with us. I might appede myself. I'm a little warm in the
paint. I knew it was coming to that. The first Funk team to
visit Japan on a wrestling tour was Doris Doris. He rides by the way.
It's a type of I'm sure, but it is dor Ys Doris.
Oh, I guess Doris. It means story's plural, yeah, which is
interesting. I don't know if that's correct either. But Dory's senior and Junior
in nineteen sixty nine, my dad still had an aversion to the Japanese because
of the war. They had an aversion to him because they could tell how
we felt about it. I'll forget. In Dorry's earliest wrestling days he was
promoted as a navy man, they pelted him with fruit, which was very
unusual for the time. They hated my father, and my father certainly hated
them. There were a lot of hard feelings left over from the war,
as I would find out a few years later when Junior and I visited Hiroshima
for the first time. We walked into a bar only to be told no
Americans get out. About three years after Dori and Dory's tour of Japan,
we had two Japanese guys, a Kuma and Masaucoma come to work as a
tag team and Amarilla. Coma in particular was a great guy, very tough
and very sharp. He was also one of Show Hey, how do you
present? Show Hey Baba's young boys in parentheses proteges, so he had some
say with Baba, who was one of Japan's top stars. Koma also had
a tremendous knowledge of the business. Baba made a trip to the States while
they were here, and he stopped in only two places, Dallas and Amarilla.
He was talking to Fritz and to us to line up an American promotion
to work with for talent. After hearing from both promotions and talking to Koma,
he decided our promotion would be the better one to work with. Fritz
made Baba an offer that included money that Fritz would be paid as a promotion.
Our offer had no upfront money paid for the provider, paid for the
promoter, or booking fees. Still, we didn't think we would be the
ones picked, but we were because Koma thought a lot of us and told
Baba that he and told Baba that he did. It also helped that Junior
had done such a good job and gotten over so well over there when he
toured before, Japan was in turmoil. The first time I was there,
which was my only trip for the Japan Pro Wrestling Association, Junior and I
worked several dates on the December nineteen seventy one tour. The tag match we
saw clips of earlier. Yeah, the biggest match we had was a tag
team win over the biggest stars in Japan show Hey Giant, Baba and Antonio
and nok and Oki. Didn't want to do the job in that match,
but he did it anyway. Oh, but he did it anyway. I
think he did it for the company, which which was on its last legs.
He certainly didn't do it for Baba. There was tension between Anoch and
Baba, and a lot of tension in the company overall. Both men ended
up forming their own groups, which became huge and becoming lifelong rivals. Their
rivalry was noted was rooted in business, but it was always personal. That
was the true. There was true animosity between those two, which probably made
for one of the truly greatest wrestling eras in the world that there was great
wrestling on both sides. It produced the talent mixtures and the variety of styles
that enabled people to see so many different types of wrestling. My brother had
a match with anoch on his tour. A lot of the guys were worried
that Anochi was going to go south on Aga, but Junior was tough and
could take care of himself, so he wasn't afraid of being crossed up.
Just to make sure, I was standing at ringside ready to punt Ainochi's head
like a football if there was trus so. According to Terry Funk's book,
the match we watched earlier in highlight form of Anok versus Dory with Terry at
ringside. Terry was there in case Snoki decided to go into business for herself
and become NWA champion. This was the beginning of our long relationship with Baba,
as we joined the All Japan Wrestling group that he started. It is
so a nice lay of the land there from Terry Funk. The JW Way,
which was the predecessor of both All in New Japan, was actually the
NWA outfit in Japan. It was the outpost, so the split created this
huge question of which way the nWay would go. Terry Funk's first japan toile,
as he mentioned, was in nineteen seventy. He comes to the JW
Way and teams with Dori Funk Junior to defeat Antonio and Oki and Michiaki Yoshima
on what appears to be his first Japanese match, that being July twenty seventh,
nineteen seventy. He did a company his brother and father in the prior
nineteen sixty nine tour, but did not wrestle. He continued on July twenty
eighth, nineteen seventy, according to Wrestling Data dot Com, to defeat Anoke
by disqualification in a two to three falls match. July twenty ninth, nineteen
seventy, Terry Funk wrestles Mitsue Hirai and gets a victory. And then on
July thirtieth, nineteen seventy seventy nine seventy Pardon Me in Osaka, Antonio and
Oki and Kintaro Ok the Big Korean Wrestling Star, defeat Terry Funk and Reggie
Parks in a tag team match. Funk would come back again, as he
mentioned, that excerpt from his book to Japan and November nineteen seventy one as
well, and worked Antonio Ok one on one as part of that tour.
In terms of the struggle for power between Anok and Baba, it was pretty
well laid out. But I think we'll turn quickly to Lion's Pride, the
book by Dow Japan color commentator Chris Charlton about kind of the history of the
formation of New Japan for a little bit of orientation on what happened there.
He writes an Okin Baba would former tag team in nineteen sixty seven by the
name b I Hugh, which I believe is can't This is the word canon
like shooting a cannon, and the two young stars between them made a deck
claratives clarative statement about the future of wrestling in Japan and Fukushima. On October
twenty seventh, the pair won their first four in WA International Tag Team Championships
by beating Bill Watts and Tarzan Tyler and Oki missing a Hiroshima show due to
a heavy snow in January nineteen sixty eight necessitated the titles being vacated, but
b I Canon all but owned the belt until the end of nineteen sixty nine,
only dropping them for brief periods, the shortest and the most irrelevant being
for a two day run to crush Losowski and Dick the Bruiser. The pairing
saw an OK star rise as a singles performer as well, and he would
only be beaten in the popularity stakes by Baba himself. So the two brands
are starting to develop here as it make good to NTV, Charlton right to
j W Way agreed that the network would have exclusive rights to flagship cards featuring
Baba and n E t what Aeronoki's matches, including un title defenses, So,
even while they were both still with j W Way, due to the
interest in two competing television networks in different versions of JWA wrestling, Baba became
a star of one Andoki became the star of another. It's interesting he began
to plan a coup. He talked to friends within the company and made plans
with Baba himself. This being ANOK, the pair together would have enough clout
to overthrow JWA management, but word about the plot reached higher ups. However,
Anoki was fired while Baba was convinced to stay on finding himself in a
similar position to toy Nabori five years prior. Anoki was out of a job
Christmas nineteen seventy one and hatched a plan to start his own group. So
it wasn't that they just decided to split one day or JWA one under,
though that may have been inevitable. It was a discovery by JWA management that
Antonio Andoki was planning to splinter off and getting fired before he could do it.
So Taranyok's you know, sort of reputation as a business bad boy and
a maverick is now starting to take firm hold. He reached out to allies
within j W A, convincing the likes of sixteen year old rookie Tutsumi Fujinami
to leave the company and sought out figures like Mussa Saieto, who had been
working as an independence since Tokyo Pro Wrestling disclosure. In January nineteen seventy two,
and Oki held a press conference announcing the name of his new venture,
Shin Nihon Knew Japan Pro Wrestling and jp double. As live gates tailed off
and JWA continued to make financial missteps. Nihon Television wanted out of their deal
and Giant Baba was coming round to Anok's idea of going independent. Baba left
and with his trainees Yoshiro and Mitsumimota, Ricky Dozan's sons formed All Japan Pro
Wrestling, taking NTV with him and NWA membership shortly thereafter. Had Anoki had
his way in nineteen seventy three, though his ever growing trophy case would have
included the NWA Heavyweight title, and the summer of that year, Innoki was
trying to enter NJPW into the NWA, only to be denied entry because of
the alliance's connection to Giant Baba and AJPW. Eventually, the NWA would rely
to allow New Japan to be recognized in nineteen seventy five, but at Baba's
behast, without Anoki himself allowed to be a member with the deciding vote on
what happened to NWA championships. So this starts to happen in the mid seventies.
You start to see all of a sudden, Vince McMahon senior embrace the
NWA again after splitting off in the dispute over the Buddy Rogers Luthez title in
sixty three, and all of a sudden, Vince is back in the NWA
such that he appears with the other promoters in the wrestler right pool side,
right, so he's already starting to reacquaint himself. Still the greatest scene of
all oh, just so tremendous, so amazing available now under the cinemat as
well. Good damn right, and so all of a sudden, guys that
are just you know, NWA territory related, like Terry Funk, we mentioned
Rick Flair, Dusty Rhodes, the host of others. Greg Valentine started,
Mike Tyson right started to come to Madison Square Garden. Whereas in the years
prior to that, because of their affiliation with the NWA territories, they wouldn't
really be welcome in New York, which had its own squad. So it
starts to happen in the mid seventies and a lot of guys who would come
to be associated with non WWF Boom territories actually got a shot in the garden,
and that small period of time in the seventies when that's also crazy Harley
coming through. They did a Harley Race Bob Backland match. They they did
all kinds of like interpromotional ideas it was. It was a wild time and
and it's within that circumstance that Antonio and ok Yes gets invited into the NWA
on behalf of New Japan. But Giant Baba has now established enough of a
firm hold in the NWA, a foothold if you will, that he has
denied Antonio nok the chance to have a vote to decide who will be the
NWA World's Heavyweight Champion. And you better believe him. On the people Giant
Baba voted to be champion was himself on a couple of o K. I
mean, come on taking it off of Harley Race. And so the first
All japan Car I just want to say is the Giant Bay. I don't
know where you're going with this. I just want to say that I believe
that the that the fair decision to be made and the right person to take
the built off Harley Race would be me, the Giant Baba, not the
little Baba, not the media Baba, the Giant Bob. I was confused.
Okay, it's Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, all right, yes,
hello, Okay, the cat doesn't like your Giant Bob impersonation. I guess
not and get you okay, thank you, Okay, Jesus fucking Christ,
please stop putting your claws in my leg. Thank you, gets your attention,
that's what she wants. So the first All Japan Pro Wrestling card was
held October twenty first, nineteen seventy two, in Tokyo, and I am
Giant Baba, yes he was on the card. Gets Momota, Akiasato,
Samson, Kusawada, Okuma Koma, Thunder Sugiyama who had just left another prominent
Japanese group, Thunder Sugiyama. It's a big star in the IWE, which
was International Wrestling Enterprise, which is kind of the competitor JWA. Rick Flair
had his first Japanese matches over there when he was still with AWA are still
coming up in Minnesota, and that kind of formed together, and then Funk
Senior, Terry Funk, Bruno Sammartino, Dom de Nucci, Fred Lassie,
the Destroyer, all the guys we talked about, and so on that card,
the very first All Japan Pro Wrestling event October twenty first, nineteen seventy
two. You better fucking believe that Bruno, Sammartino and Terry Funk teamed up
to defeat Giant Baba and Thunder Sugiyama by count out in a two or three
false match. I invite you to consider Bruno and Terry versus Giant Baba and
Thunder Sugiyama. I cannot even fathom that show. This man is just a
man for all seasons, a man for all generations. How about the first
man for a man for all promotions. So it started early, as it
regards Terry Funk's close tethering to all japan Pro wrestling, as in the very
first show teaming with one of the biggest legends of all time in Bruno Lessons
of Funk. One thing I'll say for him, the Japanese fans were always
more appreciative of what the saw in the ring because both the Noki and Baba
were very smart about keeping the evolution in check, he says, advancing things
slowly. Unlike the States, where everything was always getting wilder, Aoki and
Baba limited what was done in the ring. Therefore, people in Japan appreciated
wrestling itself more. They had finishes in the middle of the ring. There
were no screw job finishes in Japan for as long as I could remember,
until the modern era. Now that's not to say they in't have disqualifications or
cownowns, because they did, But we never did any of those crazy finishes
where the referee is knocked out and misses one guy pinning the other, or
half the locker room coming out to interfere. They usually had winters and losers.
When you had winters and losers, each match takes on a greater degree
of importance, as opposed to the States, where things got to the point
that the importance was with the stipulation of the match. If there was some
sort of gimmick or bizarre finish, it would typically be in only one match
on the card, and even then that only happened a couple of times a
year, which made each angle stand out and be something really memorable. And
those two book that way on purpose. How did they book? What did
they book and what did it look like when it was time for the funks
and that one or two times a year period to give the Japanese wrestling fans
something wild, something off beat, something off kilter, something off center.
What did it look like when the funks standing across the ring from the likes
of Terry Gordy and Abdullah the Butcher and Jimmy Snook and Bruiser Brody and Stan
Hansen and mil Muscarison, so many others, what it looked like, what
it feel like, as they gave the fans those rare occasions where things got
out of hand and we're able to stand. In contrast to the straightforward presentation
that Giant Baba was ushering in for a generator, I would define generations of
Japanese pro wrestling from that point forward. We'll get to that. We'll look
at that the next time we're with you on the Lapstunk Boss. We're not
only going to Japan, We're getting in the ring and we're gonna march our
way through the definitive Terry Funk run the key matches, the key highlights,
the key feelings, the sights and sounds, including the perr of the final
bell. We'll see you next time on the Lapsed Funk as we take you
through the matches that define Terry Funk in Japan. Okay, you no good
for nothing, egg sucking dumb. We did it in our way because we
love it that way. We love it, and I have this wonderful gun
feeling, and I've had it all my life, when it's time to go,
I think it's now it's time to go.