Terry Funk, who on Saturday, 20 days in advance of his 61st birthday, competed in a violent “three way dance” with Shane Douglas and Sabu at the Douglas and Jeremy Borash-promoted Hardcore Homecoming implied ECW reunion show at Viking Hall. Even and especially after wrestling for 40 years, Terry Funk is not disquieted by the sight of a little barbed wire. His new autobiography (Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore: Sports Publishing, $24.95, 250 pages), written by Funk and Scott E. Williams, goes a long way, and further than most wrestling books, at providing the framework behind a man who often defies definition and reason, and whose knowledge about wrestling is undeniable.
Funk’s credentials for writing the story of modern wrestling are somewhat unparalleled: a charter member of the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, Funk was NWA champion from late 1975-1977, a booker of All Japan during a notoriously combustible promotional war with New Japan in the late 1970s, a member of the WCW booking committee during a power struggle between them and Herd in 1989-1990, and one of the industry’s most gifted all-around performers, a strong wrestler and interview. He was profiled in the 1999 movie “Beyond the Mat,” won feud of the year in 1989 with Ric Flair in both the Wrestling Observer and Pro Wrestling Illustrated publications, also winning Wrestler of the Year (1976) and Most Inspirational (1997) in the latter. Finally, this April, he was given the Iron Mike Mazurki Award by the Cauliflower Alley Club in Las Vegas, NV. His forty year wrestling career, beginning 1965 in Amarillo, TX, lends the book a scope rivaled by only a few books (I would say the Lou Thesz autobiography is comparable).
One of the benefits of having Dory Funk Sr. for a father meant that Terry had a relatively easy in to the business, as Funk controlled the Amarillo territory, one of many Texas territories over the decades but one that was able to remain a stronghold even in a small area. Another benefit, as Terry candidly admits to, was his access to contacts within the NWA who were able to politically benefit him later when he was considered to be Jack Brisco’s successor for the NWA title in 1975. “I already (in the late 1960s) had a relationship with every one of them, and that helped me tremendously.” Funk had attended West Texas State (now A&M), which also produced Stan Hansen, Blackjack Mulligan, Tully Blanchard, Bruiser Brody, Ted DiBiase, Dusty Rhodes, and Tito Santana.
The biggest strength of the book is that it is written concisely and organized in such a way where no parts of Terry’s career are downplayed, all major points are discussed, major wrestlers are highlighted (Terry decries how poorly wrestling’s history is taught), and the book doesn’t leave you with the feeling of being shortchanged, with parts of the wrestler’s career omitted or not given enough depth. The stories are entertaining and the book is informative and quick to read.
Very much unlike the structure of wrestling these days, Funk spent time both in his home territory, but also traveled to other territories, seasoning him, giving him perspective, and shaping him. Winning titles periodically, when Dory Funk Jr. won the NWA title in 1969, it was his job to precede him in territories as a heel, work with the top star, and then job to get fans to believe that the star would beat Dory. While formulaic, the purpose of the NWA champion was to build up territories by making the top stars in each individual territory look good, but without losing. It worked.
Few books are as characterized by an even-handed judgment and tone as More than Just Hardcore. The book is peppered with funny characters and an honest, if arguable, judgment about the talents and qualifications of many of wrestling’s motley troupe from the past 40 years. One of the people portrayed in the book for whom Funk seems to have greatest respect is Eddie Graham. While he started as a wrestler, Graham is known best as the promoter of Championship Wrestling from Florida, which was one of the most productive and creative promotions of the 1970s. Funk, who had the opportunity to work under Graham since 1966, valued his attitude as much as his technique, cites him as a teacher, and notes his inspiration to help build Gordon Solie into the best announcer in the business. Even Dusty Rhodes admits the role that Graham played in his personal success. Unfortunately, in 1985, Graham committed suicide.
Funk believes that the role of the champion was to make other guys look good, and less about protecting personal reputation. He addressed the job of a wrestler as getting people to come back and doing what it takes to make that happen, part of what drove him to an increasingly “hardcore” style over the years. His favorite NWA champions were Dory Funk Jr. and Harley Race, because of their versatility and ability to put others over. His opinion on Lou Thesz is counter: “I have great admiration for Lou… But he was a very self-centered champion, one who didn’t take into consideration the time and effort that some of his challengers and the other guys on those cards has put into making certain guys the top stars of the areas. If he didn’t like someone, or didn’t think they should be in there, he’d chill them in the ring, which he was certainly capable of doing, because he had legitimate skills.”
After politics split the NWA between Funk and Harley Race in 1975, it was president Sam Muchnick’s deciding vote that gave Funk the NWA championships (as well as the responsibilities and money attached to it). Funk pinned Jack Brisco in a 60 minute best-of-three falls match on December 10, 1975. The 423 days that followed were the hardest (the NWA champion traditionally had the busiest schedule in the business), loneliest (he traveled alone to most of his bookings, a new experience) and most lucrative (champions earned a percentage of the gate at every show) of his career. As one of many similar decisions in his life, he decided he wanted out of the harrowing schedule, and dropped the title to Harley Race. Where the money was, Funk went. And so he went to All Japan, siding with Shohei “Giant” Baba in a vicious promotional war against New Japan and Antonio Inoki. Besides becoming one of the top drawing foreign babyfaces in the country’s history, with brother Dory, this is where his paths crossed with two important.
The first person with whom he crossed paths was Abdullah the Butcher. In trying to do his job—which as he mentions is to bring fans back to the shows—he did a spot in a match with Butcher where Butcher stuck a fork in his arm. It was the birth of a style more recently associated with Funk. The second person was Atsushi Onita. Both were friends and for a time Onita lived with Funk in Texas, but a knee injury forced him out of wrestling. Long story short, this would lead to Onita creating the FMW promotion in Japan, whose ghost appeared at the ECW One Night Stand PPV on Sunday, in a match between Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka that was something of a carbon copy of the matches they’d done in this Japanese hardcore promotion years earlier. The match saved the show. Onita would move on from FMW and become a senator. Funk wrestled rather infrequently in the 80s—save for journeyman appearances here and there and a WWF run that involved Funk working more dates than he could handle—and focused on acting, where he could make a decent living and earn insurance with the Screen Actor’s Guild for rather minimal work. His most famous role was in the 1978 Sylvester Stallone film Paradise Alley. In one of the best chapters of the book, “Art of the Promo,” Funk discusses working with Jerry Lawler and the importance and deconstruction of a good promo. The book’s narrative voice aside, it’s hard to really see how good Funk is at promos without watching him, and he’s still got it today.
Unlike Ric Flair’s autobiography, To Be the Man, Terry’s book in large part does not succumb to the prejudices and preferences of age and alliance that sullied the credibility of Flair’s tirades on Mick Foley and Bret Hart. Funk, who in this book provides a gladiatorial argument against Flair’s opinions on both as well as some of Jack Brisco’s statements in his book, is significantly more credible a narrator than Flair and others. Willing to criticize himself, his judgment, his ideas in wrestling (though the goal behind them), and gimmicks (like the 1998 mistake of Chainsaw Charlie, which he admits was his idea), the reader is able to immerse him or herself in the story, absorb the knowledge within, without having to read cynically or analytically, fearing that the author’s frame of reference is out of touch or egotistical (such as is the experience reading Dusty Rhodes’ Dusty: Reflection of an American Dream and too often Flair’s book).
Furthermore, the book parlays Funk’s knowledge and mind for wrestling gleaned through years of unique experience into critical analyses of problems today surrounding wrestling, both in and out of the ring. Unlike Steve Austin’s The Stone Cold Truth, the content doesn’t feel paper-thin. Even better, unlike Ole Anderson’s Inside Out, Terry Funk’s opinions are firmly rooted in present-day examples and realities of the business. He doesn’t come off bitter or unaware because, unlike Anderson, he never really left the business, even in laughable semi-retirement. He discusses with some depth his feelings on the business today.
Terry Funk chose not to take a booking with WWE for their ECW, saying that he has had a rough year physically. He said the choice was to do one or the other, and even though the WWE payoff was higher, he didn’t like the idea of Vince McMahon profiting off ECW with either the PPV or the DVD. He doesn’t dislike Vince McMahon, and gives him his creative due, but finds the use of the ECW legacy to make a profit deplorable. He said as much in a May 21 appearance on Pro Wrestling Radio:
No I am not, they sent me a contract and to be very honest with you it was a much more lucrative contract, I could have done them both, but again I want to perform at my best and I don’t want to perform like a fool at my age, and I want to perform at my best and I feel like I can only do one of those shows and perform greatly in a weekend, so I picked the one closest to my heart. That is the Shane Douglas show because I feel that is the ECW fans. I feel that the other fans at the other show are going to be wannabe ECW fans. They’re going to be make-believe ECW fans; they’re not going to be real ECW fans at Vince’s (McMahon) show. The real group, even though you might want to believe that they are, they aren’t. The real ECW fans are going to be in Philadelphia at Shane Douglas’ show. And the money is triple of what Shane Douglas is going to pay me and by golly I still want to show the fellow that there is, it’s a true thing that you need competition in the wrestling business. And if you don’t have competition it’s a proven fact that businesses die. It might be true about people too you know? So what I want to do is I want to be competition to Vince.
Perhaps Funk’s last great influence on the wrestling business has been his work in ECW, a promotion with which he has been involved since before it was in most everyone’s consciousness. Funk came to the company and spent many years with them, making history with his original “three way dance” with Shane Douglas and Sabu (who he feels is a grossly underrated worker). Historically, it was apropos that he participated in the main event of Hardcore Homecoming. His time in WCW at the dawn of the millennium is seen as a small but unfortunate blip in his career.
Often the question with Funk is why he’s still doing any shows at all. Funk is injured, has horrible knees, and has recently had heart surgery. A more reasonable person—perhaps, for instance, Jack Brisco—would have given in up years ago, letting their legacy speak for themselves. “I can go out in my backyard and bury the professional wrestling,” Funk said on the Puroresu Power Hour, “and I do all the time, but I always find myself digging it back up because I love it very much and it’s pretty hard not to dig it back up….” Even yet, for most sane people, the love of professional wrestling does not supersede reason and safety. As Funk discusses at great length, one of his greatest motivators for doing everything he does in life is so he can enjoy being with his family. While I don’t believe that Mr. Funk is poor, he opines that his main reason for staying in wrestling is to be able to continue to enjoy his home life and his family. He discusses how his wife has kept him away from drugs and forced him to not get carried away with wrestling, as he did after his father died.
Additionally, Funk shows a great concern for the well-being of fellow workers. He, like Bret Hart and Roddy Piper, suggested a wrestler’s union, which would be good for them. A number of issues come to mind that could be addressed by a union: the independent contractor status of wrestlers; a serious dialogue about drugs, which is overdue; and various issues surrounding payoffs. It doesn’t appear possible, however, because of two reasons. First, Vince McMahon is opposed to the idea of a wrestler’s union, because it changes the leverage he can use in negotiating their contracts, which is a freedom he has enjoyed for years and not been reluctant to use. Furthermore, he has the power to circumvent any attempt to create a union. Secondly, it’s likely that the public appearance of wrestlers organizing might not win the support of fans. Funk also had a problem with the use of steroids and drugs, which is rampant these days, but stopped too short of blaming the difficulty of the business on the problem.
Reading the story of wrestling from Terry Funk’s perspective is quite an interesting journey, through varying times, places, and without a shortage of interesting people. Also, the combination of experiences that Funk has had in this business is not going to be something that can be read in most other wrestling books. A strongly recommended read for most any wrestling fan.
*Note of clarification about the last column. I made the point that the month of May saw the first death in mixed-martial arts fighting. To some degree this is misleading. This death and one years before it (which I did not list because calling it MMA was a stretch) were both held in unsanctioned and rather unprofessional environment, so saying that it was held under MMA rules is not all that true. It’s fairly important to bring this up especially seeing the rather ludicrous debate that’s gone on since that point about the MMA promotion that was not allowed to run in Illinois, one of the reasons cited being the pro wrestling death of Daniel Quick.
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