Great article and interview with the legendary Funkster. First of two parts.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2013/06/19/20913451.html
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2013/06/19/20913451.html
Terry Funk: A life in wrestling
By JAN MURPHY - Chinlock.com
It isn't long into a conversation with legendary professional wrestler Terry Funk before two things become evident: the man is incredibly family-oriented and fiercely protective of and loyal to the business that has been his entire life.
Literally, his entire life.
"(I have wrestling) memories that go back to infancy because it was our lives," the WWE hall of famer said over the phone this week. "It was my brother's life and it was my life and I think that probably both of us grew up ... with the dream of being a wrestler."
Funk and his brother, Dory Jr., also a WWE hall of famer, are the sons of the late Dory Funk Sr., himself a legend of the squared circle. It could be argued that the Funk boys were born and bred to be wrestlers.
"I've often said about myself that I, as a child, was not one to play cowboys and indians like you saw on television and in the movies, like the other kids," the soon-to-be 69-year-old Funk said. "I can't remember when I didn't want to be a wrestler. My brother was the same way. It was not instilled into us, it was a love of the family. It was what we loved to do. One of the first things that I can remember is going to the wrestling matches, clearly, from an early, early, early age ... going to the wrestling matches and watching my father wrestler and the excitement in the crowd. It was quite a thing for me as a child. And very impressive."
Impressive, indeed, sitting ringside and watching your pops become one of the founding fathers of the industry. Heroic might be a better word.
"He was a hero in my eyes," Funk said of his dad, who died in 1973. "My father truly was," Funk added. "He was a hero in the other wrestlers' eyes, too. Just as Stu Hart," he added, referring to the Canadian training legend and patriarch of the Hart family. "The reason why is they were the guys that showed the other wrestlers in the United States that there (was) a possibility to go on and become something other than a wrestler -- that was a promoter -- (and that) there was no end to how far you could go in the profession."
The Funk brothers would follow in their heroic father's footsteps and enter the business. In the five or so decades that followed, they would at times dominate the industry, carving out their legendary careers by working at all of the major wrestling promotions, and not just those in North America.
The brothers broke into the business working for their father's promotion in their hometown of Amarillo, Texas, before joining the National Wrestling Alliance in 1968. There, Terry would eventually win the NWA World Championship, a title he held for 14 months.
Throughout his illustrious career, Terry Funk would work, in many cases multiple times, for the NWA, World Wrestling Federation (now WWE), World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, Ring of Honor and independently, in between stints in Japan. But anyone who knows the name Terry Funk knows there are two sides to his career, the early part of his career, during which he was a very successful wrestler and the latter part of his career, during which he revolutionized what is now known simply as hardcore wrestling.
The violent matches in the latter part of his career that earned him the nickname "hardcore legend" were not necessarily by choice, says Funk, who will be appearing in the mean streets of Philadelphia on Saturday as part of Tommy Dreamer's House of Hardcore 2.
"Hardcore was a necessity, you know," he said, before adding "and there are two meanings to hardcore, too. What I mean by that is that hardcore to me is whenever you go out into the ring and ... give 100% of your body, of your soul, of your heart, of your mind and you put it into that match. You do it because you want it to be the best, and the best on a nightly basis, and you want to be best on a yearly basis. To me, that's hardcore. But also, hardcore is hardcore, too.
"Why did I go to the really craziness? I had (done) it in Japan several years (earlier) because there was New Japan (Pro Wrestling) and All Japan (Pro Wrestling). All Japan was (founder) Shohei (Giant) Baba and we were with him. New Japan was (founder) Antonio Inoki and it was a true war over there. It was a war among the boys, it was a war among the promoters and who was going to wind up on top. It was a very serious thing would affect each and every guy's lives on either side if one of them got the upper hand.
"Inoki and New Japan at that time had gone with the lighter guys and the flyers and just some great people and they had some great talent and they were doing things that were never seen before in the ring. That included guys like (Chris) Benoit and The Dynamite (Kid) and Davey (Boy Smith)," Funk said, adding that the duo known as the British Bulldogs would later defect to All Japan side.
To counter New Japan's high-flying, fast-paced style, "we had to come up with something and it was a very physical form of wrestling that we came up with," Funk said. "And we got the better end of it," he said of All Japan's triumph.
Unlike in North America, where wrestling was more mainstream, to get known in Japan, talent had to find ways to get newspaper coverage, Funk said.
"We had no TV. All we depended on was the media, the newspapers over there because they had a lot of newspaper coverage. That was the only way that we had to become a name over there at that time. I kind of arrived at the fact that, what would they rather have a picture of: Antonio Inoki with a headlock on some other guy -- what's going to sell the most papers? -- or Terry Funk sticking a pitchfork into some Japanese guy," he said with a laugh. "I'm just using that as an example. I didn't ever do that, but I never thought of it at the time."
And thus, a hardcore star was born.
"The barbed wire matches, the hardcore matches, I think that they evolved from that."
And it wasn't only a name for himself that Funk made overseas.
"I could go over there a minimal amount of times a year and make a wonderful living," he said. "But I had to figure out how to do it. I had to figure out how to get the people to the arena and that's kind of what we went with."
What, Funk was asked, goes through one's mind before stepping into an arena, knowing full well that you're about to go out in front of a crowd and get physically punished?
"You know, I've never been asked that question ... that's one question I've probably never been asked before. Truthfully."
For Funk, it's all about the fans. It always was.
"I have a love for the crowd, I have a love for the wrestling fan no matter who that wrestling fan is, whether it's Canadian, American, or wherever," he said. I'm going to give them there money's worth," he said.
"I think that a lot of the Canadian boys had that same attitude," he said. "Dynamite and Davey, same thing ... Benoit, all of them. That's because they came out of a certain area, they all evolved from one area, the Hart area. Down here, I had just had a passion for my fans, and giving them their money's worth. It didn't matter if there were 30 of them out there or 30,000 of them, I'd go to the limit for them. I ran into a bunch of people who were kind of the same way ... Mick Foley, a young guy at the time, but I could see it in him that he had the heart and love for the fans, not only for wrestling, but for the fans. That's an important factor."
Those who had that heart and love would have no boundaries when it came to entertaining their fans.
"Dynamite would do that also," Funk said, before recounting one such story. "I would see him in the ring ... dive off the top of the corner rope and fly all the way to the floor, maybe 12, 15 feet down, and nothing but cement and a body below him. I'd see him come onto the bus and just be physically a wreck, and I truly mean that, with hematomas on his back.
"Actually, one night, and this is the god's honest truth, he had a knot the size of a baseball right on his spine, on his lower back, from just doing some ungodly thing in the ring. I got on the bus, and he was already on there, and I went walking by him -- and he'd do it time after time to me, not just once -- but he'd say 'hey, mate, how was it?' And I'd go ahead and I'd say 'Goddamit Dynamite, you were friggin' great, you were wonderful, it was fantastic, and he'd get a smile on his face. The performance is what counts to the great ones. It's not the money. The truly great ones in the business, it's not the money, it's the performance. And that's the way it was with Dynamite and Davey Boy and so many guys in this business.
"It's the understanding that those fans are giving up their hard-earned cash, whether it's 10,000 of them, or 50 of them. Those 50 people paid the same price that those 10,000 did. Maybe not the same price, but right damn near it and they deserve a damned great show. It's those troopers that go out there in our business that give it 110% ... that's the guys that have the true love for the profession. There are guys that have never gotten the chance, and let me tell you something, there are guys that have been beat every night ... night after night after night ... they go in (the ring) and do the same thing, and do it for the love of the business.
