Terry Funk is a legend of pro wrestling. Throughout his lengthy career -- which, you’ll soon find out, is even lengthier than you think -- he’s been a top draw in the old school National Wrestling Alliance days, had an epic feud with Ric Flair in WCW, and put on supremely violent matches with Mick Foley in ECW and WWE as well as in the independent and international scenes.
But perhaps you’re not as familiar with Terry Funk as you’d like to be. Well, in that case, here are the broad strokes of the Funker that you need to know, from his career in the ring to fun trivia about his work outside of it.
10 His Career Has Spanned Six Decades
Terry Funk originally made his debut in 1965, in the NWA affiliated, Texas-based promotion Western States Sports -- which was, at the time, owned by his father, Dory Funk -- in a singles match against the incredibly named Sputnik Taylor. His last match to date was a tag effort alongside The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express in 2017, meaning Funk has wrestled in six decades with a career lasting over 50 years.
9 He Was In Road House
Because he’s always seemed like such a “career wrestler” unlike, say, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or John Cena, it may surprise some fans to learn that Terry Funk has done a bit of acting in his day. In addition to his roles in Sylvester Stallone’s pro wrestling movie Paradise Alley and in Sylvester Stallone’s arm wrestling movie Over the Top -- and a surprising number of TV roles -- Funk also played a bouncer in the Patrick Swayze classic Road House.
8 He Was A Tag Team Specialist
Even though he put on many singles classics with the likes of Ric Flair and various incarnations of Mick Foley, older fans would remember Funk for his tag team work alongside his real-life brother, Dory Funk Jr (renamed “Hoss Funk” in WWE).
Together, the Funks would end up capturing Tag Team Championships across various NWA affiliate promotions -- Texas, Hollywood, Georgia, and Florida -- and managed to win the All-Japan Pro Wrestling tag team tournament World's Strongest Tag Determination League a notable three times. Also, the Funk Brothers’ 1980 League match against Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta ended up being hailed as Match of the Year by the magazine Tokyo Sports.
7 He Only Ever Held One WWE Title
Despite the fact that Terry Funk has had a few stints in WWE over the years -- in the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s -- he only ever won a single championship for the company. In 1998, at WrestleMania XIV, Funk and his partner/rival Cactus Jack took on The New Age Outlaws in a “Dumpster Match” for the Tag Team Titles, but had the titles held up on Raw the following night when it was revealed that Jack and Charlie put the Outlaws in the wrong dumpster. Seriously. Also, for some reason Funk worked under the name of Chainsaw Charlie.
6 He’s A Hardcore Pioneer
While he was an icon of southern wrestling -- a violent scene itself -- in previous decades, in the 1990s Terry Funk helped innovate the hardcore deathmatch style of wrestling that would gain popularity in the states thanks to ECW and other promotions. One of his biggest contributions to the genre was his role in IWA Japan’s King of the Deathmatch tournament, the first of its kind, where his brutal final round match with Cactus Jack in a baseball stadium would live in infamy.
5 He Choreographed A Rocky Fight
Terry Funk didn’t just act in movies -- he also did some work behind the scenes. For the climactic street fight between Rocky Balboa and his angry protege Tommy Gunn in 1990’s Rocky V the filmmakers tapped Terry Funk to help choreograph the brawl, further establishing the Rocky franchise as an extremely pro wrestling series of films despite being about boxing. Also, Sly Stallone sure did get Terry Funk a surprising amount of movie work in the ‘80s, didn’t he?
4 He’s A Former World Champion
Terry Funk has held top championships all over the place during his lengthy career, many of which were for the NWA. And not just the regional titles like the Florida Heavyweight Championship, either -- in 1975, he defeated Jack Brisco to capture the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and held it for nearly a year and a half.
In ECW, Funk held the ECW World Heavyweight Championship twice: once during the NWA affiliate Eastern Championship Wrestling days, and one when the company broke away and rebranded itself as Extreme.
3 He Recorded An Album
Japanese fans were super into Terry Funk, so Japanese label Invitation got the Funker to record a novelty album called Great Texan which is not even the least bit as Texan as the cover makes it out to be. Largely co-written by Jimmy Hart, no stranger to wrestling-themed albums, Great Texan features eight tracks that include a smooth ditty about hanging out in Roppongi and an absurd song called “Barbra Streisand’s Nose” that sounds like a hybrid of “Beat It” and “Monster Mash.” The opening track is a wild ride that sounds like the theme song for a Lupin the 3rd-esque anime starring the Funker.
2 He Brought Hulk Hogan To WWE
Hulk Hogan has been such an institution of pro wrestling that it’s easy to forget he had to start somewhere, and that start happened with the help of Terry Funk. Hogan was already wrestling as Terry “The Hulk” Boulder and Sterling Golden in regional promotions to some success, but was preparing to quit wrestling when Funk sought him out and introduced Hogan to World Wrestling Federation boss Vince McMahon Sr.
1 He Retired Countless Times
The most important thing to know about Terry Funk is the most paradoxical: not only does Funk refuse to stop wrestling, but he also refuses to stop retiring. His first retirement happened in 1983, after a tag match between The Funks and the team of Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy, an effort made infamous by Terry Funk’s incredible and memeworthy post-match speech. In the decades since, he’s wrestled too many retirement matches to count, only to quickly come out of retirement -- also too many times to count.