Yesterday, the greatest professional wrestler in the world passed away.
Terry Funk was 79.
I first met Terry when I was working on a book called “The Death of the Territories.” I interviewed a ton of wrestlers about what the wrestling world was like before the Vince McMahon takeover—but none were as smart and incisive as Terry. We talked for hours over the years and no one taught me more about the art and business of wrestling.
Terry was many things. Early in his career he was the little brother and the son, often second fiddle to his famous father and older sibling Dory Funk Jr., the long-time world’s champion. Terry traveled the world as a set-up man, coming into a territory ahead of Dory and often putting over the area’s top star. It gave fans hope that, if he could best Terry, perhaps their local favorite could win the title too.
It was a good life, one that fell apart in 1973 when Funk Senior died of a heart attack after wrestling around with some of the boys at his ranch. Terry, famous for his lead foot, raced as fast as he ever had to a local hospital. But the old man, his idol, didn’t make it.
The death was a blow he told me he still felt in his own dotage, something he thought about every day. He and his brother inherited the Amarillo territory as a result and the experience as a promoter opened his eyes further to the intricacies of the business.
The territory, however, was too small to contain an act with such multitudes. The Funks belonged to the world, traveling around the country as top acts and even to Japan as Giant Baba’s consiglieris to help All Japan Pro Wrestling more than hold its own in a fierce wrestling war with their rivals across Tokyo. It was there that Terry, often a wild heel on the American scene, became the beloved gaijin, the most popular foreign wrestler in the history of puroresu.
As amazing as it sounds, that was just his first act. Funk had another legendary run later in life, joining his former protege Atsushi Onita to headline a stadium show in Kawasaki, Japan, that was one of the great spectacles in wrestling history, the first-ever no-rope exploding barbed wire time bomb Deathmatch. At the same time, he lent his credibility and vast knowledge to the fledgling ECW promotion out of Philadelphia, helping reinvent American wrestling in his own image—wild-eyed crazy brawls, heart and passion taking center stage ahead of pomp and carefully scripted but fleeting entertainments.
I have been working for months on a project about the Funk wrestling family. While that isn’t ready, I wanted to share this conversation from earlier this year with the incomparable Eddie Kingston. Himself a modern legend of the scene, Kingston’s integrity and grit remind many of the greats of yesteryear. Men like Terry Funk. This was our discussion about the best to ever do it.
Jonathan Snowden: I was talking to Terry last year and I asked him what he thought his legacy was in wrestling and and he was like 'I don't think I have one. I think I'll be forgotten.’ And I was like ‘no, that's fucked up. You're Terry Funk’.
I wanted to talk to you because I had seen you online saying you thought Terry Funk was one of the one of the best wrestlers ever. And I so strongly agree. What makes you, as a great wrestler yourself, look at Terry Funk and think ‘man, that guy was really great at professional wrestling?’
Eddie Kingston: To me, Terry Funk is the measuring stick. Terry Funk is someone who I want to be like. In that same vein, I probably never will be. But I want to be in a category with that man. Because, to me, he is the peak of professional wrestling. A lot of the things I say, a lot of the sayings, I've stolen it from Terry's shoot interviews. You know what I mean? Because they're true.
I believe he's the greatest of all time. And I believe his legacy will be that forever. The reason why is because Terry did everything. He did every style. He adapted. The other part is him as a person, you know what I mean? He didn't put down any wrestling. He just went, 'okay, that's a new thing, that's what's cool. Alright. It's wrestling. Let me catch up to it.' Terry could wrestle catch as catch can, which he showed early in his career. Later on he'd be the crazy promo guy that when you watch his Memphis stuff with Jerry Lawler you're just like in awe. Then, when it came time to brawl or be the hardcore guy, it was him and his name that basically helped ECW start.
Jonathan Snowden: I talked to Steve Keirn last week and he was saying he wrestled Terry a lot in the 70s and a Terry Funk match was totally unpredictable. He told this story about one time Terry came up to him before the match, slapped him in the face and then he was like, ‘chase me around the building.’ They spent 10 minutes chasing each other around the building and then went under the ring and started kicking the boards to make it look like they were fighting under the ring. You didn't know what Terry was gonna do.
Even the other great wrestlers, like if you have a match with Ric Flair you kind of know what that match is gonna be, right? But with Terry Funk, guys had no idea what he was going to do. Do you feel like that kind of spirit is lost a little bit in today's wrestling? I don't want to do one of those ‘today's wrestling sucks’ bits, but you know—it's different.
Eddie Kingston: I totally get that. But that's because, and I think people forget this, the moves are so evolved now. You know what I mean? And these guys are so athletic now that, yeah, a lot of times you can't do what the old guys did. What the old timers did. Because then we'll get hurt. We need to know. You know what I mean? More than ever.
No disrespect to anybody from the past, because I love the past of wrestling. People say I'm a historian which I'm not. I just love certain things about pro wrestling. I'm into stuff and I check it out. So I'm not a historian, but I would never disrespect the past because without the past there is no present and then there is no future. But none of those guys were doing shooting star presses off the top rope. You know what I mean? None of those guys are doing Canadian Destroyers. That's what we need to know nowadays.
People say that spontaneity is something that's lost— a little bit, yeah. But when you get in there with me, I try to keep it a little like the old times. I would hear stories like that, and I would go, ‘that's what makes them great.’ So let me try it. I've done that a lot of my career where I would tell people on the fly I would just say 'hey, let's do this instead.' And then, a lot of times, I like those matches better because I'm reacting.
That's what I think makes Terry so great. Because he understood the realism of pro wrestling is in the reacting. That's what I've taken from him. I don't think it's fully lost. You're talking to somebody who still tries to do it as best as he can. You know what I mean? But it is not as common because the athlete is different now.
Jonathan Snowden: One of the things I love about Terry is that there were comedy bits in almost everything he did, but when it was time to get to fighting, like all of a sudden you believed. Sometimes, when there's comedy, it's hard to make that transition to the serious part of the match. But with Terry, when it was time for fighting, like, you believed he was fighting. He was a serious character even when you were laughing.
Eddie Kingston: Tough guys can be funny. But when it was time to go, it's time to go. I got Terry's sense of humor more when I got older. But when I was a kid, in 1989, seeing him cut promos on Sting and Ric Flair, I didn't see the comedy in it. I thought he was legit nuts. That's what he attracted me to it. I remember that's when we first got cable. Well, legal cable. Because we just moved to Yonkers. And that whole summer, I was just like with Terry. I just remember every time he was on I was just captivated.
Jonathan Snowden: That was my last year as a big wrestling fan before I discovered girls in high school. At the time, obviously, I didn't know anything about Japanese wrestling or tapes and stuff like that. In 1989, that was heel Terry Funk as an older guy. And he was incredible.
But you go back and watch him and his brother against the Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher or Hanson and Brody and you realize he was somehow the best babyface in the world too. You watch those guys as foreigners in Japan— he and Dory were beloved like I’ve never seen. I'll put it up against Stone Cold Steve Austin, any of them. When he and Dory came out there were times where like the Japanese audience was practically worshiping those guys. It's crazy to watch. How can someone be that great as a heel and also be a great baby face? To me, that must mean that there's something pretty special about him. What do you think?
Eddie Kingston: Without a shadow of a doubt, the reactions they got were on the next level. For you to capture the fans in any way is great. But the way Terry and his brother Dory did was just on another level. When people tell me, 'oh Eddie, you went out there and the people reacted,’ I always tell them 'not as big as Terry Funk coming out in Japan.' That's my goal. When you can get to that level and get that type of reaction, that's when you know you're doing it right.
Like, any reaction's good, man. Boo me, cheer me, just give me something. You know? And that's what Terry always did. Like you said, he can get booed in America because he's a madman that broke Ric Flair's neck and he's beating up Sting. Or in Memphis where he's just trying to stab Lawler with a screwdriver. And he gets stabbed and he's bothering Lance Russell—I hope everyone one day just gets to see Lance Russell reacting to Terry Funk's screaming that his eye got poked out. It's pro wrestling at its peak. You can get all that—but then go to All Japan, and he gets worshiped. Like, just so much love when he would come out, it was insane. How many people can do both? At the same time? Terry Funk was the greatest pro wrestler of all time. I won’t hear any argument.
Jonathan Snowden: I feel like you’ve had reactions that, if not quite Funk in Japan, were pretty remarkable. We would be in Jacksonville and you would give a speech after the matches and we’d be like, ‘man, these people love this guy, Eddie Kingston.’ What's it feel like to be out there and have the attention of everybody in the building? You know, it's got to be a weird feeling.
Eddie Kingston: Oh, it's a horrible feeling. I tell people that all the time. Everyone knows, you know, where I stand when it comes to mental health. I feel like I don't deserve the love, so that's a thing I gotta work through. So it's very weird, it's very uncomfortable. Because, to me, I'm not doing anything special. I'm just being a professional wrestler and wrestling and that's what I wanted to be since I was nine years old. Which brings it back to Terry Funk.
I'm trying to be better than Terry Funk, which I know I never will be. God, I'm reaching for it. You know what I mean? Because to me, Terry Funk is the measuring stick. In the ring and how to act in front of the people. And, from when I talk to the guys who have shared locker rooms with Terry, Terry Funk is what we all should strive to be backstage. You know, carry people and help people out. The stories I've heard have been nothing but positive. You don't hear anything about Terry doing anything bad or acting like a like a mark for himself you know what I mean? Like, a lot of the great wrestlers, it seems like they all have to be a mark for themselves. But not Terry.
Terry did what he thought was right for business. And the real reason why Terry Funk means so much to me personally, is that when I fell out of love with wrestling, Terry was in ECW and ECW brought me back in. If it wasn't for ECW, I most likely would not have found my love again for pro wrestling and I probably would not be where I'm at right now. And that’s Terry.
Jonathan Snowden: I’m the same way. We came in late one night at college and saw a promo for ECW. I was like, ‘wait a second, this isn't the wrestling I remember. This looks like it could be interesting.’ And, all of a sudden, I was back into it. All because Terry Funk and Sabu had a barbed wire match.
Eddie Kingston: Yeah, Terry and Sabu were both inspirations for me to do the match with Jericho called Barbed Wire Everywhere. You know what I mean, which I want to do again with somebody else. That's why I taped myself up the way I taped myself up, because that was the way Terry did. You know, and he's just, God man, words can't do justice to how much that man means to me personally. And how much that man means to professional wrestling. Him and his family.
You know, and it breaks my heart that he would think, it really does, man, it really breaks my heart to think that that man believes he has no legacy when so many of us, maybe not the newer generation, because, you know, things change, but so many of us now owe that man a lot. He inspired my mentor Homicide for one.
I have nothing but so much love and respect for that man. He really did things the right way, and he really set a perfect example for any professional wrestler on how to act. So, when I talk to younger guys, I tell them about Terry Funk. I tell them why I love certain wrestlers like Terry. I tell them that he was a credit to the business, that he did it the right way. Some young guys listen, some don't. You know, I mean, that's just life, right?
Terry's legacy is that he was everything that a pro wrestler should be in and out of the ring. When Terry Funk was in AIW and I worked with him, he basically just beat my ass. Which was great. He DDT’ed me on the floor and told me later that he hasn't DDT’ed anyone on the floor in nine years.
I knew Terry knew Homicide, so I put Homicide on the phone with Terry. And Terry goes, ‘why aren't you a millionaire? Why don’t you try this? Why don't you do that?’ Just still trying to teach. When I got the phone back, Homicide was just in shock that Terry cared that much and had so much passion for his career. Terry doing that—come on, how do you not love somebody like that?
Jonathan Snowden is the author of Shamrock: The World’s Most Dangerous Man and Total MMA. He loves pro wrestling.
Nice way to say goodbye.