Terry Funk Brings Me Along

By Tim Livingston: 

When I was 5, my brother and I took naps in different rooms because otherwise, we wouldn’t go to sleep and we’d upset my parents (still can’t nap for shit to this day). On one of those napless Saturday afternoons in late 1989/early 1990, when I got bored and decided to turn the TV on at an extremely low volume to hide it from my folks, I turned it to TBS, where they just happened to be running a special called “The War of ‘89.” Jim Ross was in studio and they played (mostly in full, if I recall) the matches that were part of the Ric Flair/Terry Funk feud, beginning with the angle at WrestleWar ’89 and ending with the “I Quit” match at Clash IX. Easy programming instead of doing a full Saturday Night taping.

I had seen Funk before on the WrestleMania 2 VHS I repeatedly rented from Blue Moon Video. I rented it mainly because I wanted to see WrestleMania III, but someone else rented it and never returned it basically every time I went in. Late fees must’ve been a bitch. Funk didn’t really stand out then to me outside of the finish of the tag (in retrospect, the best match on the show), as my sports-loving self was all about the NFL/WWF 20-man battle royal [Eric nods in Russ Francis approval reading this]. Funk didn’t stand out to me then. But once I saw this feud? He never left my head again.

That’s because of the Great American Bash. It’s one of the best singular performances I can remember. When I watched this match so many times when I was younger, it was always Flair who was the focus for me. Coming off the Steamboat series, how does he do against Funk, what does he change up, etc. I smartened up something fierce in the years since. And this always stands out as Funk’s most impactful performance to me.

Funk comes out flanked by police and Gary Hart, branding iron in hand, “Man With A Harmonica” playing him to the ring. I can’t really begin to tell you how instantly cool this makes Funk look; the contrast is seeing Flair come out with the best women 1989 Baltimore has to offer, but Funk sees him arrive, meets him outside right away (probably to warn the women how much of a womanizer he was, sets Flair off, and the fun begins.

Funk plays the invading heel archetype to the best of almost anyone’s abilities. He postures and gets his ass whipped, then gets pissed about it as Flair waits for him to get back in the ring(s). Instead, Funk decides he’s not in Baltimore, but in San Juan; trying to remove the guardrails from the floor, pacing the front row and stalking anyone who wants to get fresh. It’s the threatening shit everyone tries but can posture with today; there’s an aura to someone who calls himself “middle-aged and crazy” actually decides to just do whatever his id tells him at any moment. Stan Hansen had the cowbell on a bullrope to instill fear; Terry Funk just needed a reason.

The escalation here is delightfully impactful: Funk tries to go blow for blow with Flair and fails due to Flair being amped up. Flair tries to literally rip Funk’s neck off his body to get back at him for the WrestleWar piledriver, then tries to go the full monty, following up with his kneedrops to the neck and two piledrivers of his own. You even get Flair getting a cowardly Funk back in the ring and locking in the figure-four, until the literal greatest transition spot in history occurs: Funk opens Flair up with a branding iron to not only break the hold, but bust his skull open.

Normally in a match where the babyface is out for revenge you get a hot start before crashing back to Earth; here Funk lets Flair have basically half the match before he gets in his first meaningful shot of offense. But then it’s all to the neck, and all nasty. A stiff piledriver. A wild dive off the apron where a glancing blow with the knee makes contact with neck and Flair sells it like whiplash. Three SICK spinning neckbreakers. Funk even decides to lay the seeds for the “I Quit” match by yelling at Flair to give up after the third one, an unequivocal master of the craft. The match goes just over 15 minutes and Funk barely needed a third of it to make the point that he could own Flair with just one small opening.

Then we get to the part that forever lives in my memory. For my money, the best 10-minutes of pro wrestling ever produced: Flair bloodies Funk, misses the Harley Race knee, trips up Funk on the spinning toehold, and reverses the small package for the win. After knocking out Gary Hart, here comes The Great Muta, resplendent in blood red, misting Flair to the mat, trying to break Flair’s neck with a stuff piledriver, whooping Doug Dillinger’s ass (civilian or not). Then Sting comes out to even the odds, giving us the amazing visual of Flair’s half green, half red face fighting off the invasion and standing tall next to Sting in his chipped face paint.

But we get MORE. Muta throws the ring stairs as Funk retreats with Hart, Flair and Sting give chase and whoop Funk and Muta back towards the entrance ramp, Flair swinging his belt begging for Funk to make a move. When we cut to Jim Ross and Bob Caudle's closing remarks, the brawl continues with chairs and branding irons and everything else. Sting somehow finds a velvet rope and chokes them both. And then, as if you needed a capper to the insanity, Flair gives you the full show: the bi-colored face, title over his shoulder, eyes bright in contrast lit up with the fill lighting, threatening to wear Funk’s Texas ass out. His face looked like he had just survived a showdown with Jason Voorhees and a Xenomorph and lived to tell the tale.

Funk was an agent of chaos, coming in and leaving destruction in his wake, even as he was defeated by Flair. It was another great nod to how he amplified the booking. There was no cheap DQ finish, you can look good even with a loss because chaos reigns supreme, and when you try to get your heat back, you make things crazier. The win or loss barely matters. Flair won, but Funk took part of his soul on the way out. There was a delicate balance where Funk wanted to put everyone in a better position as the show ended, while also bringing up two young dudes who needed the rub. Everyone in a better position coming out of the show than when they came in. The best way to do business.

It's everything anyone could ever love about Terry Funk in one neat package: The absurd, the nastiness, the execution and sloppiness, the unbridled passion and effort; knowing that after a quarter century in the business having done and seen it all, he’s more than happy to show ass. It means the fans want him to get it whooped again next time around. He took the loss, he lost the post-match brawl, but he was - as he normally was - the thing folks remember.

He was absolutely the thing I remember most from that July night, and on this October night, as well. I’m happy to know that many years after my napless kindergarten self saw the match, I was fully able to appreciate his greatness. The singular professional wrestler with a singular performance; timeless as a Morricone tune.

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Name a Better 1990s US Women's Match: Madusa vs. Hokuto, Career vs. Title

Title vs. Career: Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa WCW Great American Bash 6/15/97

ER: I thought this was fantastic, pretty easily the best women's match in WCW history. True, there really isn't much competition for that crown, but this match stands on its own. I think it stands above all other 90s American women's wrestling matches, which against is not a huge field but whatever, this match rocks. The crowd that had been so hot for Psychosis/Ultimo had taken a siesta during the next three matches, but Madusa's fired up entrance got them completely back in it. The Quad Cities were so loudly behind Madusa, and the match suddenly felt like an actual Big Deal in spite of the limited build the match received compared to other major matches. The match was much more violent than I expected and really rose to meet the Career vs. Title stipulation. I've seen so many matches worked like the participants didn't understand the stipulations of their own match, that it was incredible to see Madusa really leave it all out there. This was the best I've seen her look in a wrestling ring. Her real strength is her sympathetic selling, which was the driving force of this match. Her energy really elevated this, getting the crowd into all of her comebacks and bringing them into her pain. Akira Hokuto being a little asshole obviously helped with that too. 

Hokuto was in full asshole mode, taking every single opportunity to yank at Madusa's hair, choke her with her boot, stand on her neck and tits, pressing the limits of what a referee would allow. Hokuto's hair whips alone were nasty as hell. These things were a long way removed from Moolah. Hokuto whips Madusa so hard, into extra rotations, releasing late so it looked like Madusa was getting her face bounced off the mat. I've never seen hair whips look this violent. They looked like something a hairy Russian would have done to Shinya Hashimoto, grabbing him by his sideburns. Madusa peppers in comebacks but Hokuto is relentless, and they manage to work a believably back and forth match without it ever feel like they were just taking turns on offense. Both felt like they were fighting to stay in it as it broke down into suplexes and cool messy kick exchanges, each trying to land against tempo. The crowd is so into Madusa. Her quick series of missile dropkicks are thrown devil-may-care, more important to plant her boots in Hokuto's head, neck, and chest than worry about her landing. When she lands funny on an axe handle, the match takes an even more killer turn. 

Now, Madusa is really good at taking Hokuto's offense in this match. Part of that is surely how forcefully Hokuto delivers that offense. Hokuto's piledriver is going to look good no matter what, but Madusa does this great small rag doll sell of it, getting a little RVD bounce and then crumbling off to the side the way piledriver-taking-expert-salesmen Genichiro Tenryu legitimizes the skeletal pain of one. Her excellent selling of Hokuto's violent offense was enough of its own great performance, but after her unfortunately landed brief knee-buckled axe handle, she got to show off a commitment to limb selling that we haven't seen in WCW this year. In this era of WCW, and during the style of this era, all of the guys who knew how to work over a limb also happened to be prominent Get Your Shit In artists. A necessary evil of most wrestlers who can damage a limb. So Madusa gets the opportunity to blow them out of the water by limping her way through the last half of this excellent match. I think only Roddy Piper's sustained knee and hip selling in the Slamboree main event even approaches what Madusa does here, and not very close. Madusa managed to bridge theatrical limping with enough realness and gutsiness that I fully bought into her fighting through an actual injury. She is good enough in this match that one could convincingly talk themselves into the injury being legit, and her gutting her way through the match rather than just end her career on a whimper of a stoppage. 

I just love what she does with this knee injury. I love how and when she acknowledges it: How she limps her way over to do a corner headstand rana; how she pulls off a legitimately all time great powerbomb, lifting Hokuto over her head and throwing her down with the force of Scott Norton and America behind it, hopping around on one leg to sell the shock of Hokuto's impact. It was in the way that she sold her knee just well enough to show that no matter what she was able to hit with a bad knee, Hokuto knew she was dealing with a wounded animal and was never behind. When she hyperextends Madusa's leg with a kneebar or just stands on the bad knee to dig her boot heels in, we feel it. When Madusa drags her dead leg behind her, narrowly avoiding a missile dropkick, her inability to hold the bridge on her German suplex is felt too. The finish is abrupt and cruel. There is no extended torture. Hokuto is cruel but not stupid. She knows she can't leave hubristic openings. When Madusa's leg buckles on a high atomic drop, Hokuto pounces immediately and with no fanfare, murdering a woman's career with a vertebrae shortening northern lights bomb, opting to torture after the match rather than celebrate her victory. 

After her loss, when Mean Gene almost rudely badgers a crying Madusa about whether, in the moment, she actually realizes her career is over. The crowd actually starts a "Leave Her Alone" chant, which clearly rattles Gene as he repeats, almost incredulously, "Leave Her Alone?!" with his face pulled away from the mic. How often have you ever heard a crowd turn on Mean Gene Okerlund? I can't think of a single time. You can't blame the Gobbledy Gooker on Gene, he was merely stuck in that segment and desperate to salvage. Here, he was the sole focus of the fans' scorn, and it was because of the incredibly convincing performance of Madusa.  

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Lorcan vs. Thatcher

7. Timothy Thatcher vs. Oney Lorcan NXT 7/1

ER: This was the exact kind of 10 minute fight I wanted to see. You knew you were going to have to endure 7 or 8 different Mauro references to Stu Hart and the Dungeon for whatever reason, but they ripped at each other's limbs in the best way so who cares. The grappling was strong and I dug how they established that Lorcan was going to hit harder and take more risks, while Thatcher felt like he was going to endure some chops and some unfavorable mat positions just for the chance to take apart Lorcan's arm. I like Lorcan's specific level of crazed and focused, where he also has no problem leaning into Thatcher's strikes and has no fear about landing in a disadvantaged position. Thatcher works for a nice Americana and Lorcan takes a nice bump to the floor, and I adore Thatcher's big throw belly to belly, where the motion seems so graceful and the hangtime sublime. Lorcan lands like a sandbag. Lorcan really pays Thatcher back with a nasty half nelson suplex and then slaps him repeatedly down to the mat. I'm into the focus that guys like Lorcan and Gulak have brought back to a single leg crab, as they know how to lock them in so effectively that they make a hold WWE has phased out seem actually dangerous. But Thatcher's kneebar variation was my favorite thing here (if not this, then Lorcan's early match low angle headscissors takedown, one of the coolest headscissors I've seen in months), locking in a half crab of his own and then clutching Lorcan's shin, spreading pressure from the hamstrings to the knee to the quad. That's a disgusting hold and it needs to finish a few matches. Lorcan is a savage so of course tries to dig into Thatcher with a fishhook, and the way Thatcher shifted his weight and rolled across to a Fujiwara to break and win was a thing of beauty. I've seen these two square off several times over the years, and they always bring new fresh tricks to the table. Can't think of better ways to kill 10 minutes.

PAS: It is pretty great that Lorcan, Thatcher and Gulak were able to basically import wholesale what they were doing in 2014 to the WWE in 2020. I mean this is uncut stuff, not even a little watered down. Almost everyone who comes into the WWE has to work the house style, but somehow these guys were able to squeeze through and work an EVOLVE Style Battle match on a big show. I liked the pacing of the matwork, how they were testing limits with the holds early and by the end of the match they were sinking things in and trying to tear ligaments. The finish was about as cool of a mat exchange as I can remember seeing, that kneelock was sick looking, and I loved the counter of the fishook with the Fujiwara armbar. Loved this.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT Great American Bash 7/1/20

Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai vs. Mia Yim vs. Candice LeRae

ER: This is done elimination style, which is at least a nice change of pace from these multimans where people conveniently disappear the entire match. The early chaos was good and filled with fun Kai faces and a surprise early Candice elimination. Mia Yim had one very clunky spot where she dove "at" Nox and instead flew to the floor, but Nox hadn't been in that spot for awhile so it looked like Yim just turned around and ran/dove at nothing, like Kerry von Erich hitting a sunset flip on someone standing 10 feet away. But right after that she goes on a real fantastic run, hitting a sick rana on Nox after running across Kai's back, then snapping off a rana on Kai right after, then running into consecutive nice topes on both. It was really exciting in the moment even though after she was eliminated it did come off as one of those "let her get a series of cool moments before she gets pinned". I did not love the final Kai/Nox singles match. Tegan Nox just does not do it to me. Her wide mouth shocked faces on kickouts, her moveset that is a distilled version of the most current/basic indy moveset. It has no personality, and Nox herself appears to have no personality outside of "fashionable apron move shining wizard that doesn't hit and also knee brace". Kai's exaggerated heel expressions adds to things, but I just can't get excited by "Nox should have been finished but now she is fighting back with her heatless offense that everyone does!"

Timothy Thatcher vs. Oney Lorcan

ER: This was the exact kind of 10 minute fight I wanted to see. You knew you were going to have to endure 7 or 8 different Mauro references to Stu Hart and the Dungeon for whatever reason, but they ripped at each other's limbs in the best way so who cares. The grappling was strong and I dug how they established that Lorcan was going to hit harder and take more risks, while Thatcher felt like he was going to endure some chops and some unfavorable mat positions just for the chance to take apart Lorcan's arm. I like Lorcan's specific level of crazed and focused, where he also has no problem leaning into Thatcher's strikes and has no fear about landing in a disadvantaged position. Thatcher works for a nice Americana and Lorcan takes a nice bump to the floor, and I adore Thatcher's big throw belly to belly, where the motion seems so graceful and the hangtime sublime, and Lorcan lands like a sandbag. Lorcan really pays Thatcher back with a nasty half nelson suplex and then slaps him repeatedly down to the mat. I'm into the focus that guys like Lorcan and Gulak have brought back to a single leg crab, as they know how to lock them in so effectively that they make a hold WWE has phased out seem actually dangerous. But Thatcher's kneebar variation was my favorite thing here (if not this, then Lorcan's early match low angle headscissors takedown, one of the coolest headscissors I've seen in months), locking in a half crab of his own and then clutching Lorcan's shin, spreading pressure from the hamstrings to the knee to the quad. That's a disgusting hold and it needs to finish a few matches. Lorcan is a savage so of course tries to dig into Thatcher with a fishhook, and the way Thatcher shifted his weight and rolled across to a Fujiwara to break and win was a thing of beauty. I've seen these two square off several times over the years, and they always bring new fresh tricks to the table. Can't think of better ways to kill 10 minutes.

Rhea Ripley vs. Aliyah/Robert Stone

ER: This wasn't going to impress the crowd seeking a MOTN, but this had a vibe similar to old Coliseum videos or something like Razor vs. Jarrett/Roadie that isn't really seen on WWE TV anymore. They still do handicap matches, but they too often get trapped in this shitty modern version of a handicap match where everybody is still working all of the same spots they'd work in a normal singles match. This is not a great match that people will talk about at the end of the year, but everyone involved worked it exactly the way it should have been worked and I really liked it. I loved seeing non-matches like Heenan vs. Boss Man or Genius vs. Hogan when I was a kid. A match made up of two mostly non-competitive stooging heels is a rarity on WWE TV today, but was a structure that created a ton of fond memories for me as a kid. Stone and Aliyah knew how to create that kind of energy, that ineffective stumblebum who still had a couple small advantages. Rhea got some fun 1 on 2 runs, loved the double boston crabs and other spots where she's just too cool to fall for their Wile E. Coyote bullshit. Stone is a guy who was a regular wrestler who WWE hasn't used as a wrestler until now, and he knew exactly how to work "actual wrestler playing a non-wrestler". He's lean, he's wearing boxer's shorts comically high, he bumps just like a manager who knows how to bump but plays like he's falling on banana peels. He misses a plancha, gets caught doing a roll up and headbutted, just flailing at trying to get one over on Rhea. Aliyah is charming and has no chance against Rhea, it's all fun. This kind of lighthearted southern stooge handicap match is real Memphis, and is a missed presence on WWE television. This played like 1995 WWF in the best ways, an era that plays better than ever in 2020.

Roderick Strong vs. Dexter Lumis

ER: This one needed to be a bit shorter. I liked elements of it, and overall like Lumis as a character. So far I'm into the act, and I'm a Strong fan. Strong is maybe the wrestler I've most enjoyed over the past 15 years, who I talk about the least. He's been a good wrestler for a long time, someone I've seen live several times, someone who has made a ton of tape in several feds. And I think I like him a lot more than I've maybe written about. But I wanted this a little tighter, and without the distracting/overblown finish and Bobby Fish interference. Lumis brings an importantly different vibe to NXT, and Strong was playing a tough guy getting his ass beat really well. I'm a fan of strap matches and there were some cool things involving it, involving weight distribution, and plenty of Lumis yanking Strong around. Strong takes a great splatting bump getting yanked into the ring steps, opting instead to fly over them and backsplash the floor. I don't need the long "Lumis likes getting whipped" spot, but I like the nice Strong superplex, liked Strong tying Lumis up with the strap to lock in a Boston Crab, liked a lot of this. I had hoped this one would play as an overachieving old school stipulation brawl, and we didn't get there. But, it had a lot to like.

Io Shirai vs. Sasha Banks

ER: Just keep on giving me these Sasha Banks NXT main events daddy, and I'll keep enjoying them. It is exciting that there are signs of Sasha and Bayley being Actual Draws, because their act clearly has been one of the best things about minimal crowd wrestling. This whole thing is a win before it even starts, as Sasha/Bayley come out in a convertible and Bayley is holding Sasha's corgi in her lap. You give me corgis in my pro wrestling and I am going to care demonstrably less about the pro wrestling. This whole match was a great main event title match, not worked with parity but still managing to make it seem like either could pull out a win. Io's offense landed heavier here than it usually does, and part of that was Sasha's ragdoll bumping, but a big part was Io clearly working up to a main event singles match. Her missile dropkick, 619, and especially tope hit harder, with that tope really just flattening Sasha at the gut. Sasha goes for meteoras and knee strikes with gusto, which hit hard when she lands them and leaves her wide open when they miss, and that's a cool thing to base a match around. There is one messy spot with a German suplex miscommunication, but I think it adds to the match because of how Sasha chooses to sell it. Sasha was clearly supposed to land on her feet, but they get crossed on the release point and Sasha gets awkwardly folded and instead lands on her knees and face, kinda. But thankfully Sasha does not sell it as if she stuck the landing, and they both sell the proper amount of confusion, the way you should when a landing doesn't go perfectly. The big moments come off big, like Sasha trying to hit a wild sunset flip bomb and eventually flinging Shirai into the plexiglass, or Sasha's big missed frog splash that lands her in a crossface (that I thought was the finish). I'm still on the fence about the end of match interference, as I like Sasha trying to cheat using a tag title and liked the expected Asuka counterbalance. Asuka hits Sasha with the mist but I guess I wish Asuka hadn't just stayed out there dancing around in plain sight of the ref, while Sasha's face was now suddenly green. There were easy ways to do this spot and not have the ref come off dumb. But the match was strong, Banks is the queen, and Shirai looked good in her first match as champ.


ER: This was a real fun 2 hour show, that same sweet spot that the early (and excellently paced) In Your House shows went. 1:45-2 hours, every match with a totally different vibe. That's a great way to run a wrestling show, and this was a fun show top to bottom.

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