Three Nights in Puerto Rico with Terry Funk

1986 is an interesting year for Terry Funk. Coming off of his most lucrative year in the business in 1985, when he was one of a number of featured house show contenders for Hulk Hogan’s WWF Championship, he kept going in that role and played the foil, along with his brother Dory (as “Hoss” Funk), to Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana until he decided he’d had enough of the schedule and walked away after WrestleMania II. His last aired match for the company was a loss on Saturday Night’s Main Event to Hogan and JYD, but it’d been taped in March, so from WrestleMania on April 7 to this three night swing in Puerto Rico in September, he stayed home on the Double Cross Ranch, as if he was retired. 

Funk gets a lot of credit for reinventing himself throughout his decades in the sport, for seeing changes in the tastes of the audience well before most. But “reinvention” for Terry Funk wasn’t a matter of coming up with a new gimmick or move, buying a new ring jacket or painting his face or changing his theme song. He had a few modalities, the most famous of which is his middle-aged and crazy act, which reached its apex during his 1989 run against Ric Flair but got started in earnest when he signed to the World Wrestling Federation in 1985, the dangerous outlaw hick to Hogan’s sleek, muscular merchandising machine.

He carries elements of this look — Vince McMcahon’s idea of a cartoon ranch hand, branding iron and all — through the rest of his career, his blue poncho and chaps straight off the WWF seamstress’ table. Across a three night tournament for the vacant WWC Universal Championship, one finds that reinvention, for Funk, was a matter of applying the skills he had on offer to the needs of his promoter. Vince McMahon needed a cartoon cowboy, so Terry Funk gave him one. Paul Heyman needed a living legend, so Terry Funk gave him one. In Puerto Rico, they needed an immediately credible wrestler to launch a Carlos Colon title run, and in the build to that moment he found new depth in a character that was custom-built to lose to Hulk Hogan every night, large and dangerous and thrilling against wrestlers who weren’t 300 pounds of bioengineered muscle. 

I was originally just going to write about Funk/Martel, but being behind on the whole “31 essays in 31 days” goal has given me the freedom to do whatever I want, so let’s cover Funk’s full run in the tournament.