More Than Just Hardcore

by Terry Funk

  Sam Muchnick had been president of the NWA for years but retired from it in 1975,1 think because he saw some possible legal trouble coming, in terms of us being an alliance of promoters. They had withstood an antitrust investigation years before, but Sam was very smart about watching out for problems, and he took himself out of that position.

  I think another major part of it was that he saw the alliance falling apart, which it sure did after he stepped down.

  Fritz Von Erich, in one of his first major acts as NWA president, had to break the tie from the vote of members, because half wanted me, and half wanted Harley.

  Fritz said, “By God, I didn’t want it to come down to this, but I’m gonna vote for Terry.”

  And that decision really caused that guy a lot of heat, too, because Fritz was the only one whose vote was public. All the rest voted their own way with secret ballots. I was grateful to Fritz, because I knew this was a great opportunity.

  I also knew it was now my job to make stars in each territory I visited. For anyone, including myself, who would seriously say to another boy in this business, “I am the world champion,” I would think, “Are you out of your goddamned mind? They made you the world champion!”

  The guys, the other wrestlers, make someone the world champion, and the world champion exists to make the guys seem like world-beaters. Gene Kiniski was good about that, but Lou Thesz wasn’t.

  I have great admiration for Lou, who held the title through most of the 1950s, and for a few years before and after that decade. 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 had 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.

  He wrestled Baron Michele Leone in California in 1952. Now Leone wasn’t a legitimate wrestler, but by God he could draw some unbelievable houses. Lou ate him alive, and Leone never was the same again as an attraction.

  He did the same thing to Bull Curry in Houston, and to my friend Ricky Romero in El Paso. That was one thing I never have understood. He wasn’t helping the territories he visited, and that was the champion’s main job. To me, that meant that as great a wrestler he was, Lou was not a great champion.

  One of my biggest gripes about the wrestling business has always been when a guy would stiff another guy in the ring, not giving them anything and making them look bad, and the other guy didn’t even realize it until it was too late. What does that prove? It just sours the other guy, and it’s a horrible way to treat a guy. Promoters would sometimes tell a guy to stiff his opponent, telling them something like, “Don’t give that guy much in the ring.”

  Well, what the hell kind of fair deal is that? Why not just tell me if we have a problem? Even if the other guy said beforehand, “I’m going to try to kick your ass,” that was fine with me. But don’t stiff me in a work. That is bullshit.

  Baba did that to me once, in October 1986, when Riki Choshu came to All Japan. I felt that Choshu was just off. I was trying to perform and do my best for the match, but I was being shortchanged and didn’t even know it. You do the best you can, but if you’re in a situation like that, nothing you do looks good.

  When I was champion, I usually got to come up with my own scenarios, and it was always important to me to leave a place at least as strong as it was when I got there. My question to the promoters was always, “OK, what do we need to do to draw a buck?”

  My first big chance at making a challenger actually began about a month before I won the title.

  Jim Crockett’s Mid-Atlantic Wrestling had a tournament for the United States championship on November 11, 1975. The title had been vacated after former champion Johnny Valentine was crippled in a plane crash that also broke Ric Flair’s back. Flair, at the time, was an up-and-coming wrestler with a lot of promise. I won the tournament, beating Paul Jones, one of the area’s most popular wrestlers, in the finals. It was an incredible night. We sold out Greensboro, and the newspaper there even covered it, saying it was the first sellout in the building’s history of wrestling. It was also the biggest crowd Crockett ever had up to that point.

  The whole thing was set up for a rematch a couple of weeks later, and I lost that title to Paul Jones. The idea was that he beat me, so when I came back through with the world title, he was a natural contender.

  In the rematch, I also got busted open doing a hardway for Paul. I ended up getting 18 stitches, but I thought it would help make the return even stronger.

  A couple of weeks after that, on December 10, it was my night. The match was in Miami. The scheduled match was Jack Brisco defending the NWA world title against Dory Funk Jr. That night, it was announced that Dory couldn’t make it, and I was his replacement.

  It was great booking, because when I won, it created a situation where fans felt like, “Dadgummit, Jack didn’t know it was going to be Terry! He thought it was going to be Dory the whole time! The Funks screwed him again!”

  It made for a nice program, because it set him up as the challenger looking for revenge. It also made Jerry Brisco an automatic contender, since he’d be looking to avenge his brother’s loss.

  I was a heel during the match, but as soon as the referee counted three and the title change was official, I became the de facto babyface for a few seconds. The crowd just exploded, because it was so rare to actually see a world title change that it was like they were there for history. Even though they were Brisco’s fans during the match, the week before and the week after, when that moment took place right in front of them, they couldn’t believe it, and they were elated.

  I always enjoyed coming back to Florida to defend the belt. It was always a hot territory, because there was always an issue with Dusty Rhodes or Jack Brisco that would pop the territory. Another favorite of mine was Houston, because promoter Paul Boesch always treated me great, and the money there was always top-notch. Same thing with Sam Muchnick in Saint Louis.

  Actually, as I went through all the territories, the promoters all treated me great, as they had when I toured areas in advance of Junior defending his title. The money was a little better this time around, though!

  My becoming world champion was also a big boost to the Amarillo territory, as it had been when Junior won the belt. Even though it meant Amarillo was without one of its biggest names, winning the title told fans we were as good as anyone in the world, and placed a spotlight on the territory

  During my whole time as world champion, there was never any question that I would make every guy I was in there with look more like a champion than he did before he got in there with me. I was there not to promote the world title, but to promote that top guy in each area.

  I knew those people wouldn’t be happy leaving the building, since their hero hadn’t won the world title, so I had to make them believe he was a better athlete and a better wrestler than the world’s champion, and it was only a fluke that he didn’t win. If it was done right, the world champion’s business would go on, and the territory’s business would flourish.

  As champion, I worked a totally different style from the way my brother worked as champion. Since I was most interested in making as much money as possible with the title, my title programs tended to be shorter than Junior’s. I was in town to produce the most revenue in the shortest period of time.

  I wasn’t there to debase the championship or to tear apart the NWA, but I was there to make as much money as I could, as fast as I could. If that meant going out and blowing the lid off the house by doing something insane or absurd, that was what I did.

  In Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrestling the top guy meant I was defending the title against my old friend Dick Murdoch. Working with Dick was always a pleasure. Murdoch would jack around with people on occasion if he got a hair up his ass not to have a match, but for a high-profile, world title match,
Murdoch was there!

  In Florida I once defended the title against Andre the Giant. Andre was a hell of a guy, but I’ll tell you, I was afraid of him. People don’t think of him this way, but he was a great performer in the ring, a great worker. One time, I was in a tag match with someone against him and Dusty Rhodes. I walked right up to Andre and said, “You big son of a bitch, you ain’t gonna touch me.”

  He had that real low voice and he just laughed. “Hurh hurh hurh.”

  The bell rang and here he came. I jumped out and turned the corner of the ring as fast as I could, and here he came behind me.

  I cut the next corner by rolling into and back out of the ring, because it was quicker, and I didn’t figure Andre would be able to get under those ropes. He went right under the ropes and on through, though! He kept chasing, and we got to the next corner. I rolled in and was about to roll out, when I felt something grabbing my leg.

  He had me by one hand, holding my leg just above the ankle, and his fingers were touching his thumb, encircling my boot!

  One time, a couple of years after I was NWA champion, Junior and I were finishing up a Japanese tour and were having dinner in a nice restaurant, when we saw Andre.

  I said, “Junior, let’s get Andre over here. We can buy him dinner.”

  “I don’t know, Terry.”

  “Aw, come on! The bill can’t be that bad.”

  And so we had Andre come over.

  About seven bottles of wine later, they brought our $600 bill for supper.

  During a swing through the Pacific Northwest, I defended the world title against a young wrestler who had taken to calling himself Jesse Ventura. Jesse was green, but was Jesse ever not green?

  Jesse knew that he wasn’t the greatest technical wrestler, but Jesse had a ton of charisma. He was a heck of a talker, so he didn’t really have to do a lot. He got his shit over before he ever even set foot in the ring.

  Another Pacific Northwest challenger was Jimmy Snuka. He was more famous later on in the WWF, where he was awfully hot with his top-rope splash. Jimmy Snuka was a great in-ring performer, and the greatest tag team Junior and I ever worked against was Snuka and Bruiser Brody in Japan in 1981. The Andersons were great, the Briscos were great, and the Assassins were great. But Brody and Snuka were phenomenal, and that was as well a put-together team as there ever could have been.

  Brody had become a tall powerhouse with wild hair and a sense of menace, and Snuka was a muscular, agile Polynesian who could work like a maniac. They complemented each other. I think Junior and I did that, too, but Brody and Snuka just melded together, and they were both so solid.

  I’ve heard stories about Snuka being screwed up, but I’m here to tell you— every time I was ready to work with him, that son of a bitch was there. He was a class act and could do stuff in the ring that was just phenomenal.

  A territory that doesn’t make many people’s lists of the best is Los Angeles, but I always looked forward to going there to wrestle against Chavo Guerrero. I had first met Chavo when he was about four years old. His father, Mexican wrestling legend Gori Guerrero, promoted El Paso for us in his later years. Gori used to take four-year-old Chavo and balance him in a handstand in the palm of Gori’s hand. Gori had four sons, and those kids had a whole acrobatic routine worked out with Gori.

  Gori Guerrero had been a very popular wrestler both in West Texas and in Mexico. I remember Eddy Guerrero running around backstage in diapers, but he grew up to be a man I have a lot of respect for, as far as his work is concerned. I think it’s a real plus to WWE (formerly WWWF and WWF) to have guys like him, Kurt Angle, Triple H and Chris Benoit on top.

  And Eddy’s brother Chavo was also a great wrestler. In the ring Chavo was a great seller. I think, in the early 1970s, Chavo, Jose Lothario and Ricky Romero were the top three Hispanic wrestlers in the United States in terms of ability. What set them apart was they knew how to sell, and they understood their people. Anytime I was in the ring with Chavo Guerrero, I knew there was going to be a riot. Time after time, I had to fight my way through the chaos to get back to the dressing room after a match with Chavo, and it was all because of the way he could sell his injury to the people.

  The other two Guerrero brothers, Hector and Mando, were also very talented, and I see great things for Chavo’s son, Chavo Jr., who works for WWE today. The Guerreros were just a strong, solid family, and I can’t say enough good things about them.

  Looking at their careers, it doesn’t seem like Hector achieved quite the same amount of fame his brothers did. I tend to think it was because he was a light guy who looked even lighter, because he was taller than his brothers. But Hector was another really fiery performer who could have been a bigger star. I just tend to think Hector had more outside interests, another job and a family, and he wasn’t as consumed by the wrestling business as the rest of the family. Hector found himself a wife, and I bet he’s as happy as he could be. He was a smart kid who went to college (and even graduated, which is more than I can say for myself.). Whatever Hector’s doing these days, I bet he’s damn good at it.

  Wrestling Jose Lothario was the same deal, in the Corpus Christi-San Antonio territory. The Mexican fans would be hanging from the rafters, almost—I mean, they were packed in there like sardines! Sometimes the match would never even get started. I’d fight my way to the ring, then worry about keeping those people out of the ring, do whatever it was I could manage to do and then get out of there, all in a couple of minutes, because that’s all the time I had before they just wouldn’t be held back anymore.

  Jose was such a great worker because he was believable. There was nothing funny about Jose. Everything he said on his promos, everything he did in the ring, it was all dead serious. He was completely professional as well. He never felt like losing a match would hurt him, if it was done properly, and it never did hurt him. And at the time in this part of the country, with such a strong Hispanic fanbase, that would have been a perfect excuse for getting out of doing a job.

  “Oh, my people won’t understand me losing.”

  But Jose never tried to play that card.

  I always regretted not getting to work against Ricky Romero more. We wrestled a few times in Amarillo, in babyface matches, but I never got to have a long program with him.

  I know it sounds strange, but I loved the Mexican fans, because I loved the heat. And boy, they were hot people. They were great to work in front of.

  Another group of guys who were great workers but are guys you don’t hear a lot about were the Fullers in the Southeastern U.S. I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but the Fullers could work. As goofy as they were, they were good, and they were over (accepted as a star by the fans). Every time I went down there to wrestle one of them, it was an automatic riot. I sent a tape to Harlan, Kentucky, one time, and had a unique promo on TV to promote my match with Ron Fuller.

  I said, “Look at these hands. Look at these nails. There’s dirt under these nails. You people in Harlan, all you do is sit there and take welfare, except for the ones who go down to those stinking coal mines. All you coal miners do is sit at card tables and play all day long. You don’t do anything, you idiots. You have no brains, and most of you are married to your sisters or brothers.”

  At the arena that night, security took away something like 17 guns. I know it sounds like bullshit, but they did. We finished the match, and I had to fight my way to the back, because the fans were rioting.

  Vicki and I had reconciled by this time, but this was a trip she probably wished she had stayed home for. We were leaving the arena that night and were driving down the road, coming down the mountain out of Harlan, when a pickup truck came up behind us and started ramming us.

  I started to pull over, but my wife said, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

  We kept going and finally they stopped following us, but it was pretty damn scary.

  I also faced hostile Southern crowds when I faced Bob Armstrong, who would be an opponent for me off and on
for years.

  I knew him when he was a fireman, just starting out in Atlanta in the early 1970s. He was just a natural, and his four sons who went into wrestling were the same way. Working in the ring and understanding how to be a great babyface just came naturally to Armstrong. He was a real pleasure to be in the ring with. He would sell and sell and sell, but he knew when it was time for his comeback.

  I also made several trips to Japan as champion. After a match one night I went to a hot bath house. As I was under the faucet, a blast of hot water shot down and burned a hole in my back, three inches wide and about 18 inches long. I put some salve on it and wrestled the next night.

  As champion, you had to go, and you had to be in top form when you got to each town. Whether it was Japan or Harlan, Kentucky, those fans were expecting a championship match, and you’d better be there!

  One time, I left the arena after a match in St. Louis and went to the Whiskey A-Go-Go, a bar in the Gaslight Square district. I ended up getting pretty drunk, and I had to make it to one of those red-eye flights bound for Atlanta. I boarded the plane after midnight, and there weren’t even 20 people on the plane. There was no one in the seats next to me, and I was still drunk, so I laid down to go to sleep. OK, OK, I didn’t go to sleep—I passed out.

  I ended up rolling off the seat and halfway underneath it. When I woke up, I crawled out from under the seat, and the only other person on the damn thing was the guy sweeping out the plane.

  I asked him, “Are we in Atlanta?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Atlanta? That was two stops ago! You’re in Memphis!”

  Did I mention that the travel schedule was godawful? I criss-crossed the country constantly. Any of the NWA world champions would tell you the same thing. It’s not as glamorous as it might seem, when you’re wrestling in the last match in Jacksonville, Florida. I was always in the last match of the night, and when I was done, I was the last one in the dressing room. I left a lot of arenas alone, walked across a lot of streets and tried to hail a lot of taxicabs. That was how glamorous it was.