Joseph and Colette Discuss Terry Funk vs. Jumbo Tsuruta

Funk Month begins!

The hardest part about choosing which Terry Funk matches to cover this month is that you are really, truly spoiled for choice. In a career as long and far-ranging as his, you have several opportunities to visit his greatest rivalries, whether that’s with Mick Foley or Ric Flair or Jerry Lawler (all of whom we will be getting to shortly), but you only have this one look at his reign as the NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion. For many wrestlers, a reign with a promotion’s top championship represents a financial and artistic peak. Terry Funk made a lot of money during his time atop the NWA, but so far as artistic peaks go, it’s hard to say — you can make inferences based on other footage we have from the era, take it on faith that Terry Funk was reeling off banger after banger, but it’s something of a heartbreak that, quite frankly, we may never really know.

This week, Joseph and I talk about that a little, as well as how fortunate we are that what we do have stomps this much ass.

Joseph: Terry Funk vs. Jumbo Tsuruta was the Greatest Match of All Time
Colette: Terry Funk Sees the Future in Jumbo Tsuruta

Next Week: Terry Funk. Jerry Lawler. Lance Russell smoking a cigarette. Bitter enemies collide in an empty arena, and when they do, it’s one of the greatest, most influential matches of all time. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again.

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Colette Arrand
So, we are covering Terry Funk for a whole month, as a means of celebrating his life and career. Four matches, spread out across four very distinct eras of a career of 50+ years, and you and I have independently watched a whole lot of Terry Funk over the past week or so on our own volition. You and I approach the subject of “Greatest Wrestler of All Time” very differently, but in this instance I absolutely mean it, and I’m not at all surprised to see you report that he’s inching closer and closer to Bryan Danielson in your estimation. Before we dip into this match with Jumbo, is there any particular thing about Terry Funk that sticks out to you in what we’re not covering for BIG EGG, at this point in your journey through his career?

Joseph Anthony Montecillo
So just for context, I've been going through a compiled "Best of Terry Funk" DVD collection as my way of skimming through Funk's career. I think one of the things that watching a lot of his 70s work chronologically really brings into focus is the versatility of his character work depending on the time and place. We have footage of him being the most dastardly bastard imaginable in Florida, and then a few months later, he'll fly over to Japan where he's welcomed like a godly folk hero. And he's a fish to water in both instances. I think many people familiar enough with Funk's career know that he could play both sides of the moral divide equally well, but it's stunning to see it play out in action in such a compressed space of time.

Colette Arrand
I have, perhaps unsurprisingly, been watching some of his brief Hulkamania-era WWF run. I was and remain a fan of his feud with the Hulkster (and didn’t know he was responsible for getting Hogan the part in Rocky III — there really is no boom or bust Terry couldn’t see coming), but it was fascinating to see how well his dynamic with Dory translated to the WWF. I tweeted about a house show handicap match where the Funks and Jimmy Hart took on JYD and Andre the Giant, and while it’s a nothing match where the appeal to the crowd is seeing Hart get smashed, what really captivated me was how everybody involved knew that the real money was in Terry getting roughed up by JYD and, even more so, Andre. That tension builds and builds and builds with Dory in control, and then his little brother gets in and it’s emotional and physical chaos, without anybody really breaking a sweat. It’s tempting to think of the Funks as incongruous to that era of the WWF, but really they’re perfect for it, especially Terry.